Jogos De Armar
(2001)
Album Description & Tom Ze Biography

No Jardim da Politica
live album recorded in 1985 in
the Teatro Lira Paulistana
(1998)

Fabrication Defect
(1998)

An original member of the Tropicalia movement that revolutionized Brazilian popular music in the late 1960s, Tom Ze is a longtime cultural cannibal who makes beautiful and intelligent music out of a fascinating range of materials. Fabrication Defect is an old-fashioned concept album in the sense that each song represents one of the charming imperfections--such as youth, stupidity, or dancing--that humanize an international population of third-world ghetto residents otherwise viewed as "subhuman androids." But Tom Ze's ideology is easy to miss in a joyous melange of songs that borrow liberally from Portuguese cantalon, urban samba, musique concrète, and a wide assortment of rhythms from both Brazil's tropical Bahia region and dusty countryside. Ze's excoriation of the church and capitalism may be old-school, but his mixture of the traditional and modern (dig the accordion techno of "Xiquexique") is downright tomorrow. --Richard Gehr

More Tom Ze Albums
(Limited Availability)

Brazil Classics, Vol. 4: The Best Of Tom Zé
 

Brazil Classics, Vol. 5: The Hips Of Tradition
 

More:
Jogos De Armar Album Notes & Tom Ze Biography

Tropicalia History

Tropicalia Albums

Brazilian Music Index