Issue #32 - Summer 2010 - Wasted on the YouthTony Da Gatorra Vs. Gruff Rhys:
The Terror of Cosmic Loneliness
OVNI/Turnstile
Aug 06, 2010 Issue #32 - Summer 2010 - Wasted on the Youth
And the award for strangest album of 2010 so far goes to… Tony Da Gatorra and Gruff Rhys. Long a proponent of experimentation in his pop music, both with Super Furry Animals and in his solo work, Rhys has outdone himself this time, digging up an unknown Brazilian protest singer/instrumentalist, who invented his own instrument, the “gatorra,” a combination of bizarre guitar and drum machine. Da Gatorra only speaks Portuguese of course, so for the five-hour recording session for The Terror, the two musicians only communicated through gesture. It’s not easy to describe what’s going on here, if one can even figure it out anyway. It’s something like if David Bowie’s Tin Machine were led by an insane South American radical yelping simple platitudes about injustice over repetitive industrial drumming. Rhys sings three songs, Da Gatorra takes five, and two tunes can be loosely described as instrumentals. The Rhys-led “House With No Mirrors,” incidentally, a place where he says you never grow old, is led by a fierce propulsive guitar riff (think a simpler AC/DC) and features such lines as, “In a room full of turtles, you stood on a toad.” The out of tune singing of Da Gatorra on “Espirito Luz,” which translates to “spirit light,” is anything but what its title implies. On “Eu Protesto,” Da Gatorra shouts “violence,” “injustice,” and “impunity” in Portuguese as Rhys screams in the background. “OVNI” is an “instrumental” that sounds like it’s led by flatulence. I could go on, but I won’t. If the laughing at the album’s end is any indication, either this album was really fun to make, or we’ve been duped. (www.gruffrhys.com; http://www.tonydagatorra.blogspot.com)
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October 1st 2010
7:53am
Tony da Gatorra is a kind of messenger from God. In “Espírito Luz” he sings about the truth that we’re immortal spirits made of light and that we don’t need to keep on having the terrible physical bad feelings (due to the difficult situation - poverty, violence, governmental crimes etc - against which he protests), instead we can trip away out of our bodies with thought, he sings. He is a very simple man, he doesn’t even writes Portuguese very well, but he is only Peace & Love all the time as never seen before, the real deal. The clothes, the visual/style, the gatorra, the word “paz” (“peace” in Portuguese, of course) stamped everywhere, and very simple lyrics but with a tremendous power of raw sincerity that moves. Gruff seems to be the perfect partner for Tony to spread his message all over the world. The very talented frontman of the amazing SFA has got the spirit of Tony’s message very well, mixing it with his psychedelic ideas and humour. The Two Witnesses of the Revelation arrived! The time is near! Peace & Love everywhere!
Captain Brazuka
São Paulo - Brazil
April 15th 2012
11:55pm
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