Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas: Tropicalia Psychedelic Masterpieces 1967-1976 (Tropicalia in Furs/World Psychedelic Funk Classics)
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Many of the 16 tracks on Pomegranates: Persian Pop, Funk, Folk and Psych of the 60s and 70s have been reissued before, but this is the first time they’ve been broadly distributed or packaged for non-Iranian audiences. Exact dates for the original releases are hard to come by—as the liner notes explain, Iranian singles mostly used boilerplate label designs that didn’t include such specifics—but one thing that’s certain is that they predate the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The shah’s regime, as autocratic as it was, had overseen a rapid modernization of Iranian society; when it was displaced by an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Khomeini, pop music collapsed alongside the rest of the entertainment industry, buried by a wave of anti-Western sentiment. Nightclubs, record shops, and labels were shuttered, and decadent secular influences were purged from the radio.
During the period documented on Pomegranates, though, Iranian music was enriched not just by sounds from the America and the UK but also by cultural traffic with India, Spain, south Asia, and other parts of the Middle East. Modern music from abroad and traditional music from nearby countries like Turkey, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan fused with local styles in vibrant and unexpected hybrids. Perhaps most surprising, given the conservativism of Iranian society even at its most progressive, are the strong currents of funk and disco—most of the tracks on Pomegranates are clearly dance music. An artist named Zia from the southern coastal city of Abadan subverts the indigenous Bandari rhythms of the Persian Gulf region, jacking them up to sound a bit like a James Brown track—his tune “Helelyos” layers a beat worthy of Fela Kuti with wild, wordless vocal interjections, a fat bass line, and blasts of martial brass. Even stranger is Mehrpouya’s “Soul Raga,” an instrumental Indian funk jam that collides tabla beats, sitar lines, and free-floating flute melodies with blaring horns and hypnotically looping bass. According to Mahssa Taghinia of the Finders Keepers crew—an Iranian-American living in LA, she helped compile this disc and wrote the liner notes—Mehrpouya gave sitar lessons in Tehran and traveled all over the world.
The bulk of the tracks on Fuzz Bananas are psych or garage or some blend of the two, but as with so much music from Brazil, there’s an extra jolt of groove. Unlike most 60s rockers from the U.S. or the UK, these bands often employ buoyant indigenous polyrhythms or add a layer or two of hand percussion to their kit drumming. On a 1969 cover of the Beatles’ “I Wanna Be Your Man” by the Youngsters—previously a popular Jovem Guarda combo called the Angels, which backed the likes of Roberto Carlos and Ronnie Von—the guitars are jacked up with effects, but what really sets it apart from the original is a relentless funkiness. Some of the heaviest guitar on the album is on “Som Imaginario de Jimmi Hendrix” by the Pops—originally an instrumental surf-influenced band, they also recorded a killer album with samba singer Osvaldo Nunes before turning to psychedelia—but beneath the crazed fuzz freakouts is a hip-shaking beat fortified with conga drums.
