Gal Costa
Gal

"Meu nome é Gal, tenho 24 anos. Nasci na Barra Avenida, Bahia. Acredito em Deus, gosto de baile, cinema. Admiro Caetano, Gil, Paulinho Da Viola, Jorge Ben, Rogério Duprat, Dircinho..."

The first step to understand - not so much Tropicalismo in its broad sense, but what the period spanning '68 and '69 represented for the Tropicalists - is to reconsider in the right terms the exile to which Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were forced (after prison). It was exile in the real, political sense of the word. Imposed by a political/military authority, motivated by the "transgressive nature of their art". Technically speaking: "contamination of the pure forms of Brazilian Popular Music." The regime could no longer tolerate what had become a thorn in its side. It was time to inflict an exemplary punishment, something that would serve as a warning to the other (too) free consciences of the country. The country that abroad hid behind postcard images of Ipanema, of the Selecao dressed in green-gold, of Pelé effortlessly breaking through opposing barriers, was desperate to hide its own "skeletons" in a closet that could no longer contain them all.

Gal Costa was ONE OF THEM. And in singing "my name is Gal" - to notes by Roberto and Erasmo Carlos - one of the Muses of Tropicalismo was uttering much more than a simple, elementary declaration. The fact that it is her signature piece, as well as her calling card for all the years to come, is paradoxically secondary - in the context of that post-68 climate of anger. It was above all reclaiming two memberships: the Bahian one and the (inseparable from the other) cultural one, to the philosophy of the new Brazilian Artists. All amplified - and to the nth degree - by her being a Woman in a freedom-denying country. Was anything else needed for that Piece to sound epochal already at its release?

Yes, in reality there was something else. "Meu Nome É Gal" perfectly summarizes - and here we talk about SOUNDS - the stylistic path of Tropicalismo. It starts as a bossanova, leaning on a classical melody and embellished by orchestral adornments, and then evolves - but it is more correct to say: "degenerates", "inflames", "explodes" - into a whirl of convulsive and uncontrolled electricity. In a chaos of orgiastic, wild, terrifying vocalizations. Gal is no longer the enchanting "cantora" of her previous Album. She is a Fury with dark hair, capable of seducing but also of disturbing and impressing at the same time.

Is it a mere coincidence that the Album in question, in Brazil, was simply renamed "O Psicodelico"...?

Psychedelic, indeed. Hendrixian. Radical in taking to extremes - overturning them - the known rules of the Brazilian Song. Yet, "Gal" is an extreme album even in the context of Tropicalismo itself. It captures a moment when shouting one's pride and awareness as a Person was more important than staying true to a style, whatever it was. Even if only the Electric Guitar, a myth-fetish of the Monterey generation, could express in a worthy manner that whirlwind of passions, that urgency to emancipate from any control at any level. The arrangements - brilliant - by Rogério Duprat do the rest.

Hearing her intone "Tuareg" by Jorge Ben - introduced by Berber swoons that speak of a sensational fusion between bossa and Arabic music - you can't focus solely on the musical splendor of the Piece, but you understand that those sounds wouldn't have the same power regardless of those words (and the meaning they hide): the "noble" and "proud" Tuareg in his adherence to a life of war and hardships is not just an image from an exotic tale. It becomes a metaphor for Brazilian national pride. Wounded, indeed struck at its heart. Yet never tamed, incapable of surrender (the other Piece by Ben here present is "País tropical", and there would be little to add about its nature as an absolute "anthem" for the movement...).

The Tropicalists had this imaginative power innately, also because they were adepts of the cult of Cinema. A cult celebrated (and with all due pomp) in "Cinema Olympia" by Caetano - and those are VOCAL SHOTS performed by Gal in the central part, even stronger (in terms of pure psychedelic rate) than the guitars in fuzz overdose that accompany them, here and almost everywhere. The noble signature of Caetano himself also seals "The Empty Boat", which appeared almost simultaneously on his "Album Branco" as well as being strikingly Californian in accents - perhaps influenced by the text in English, revealing all the bitterness and black pessimism of someone who had already known imprisonment.

And if "Cultura e Civilizacao" and "Com medo, com Pedro" are dressed in an acid-blues quite familiar to anyone who has already dabbled with "colleagues" Os Mutantes, it is "Objeto Sim, Objeto Nao" by Gilberto Gil (three pieces in total, those signed by him) that unleashes Hell. Here too it degenerates, sure, but it does so by plunging into a labyrinth of cacophony, manipulated tapes, and superimposed voices halfway between the early Soft Machine and Wyatt's solo debut. After all, one of the best translations of "Tropicalismo" is: "LETTING GO".

"Gal Costa is among the most important things that have happened to Brazilian Music today. And I don't think there's anyone left who fears the electric guitar" (Caetano Veloso).