1973 Marconi Notaro “No Sub Reino Dos Metazoários” on Rozenblit.

Yeah, this is one of my very favorite records in all the Castle Wax Stacks. I suppose the criteria for what earns that distinction depends on who you’re talking to, and most of us would insist that it’s entirely about the music, which it intellectually is, but emotionally of course we’d be lying if it weren’t also a matter of value, rarity, artwork, nostalgia, obscurity, condition, and random personal aesthetics. Well, for me one further consideration is exactly how high the artist was when they titled the record, because “In the Subkingdom of Metazoans”, which of course refers to the biological taxonomy of Metazoa, basically everything alive with the good fortune of being multicellular, as opposed to, say, paramecium and their single-celled world, is just such a title. And it hits all the other categories as well. The art, from cover to hand-screened inner gatefold to lovely label design, is fantastic. In terms of straight sound it’s a gorgeous and delightfully singular take on folk/psych Samba, definitely experimental while simultaneously trad Portuguese, with endless acoustic runs in ambitious scales, much with a East Asian feel, odd tunings, trips to North Africa and Ireland and Bombay and back.

​It also just happens to be is the first and only record by musician and poet Marconi Notaro, out of Pernambuco, Brazil. It also (mother of god) features Lula Cortes, Zé Ramalho and Robertinho de Recife, and is a vital part of the holy trilogy of “Psicodelia Nordestina”, which includes the equally mindblowing Lula joints “Paebiru” and “Satwa”. A lot of the world-traversing sound comes from the Tricórdio Acústico that Côrtes stumbled across in deepest India, and then modified for a more regional NW Brazil sound. Lula Côrtes even designed the KILLER cover! Beyond TOP ACTION. I have to be very careful about playing it lightly, so it’s always grippingly fresh, pure lysergic-groove, lo-fi, Amazo-banger genius. In fact, it’s possible that I do not own this album, this album owns me.