SÉRIE DOIS MOMENTOS - VOL.14: "Tom Zé - Se o Caso é Chorar" e "Todos os Olhos"

The albums couldn’t be any more different from one another – and also brilliant: in Se o Caso é Chorar (1972), Tom Zé is dreamy, joyfully exercising his poetic verve in sambas, frevos and rock songs that may seem innocent, but carry a great deal of irony and inventiveness. Todos os Olhos (1973, whose cover, only later the tale would be told, was a close up picture of the place where the sun don’t shine, adorned with a little glass ball) is angry, tormented and experimental, with tracks that finish abruptly – a clear reflection of the political repression so bravely defied on the cover. From that LP, sambas like Augusta, Angélica e Consolação and radical experiments like Cademar, Um "Oh" e um "Ah" and the mantra Complexo de Épico made it to Byrne’s compilation. But what’s really great about these re-printings is to discover equally good tracks, like Todos os Olhos, the mocking country song Dodô e Zezé (with Rogério Duprat playing the cavaquinho – and whose mixing is also amazing), the sad Brigitte Bardot and the creepy (and gloomy) version of Dolores Duran’s A Noite do Meu Bem. Absent from Byrne’s compilation, the LP Se o Caso É Chorar sounds truly fresh in 2000. The songs range from the touching simplicity of sambas like A Briga do Edifício Itália com o Hilton Hotel, to the emotional, gospel-like Senhor Cidadão, or the surprising psychedelic samba-enredo Sonho Colorido de Um Pintor, or still a provocative anti-hypocrisy message present in Sândalo. Ultimately, these are two albums that glow in the dark in one CD.(Silvio Essinger)