Found this interesting number in a small record shop in Thorold, Ontario: Brazil, featuring Les Paul and Mary Ford.
If it's 1948, it must be Space-Age.
And shiver me timbers, it is also proto-Exotica! I am talking about Brazil, a nine-track record of various renditions, envisioned by the – back then soon to be married – couple of guitarist and arranger Les Paul (1915–2009) and vocalist Mary Ford (1924–1977).
(So happens I found a repress from 1967--it still counts!)
Brazil is released in said year on Capitol Records which cross-licensed the work to the Pickwick label. In a tiresome and technically highly advanced way, the duo, all alone in the studio, creates a record that seems bigger than the sum of its parts. This is achieved by mult-istep dubbing, recording various layers and then reuniting them bit by bit.
And believe me, that's some fancy shit for the time.
Expect cavalcades of phase delay, bent frequency helixes and expeditions in dubbing the tape… for reel!
The album oscillates between clownery-evoking Space-Age splinters that sound way too comical on the one hand, and downright enchanting legato guitar washes whose longevity and circumambience are, on the other hand, thankfully much more ubiquitous and add multilayered, carefully dubbed strata and rhizomes to each composition. But granted, the plinking blips and chirping trills are both Les Paul's trademark style and an unusual aural architecture which influenced guitarists all over the world. Here is a closer look at a special Exotica/Space-Age work, and although both genres are similar to each other and are constantly reviewed here, there is hardly one single work that unites both characteristics this coherently… years before they turn into a craze!
Enter the tropical breakfast (as it was today) paradise called Brazil.
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