Os Mutantes

Tropicalia

Arnaldo Baptista and Sérgio Dias formed the group in São Paulo in 1966 with the singer Rita Lee, after earlier bands called The Wooden Faces and The Teenage Singers. They debuted on October 15, 1966 as a trio on the television show O Pequeno Mundo de Ronnie Von, and the name Os Mutantes came, per English Wikipedia, from Ronnie Von's suggestion, taken from Stefan Wul's novel Emperor of the Mutants. Claudio Cesar Dias Baptista built many of the instruments and effects, including Sérgio's Golden Guitar.

Their self-titled debut came out in June 1968 on Polydor, recorded in December 1967 and January 1968 at Philips studios and produced by Manoel Barenbein, with orchestral arrangements by Rogério Duprat. Mutantes (1969), A Divina Comédia ou Ando Meio Desligado (1970), Jardim Elétrico (1971) and Mutantes e Seus Cometas no País dos Baurets (1972) followed. Rita Lee left in 1972 and died in 2023. The group continued through 1978 and returned in 2006 with a concert at the Barbican in London, released as a live album on Luaka Bop; the compilation Everything Is Possible appeared on Luaka Bop in 1999.