Os Mutantes – A Divina Comédia ou Ando Meio Desligado (1970)

There’s a freak-out brewing…

by Shawn Ciavattone

It’s that sleeve, right?  So cool – the original illustration was by Gustav Doré for Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’. How could the music possibly live up to that sleeve?  Well, it does!  Radical, joyous, inclusive, psychedelic, hard rock,  innovative – a real freak-scene.  No other psych-rock album ever grabs me as this complete and thouhtful masterpiece.  A real freak-out brewing…

“The “Party Of 71” is raging in São Paulo’s largest and most elegant hotel.  Members of the international Jet-Set are arriving with limousines from everywhere – Italy, Japan, Germany, Russia, Greece and the Middle East. Mick and Bianca.  Eric Clapton and Patty Boyd.  John and Yoko.  Hundreds are gathered in the main ballroom; dancing, drinking, leaping, and flirting to the hottest house band in the world – Os Mutantes. 

Outside the Hotel, hundreds are gathered to see their favorite music or movie stars. The party vibe is volatile but fun.  Of any place on the globe, this is the place to be.  A real feeling of liberation spreads through the crowd and unto the streets surrounding the hotel.  Jack Nicholson and Angelica Huston stroll through the outside crowd, as topless male and female dancers wave to the onlookers from the top of the parked limousines. 

At 4:30am, the Hotel General Manager, Joao Kibelkstis, decides to allow the party and music to continue without objection- he had little choice. Os Mutantes kick into overdrive as they begin their fourth hour of performing.  Bob Marley joins the band on stage for a killer version of Ave, Lucifer and Get Up, Stand Up.  Maybe the night will never end…