Papangu : Lampião Rei
God bless a band that keeps you guessing. While Papangu‘s debut record Holoceno was praised both by our editor-in-chief and by me, with each of us becoming strong champions of its combination of zeuhl and heavy metal thunder, the group thought better than to simply repeat the successes of that esteemed record. Here, they trade in the overt Magma-isms for a much wider and more curious arrangement of sonic touchpoints. See, for example, the very midwest emo approach to harmonics and little mathy licks with drum arrangements that feel caught somewhere between Slint and American Football. Elsewhere, the group leans heavily into bossa nova and Brazilian folk, only to turn around and bust out licks that wouldn’t be out of place on a Yes record. Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree remarked recently on his podcast that very few bands successfully managed to copy Yes in large part due to, unlike other prog bands of their time, their iconic sound not being found in one particular idiomatic element but instead each instrument doing deeply juxtapositional things that few bands nab all at once. Most overlooked of these elements is the post-Chet Atkins country guitar licks of Steve Howe, blending the keen-fingered plucking of that era of country with the similar precision of classical guitar and the great of jazz guitar like Joe Pass. Papangu got the memo, producing a driving melody that closes the opening two-part song of the record with the perfect blend of tightness and rocky looseness that resembles Yes instead of their often overly-stiff and inorganic imitators.
This is not to say that the former touchstones of King Crimson and Magma are gone, however. Instead, the group shows again a great mastery and understanding of the canons they are drawing from, blending at once the heavily distorted Wetton-era King Crimson bass tone to hold down certain tracks here as much as the lighter and breezier jazz of Magma’s more recent outings (and, it should be said, certain undersung periods of King Crimson’s own history). Even the conceptual arc of the record is radically different, shifting from an exploration of the coming climate apocalypse (feeling reminiscent of Phideaux’s trilogy exploring similar terrain) for a historical tale regarding a Brazilian bandit king. That this record is self-produced is a bewildering surprise, given the density of these arrangements and often wildly different tonalities and timbres of the instruments. The six-piece plays a battalion of instruments to match the bevy of wildly disparate styles they thread together on this release. That all these elements come together strongly feeling as one conceived whole rather than a splatter of disconnected, discoherent ideas is a wonderful shock.
Granted, it’s not a surprise. We said on the release of their previous record that something of that great a degree of success as a debut is deeply auspicious, a tremendous cosign of the natural talents and keen-eared skill of the group. Lampião Rei is testimony of the truth of that sentiment. Am I listening to Magma’s Udu Wudu or their Kãrtëhl? Am I listening to Henry Cow or João Gilberto? My only real note of concern would be that the group here strongly tends toward the world of contemporary progressive rock in their approach to arrangements and curation of musical ideas where before there was strong overlap with the world of heavy metal experimentalists. While the harsh vocals return here, they feel incorporated closer to how a group like Comus in the ’70s used similar haunting and strange vocal approaches rather than the more avant-garde wing of groups on I, Voidhanger or similar experimental extreme metal labels. Still, this is less a critique and more an observation, because while that perhaps limits the appeal of this record to a broader underground musical world, it vastly deepens it for me.
Os Mutantes has, for decades now, been the preeminent Brazilian prog group, Starting as a psychedelic pop group, they evolved much the same way that Yes did through similar terrain, adding elements of folk and symphonic music, acquiring early synthesizers and exploring more complex song structures while never losing their performance-driven rock edge. It seemed for many many years that they would never see a proper challenger to their throne. While it is hasty to place Papangu in such esteemed company, this record brings them one comfortable step closer. It is ambitious and wide-ranging, a kaleidoscope of moods and colors, feeling less like a record made and released in 2024 and more like a long-beloved classic you just unearthed in a dusty used record shop, the scuffed cardboard of the cover bright with colors that causes you to Google it quick on your phone only to be surprised by praise going back years without you ever having known it ever existed. There is an automatic sense of intimacy to these songs, producing a paradoxical sense of comfort in a long-loved thing that only just came out. It’s magical, a record that reminds you of the expansive possibilities of music, the reason you fell in love with it. If it sounds like I’m fawning, it’s because I am. It’s a rare treat to have a record of such strength and verve as Holoceno be followed up by something equally as commanding in a radically different direction. It is to be savored.
Label: Repose
Year: 2024
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