The Genius of Arrigo Barnabé

I have been obsessed with Brazillian musician Arrigo Barnabé ever since his song Clara Crocodilo was posted to On the Download a few years ago. The song was like nothing I had ever heard before- from the spastic Portuguese ranting to the atonal horn arrangements and joyous sounding female vocals. Every element of the song was so skewed in such a precise way. Fortunately, I was able to find the entire out-of-print album on Soulseek. It's a masterpiece that doesn't let up- a mix of Rock In Opposition, Zappa, Ornette Coleman, Magma and Brazilian pop.

Since Youtube first made its appearance, I have been searching weekly for Barnabé videos. A few videos finally popped up last year-  they were short clips of poor quality that caught Barnabé  playing the piano during  a reunion concert of his brother's post-punk outfit Patife Band. This was enough for me though...I had built Barnabé up in my head to such monumental proportions that it made my week to find a grainy little video clip of him performing. Over time, more Barnabé videos surfaced- all great little Barnabé morsels...but nothing from the late seventies/early eighties when he would have been performing Clara Crocodilo with a full band.

Until last week- finally! Someone uploaded a video of a 1979 performance of the Clara Crocodilo album. The renditions are a little looser than the album versions, but the energy is maniacle and off kilter. It was everything I imagined in my head during repeated listens of Clara Crocodillo- a festive dance of misfits, demons and pretty ladies with Barnabé as the ringleader. Now if I only knew Portuguese so I knew what the hell he was jabbering on about!

...Song starts about two minutes in. The possessed look on the female singer's face is amazing. Youtube version is here. Part 2 is here.

Barnabe has been active since the late seventies and has produced bizarre narrative concept albums, usually writing in a twelve-tone technique. Here is a brief sampling of gems from his catalogue...

Num Antro Sujo from A Saga de Clara Crocodilo
From a live 1999 version of Clara Crodilo which includes more strings than horns and slightly different arrangements.

Tubarões Voadores from Tubarões Voadores
Another highly inventive early record which revolves around the narrative of a flying shark. Some of this material goes into a Residents or Der Plan territory at times.

Dedo de Deus (com vânia bastos) from Suspeito
An odd foray into more late 80s dance and pop territory. Totally bombastic.

Miolo Mole from Gigante Negão
A late 90s return to his earlier sound

There were some efforts into more traditional sounds, although Barnabé's unique sense of melody always shines through. His most recent album, Missa In Memorian Itamar Assumpção, is a clasical composition dedicated to late Brazillian musician Itamar Assumpção, Barnabe's cohort in the Vanguard Paulista movement. Clips of the recording of this piece can be found here. You can hear tracks of the album from Barnabé's Myspace page here. More stuff can be found at his intentionally hard to navigate site here.

Comments

[Brian Turner]

Thanks for posting those awesome concert clips, Fatty!
Have loved the Patife Band stuff too, here's an album of theirs from Mutant:
http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/05/patife-band-corredor-polonslp1987brasil.html

[Nash Rose]

Yes! I love this man. Found his CD in the FMU record library a while back and man, I listen to him all the time. The Christian Vander of Portugal or something else equally too good to be true...kudos kudos kudos

[mirc]

very good Thanks..

[Brian Turner]

Brazil actually

[Heather]

He's speaking Brazilian Portuguese, so it's a little hard to follow, but from what I picked up here he seems to be doing standard antisociety artist rant: it sounds like an indictment of the shallowness and materialism of what he sees in Sao Paulo, and he's pointing an accusing finger at the newspapers, the media and the rush-rush busy-busy workaday pace of life there - he also seems to be making fun of a flaky guy who breaks a promise to him, mocking the man's lame explanation of why he (flake) flaked out on him (Clara). This becomes part of Clara's indictment of Sao Paolo. I may be wrong, but that's what it sounds like. I can also tell you the crowd at that festival ain't likin' the performance. They're whistling as the intro goes on and on, delaying the start of the "real song"; in our culture that's booing.

Looks like somebody booked an arty Fluxus-style performance at what was intended to be a standard "get up and shake your booty" samba festa.

Disclaimer: I'm European Portuguese-American, and Brazilian Portuguese is not the same - so I may be totally wrong and full of crap here.

[matt]

arrigo barnabe is absolute amazing. i have a handful of his recordings and can't get over the genius of them. i found patife band first, though and from there contacted Paulo Barnabe(who plays drums in both Patife Band and Arrigo Barnabe's band) and found out about Arrigo Barnabe.

proof that your favorite music eventually finds its way to you eventually. glad to hear of others really loving this stuff.

[Lorean Linchen]

well, maybe I'm a little bit late here on the comments, but... lets go on.
I'm brazilian, so I can make a crappy translation on this song.
the story basically is about a woman whose husband died. so she went nuts, falling into the degradation and dirty alleys, not even bothering to sell her body (if you know what I mean).
in the interview, he's saying that his major influence on music are comics, specially will eisner, luiz gê and the spiderman. so, his music is the meeting between arnold schoenberg and the green goblin.

clara crocodilo is a ficctional character. clara, a girl's name, that resembles, in brazilian portuguese, the idea of light and naïveness + crocodilo, crocodile, the swamps, et caetera. clara crocodilo is a criminal, the public enemy nº1, a grotesque monster, the result of genetic manipulation and heartless scientists. the album is the story of durango, an office-boy, who, after walking through the mean streets of life, tests a new experimental drug for money, and is transformed into a huge and extremely dangerous mutant monster.

[Gabriel M.]

Arrigo has an especific interest on comics.. Clara crocodilo is like a character, a "marginal" character, like those comic's monsters. Its a reptile, but its history starts when he was a simply office boy, in love with a supermarket-attendent (maybe i´m not expressing my thoughts in good english, that's because i'm brazilian, from São Paulo, and dont speak english fluently)The criticism to the 80's is evident. A pharmaceutical company convinces him to do biochemical tests, what make he becomes a monster, looser on love, not diferent at the game, he is forgotten by all society, lives under the ground, with rats 'n cockroaches. his ignored hate can explode at any time. (a great metaphoric critic to the brazilian society, and how it deals with criminality and all the troubles related to that)
Actually Arrigo is going very well, giving concerts.. Recently he presented Clara Crocodilo(Clara Crocodile) with the original formation! and last week, he presented Tubarões Voadores (Flying Sharks) show!
Gabriel M. Barbosa