Marconi Notaro - 1973 - No Sub Reino Dos Metazoários

Marconi Notaro

1973

No Sub Reino Dos Metazoários

01. Desmantelado 1:40
02. Áh Vida Ávida 3:50
03. Fidelidade 3:15
04. Maracatú 0:50
05. Made In PB 2:33
06. Antropológica N°1 2:40
07. Antropológica N°2 4:45
08. Sinfonia Em Ré 5:40
09. Não Tenho Imaginação Pra Mudar De Mulher 2:35
10. Ode A Satwa 4:55

Lula Côrtes: tricordio, Sitar, French horn, effects
Marconi Notaro: vocals, ganzá, acoustic guitar, cabasa, effects
Robertinho de Recife: ukelele, viola, tambor alegre, guitar
Icinho: percussion, drums
Geraldo: bass, rattle, percussion
Zé Ramalho: coustic guitar, viola, whistle, effects
Kátia: Bells, effects
Escola de Samba do Xié: surdo, percussion

With all of those who started shouting “private press only” after Shadow named an album after those American self-starters who took their recorded destiny into their own hands, consider this: as hard as it might have been to record, press and distribute your very own wax capsule in America in the early ’70s (and as rare, and good, many of them are), doing the same under Brasil’s military dictatorship was markedly more difficult. And releasing a psychedelic, fuzz and effects drenched opus with revolutionary musings disguised within double entendres? Next to impossible.

You’d want this one in your collection if it contained just one good track within its beautifully packaged gatefold cover. That this album screams perfection from start to finish just adds to its legendary status. The brainchild of poet Márconi Notaro, alongside his friends and compatriots Lula Cortes and Ze Ramalho (the men behind perhaps the most legendary of Brasil’s private-pressed albums, 1975’s awesome Paebiru), this album contains what can only be described as Brasilian ragas played with the Portuguese guitar and Lula’s own invention, the Tricordio; improvised passages so fluid you’d swear they were scored; psychedelic-funk jams about staying true to one’s origins; and, throughout, Notaro’s complex yet approachable poetry, sung by the poet himself.

The highlight of the album, if there is just one: Notaro’s improvised “Nao Tenho Imaginacao Pra Mudar De Mulher (I Don’t Have The Imagination to Change Wives),” a gorgeously melancholic piece that, when one sees it transcribed (gotta thank my lovely girlfriend for that), is nearly impossible to imagine as having flowed directly from the mind of one of the most underrated Brasilian poet/composers.

No Sub Reino dos Metazoários is the first and only record by musician and poet Marconi Notaro, out of Pernambuco, Brazil. For years it was known that the master tape of No Sub Reino dos Metazoários had been lost during two floods that wrecked the Rozenblit Studios. Lots of equipment were damaged and plenty of material gone. However, what no one expected was that the tapes were kept on the highest shelves in the studio where the water did not reach with the thought of "equipment can be replaced, master tapes are unique." Notaro's daughters inherited and rescued the tape and made it available so that Fatiado Discos could release the first and remastered version from the original tapes since 1973. The lysergic highest moments come with nature elements textures as water and wind mixing together with the unmistaken sound of the Tricórdio Acústico -- which is a very unique instrument that Lula Côrtes brought himself from India and then adapted it with the help of a local luthier to the regional sound of the Brazilian northeast. The gatefold designed by Lula Côrtes is portrayed in this release and it also has its inner side designed by Cátia Mezel, apart from an extra insert with unpublished photos of Marconi provided by the musician's family. The album features Lula Côrtes, Zé Ramalho, and Robertinho de Recife is part of the holy trilogy of Psicodelia Nordestina amongst the equally mind-blowing Paebiru (1975) and Satwa (1973).