Mão Morta
Mutantes s.21

Mutants of the 21st century, this title will remind many of you of the first track from King Crimson's album "In the Court of the Crimson King." In reality, the two concept albums are separated by a wall, the Berlin Wall, whose fall brought with it not just liberation from Soviet dictatorship, the terrible years of Stalinism, deprivation, censorship... but also the illusion that forged musical masterpieces, including the Crimson album; however, if in "21st" the horrors of the world made man schizophrenic, now the horrors of the world have taken root in our bodies, which wander without the illusion that once warmed the heart, the dream becomes forced and suddenly is a stupid imposition.
Man is forced to change because the foundations he rests upon are starting to change more and more rapidly, and what is inside us travels at a different pace than what is outside.

Loss of identity. Ghosts. Mutants.

Thinking of this album brings to my mind a film sequence. This one. 

MÃO MORTA is a band formed in 1988, the birth year of big jerks like myself, releasing a first LP under the same name. The group had three founders: Adolfo Luxuria Canibal (!), Miguel Pedro, and Joaquim Pinto; the first two are still members of the group, while the third left in 1990. This group was born in Braga, Portugal, and can be thought of as a rock band (although of difficult classification) with varied influences: noise, punk, metal... however, what distinguishes them are excellent lyrics, as in this case, very heavy dark tones, and a form of atavism, sincere primitiveness in making music, by this I don’t mean "antiquated"... to better understand I associate musical primitivism with the screams of "Gennaio" or "Something I Learn Today".
The album saw the collaboration of: Adolfo Luxuria Canibal - author and singer, Miguel Pedro - drummer and composer, Sapo - guitarist and composer, Antonio Rafael - keyboardist, guitarist and composer, Jose Pedro Moura - bassist and composer, Carlos Fortes - author, guitarist and composer.

The album is from 1992 for the Fungui label. It consists of 9 tracks that describe a journey to 9 cities, the common thread is the nights, dark nights that bring malaise in the air, in the shabbiest places, of the shabbiest planet on the face of the universe, like a hell to travel through to find a damn opening to reach transfiguration, ascension, turning the ghost into something material, new and unknown.

"Fecha os olhos e deixa-te conduzir"... Close your eyes and let yourself be led.

It begins with "Lisboa" (through the shadows and trash): obsessive and introduced with scraped strings and a speech that creeps sinuously between the lights of clubs and rats lurking in the darkness, exploding in screams of someone who has lost their soul and the only thing left to do, after a night spent on some street corner, is to escape, perhaps with the first taxi.

"Amsterdam" (Have big fun): after a nice bass opening the voice settles in like a disease and almost automatically pushes you to go out, pedal to the metal, smoke a joint, drink a coffee, go to a red-light district and find yourself back in the car for the return with the icy air punching you in the face, appearing as the only real thing on a night teetering on the edge of dreamed reality.

"Budapeste" (still rock & roll): quite a calm track with its riff and solos with an oxymoronic prologue (which I found only in the site’s texts - 1991 a year after the fall of communism, indecipherable posters and buildings blackened by pollution) compared to the rock march soaked in alcohol that brings fogginess, physical exhaustion. In the background, a city in turmoil trying to find its own identity. The nights of Budapest are rock & roll nights.

"Barcelona" (met in Plaza Real): a driven track where words are swallowed by screams until they become a demonic lament (after all, it’s the album’s theme), where it feels like listening to a mysterious macumba at times. Story of two thieves running away from the civil guard and racing like lunatics thrilled by the danger, reaching the port by morning and watching the sun rise from the Mediterranean, ecstatic moment!

"Marraquexe" (Land of dead flies): the track starts with an imperfect and unbalanced oriental chant (I don't know who sang it), interspersed with relaxed percussion, were it not for the oppressive mantle hovering over the listening. This Sutra from the minaret describes a square, awakening from its slumber and starting to swarm with people among the scent of spices, among vendors and jugglers. The song is abruptly cut off as though we were in a comic with our favorite anti-hero who, in the last panel, appears from the darkness saying: "It was time to test my hand skills and snatch wallets!" fading into the night.

"Berlim" (nine deaths): starts like a lullaby "Berlim... Berlim... morreu... a nove", but suddenly plunges again into the nightmare, the music becomes increasingly urgent so much that it feels like being in the devil’s den. Yorkstr a stone's throw from the wall, life of a man who understands he is not part of history and is reduced to being a spectator in a world in which he himself is a comedian, hearing through a bar radio about the fall on November 9th, 1989. The music seems to drag forward with guitar strokes; in this track, the verses are amazing: "Silhouettes cut in the twilight, move across an open field" or "A succession of iron viaducts blackened by rust, where the old eastern lines have been left to the voracity of time, stand in balance, overlooking the tracks that wind through the darkness". Almost as if the city one lives in were a projection of one’s moods and soul, returning full circle to the initial lullaby music box.

"Paris" (Love to death): sustained by a "Gothic" rhythm, another painful and small sequence journey in Paris, where soft images alternate with dark visions, quotes from poets, writers, and directors that linger in every street, crossing every bridge, to reach love, the romantic, cursed, crazy one, of eternal vows leading to the slitting of the beloved’s throat;

"Istambul" (a cry) with strings just touched, sound effects and timid percussion accompany the damn hot nights enveloping a unclear story told in different ways. A cry heard from a bedroom, a cry that breaks the description of things, a cry, yours.

"Shambalah" (the kingdom of light): an instrumental track that flows with strings, delivering a sensation of unease. Shambalah compared to the other cities, does not exist, according to Buddhist religion it would be a place located below the Himalayan range, it is a Sanskrit term indicating a place of peace and tranquility, a haven, but a death or a rebirth?

Doubt. That's it.

Enough Nonsense.