Jose Mauro – A Viagem das Horas [LP]

JOSE MAURO ジョゼ・マウロ – A VIAGEM DAS HORAS [LP] (FAR OUT RECORDINGS FARO191LP)

’21 UK

Brand new sealed (M/M/M) The jacket has no corner dents or creases.

The recording was done at the then state-of-the-art ODEON studio, produced by Roberto Quartin, one of Brazil’s top craftsmen who worked on legendary labels like FORMA and QUARTIN. The lyrics were written by Ana Maria Baiana, who later also became a journalist, and arrangements were done by Lindolfo Gaya, who supported the golden era of Brazilian music. The album’s content is a blend of psychedelic folk rock based on the worldview of Candomblé—a syncretism of West African religions and Catholicism—along with cinematic orchestration. Performances by top musicians of the time such as Paulo Moura, Wilson das Neves, Don Salvador, and Ivan Conti melded perfectly. This work rivals the masterpieces of the 1970s left by artists like Arthur Verocai and Edu Lobo. However, despite the superb content, the TAPECAR label, which handled this release back then, reused some songs that had already appeared on Jose Mauro’s 1st album, OBNOXIUS (QUARTIN/1970), re-recording them for this release. There are no insiders who remember the details from that time, so it has long been recognized as a mysterious album.

Time passed, and in 2016, after FAR OUT reissued the aforementioned OBNOXIUS, a rumor reached FAR OUT that Jose Mauro—who had long been believed deceased—was actually quietly living in the suburbs of Rio. The FAR OUT team immediately went to Rio and contacted him, successfully obtaining three previously unreleased tracks that were originally meant to be recorded at the time. By adding these three tracks, excluding the duplicated ones, the album took its “original” form as originally envisioned by Jose and Quartin.