Mister Trend's Random 10

Track 02” comes off of the second disc of Tom Zé’s “Jogos de Armar” album. The album both is and is not a 2-disc set. The packaging of the album makes clear that it is not a two-disc set despite having two discs, and this is true in a way, for the second disc is not a second album. Rather, Zé did something truly unprecedented. He took all the lyrics, voices, guitars, keyboards, drums, electronic bits, sounds (including whistling and kazoos), and non-traditional instruments (he is famous for incoroporating, among other things, tree-leaves, saws, and hammers as major parts of his songs), and broke them up o their individual level, so you could hear each element of the album. He then ordered them in the order of the actual “songs” on the first disc. Thus, “Track 02” offers, in 5-20 second bits, every single voice (split up), guitar, whistle, beat, and other instrumental contribution to the song “Peixe Vive (Iê Quitíngue)” on the actual album “Jogos de Armar”.
In the liner notes, Zé is very clear that this is not only meant to serve as a way to see how all the pieces of “Jogos de Armar”, but to be used in other people’s music if they so desire. While the second disc it doesn’t make for an album that one sits down to and listens to repeatedly, it is an absolutely incredible, innovative, and fascinating way to better understand and listen to music, giving one an opportunity to even better understand the songs on disc one. Tom Zé has been a musical innovator in literally hundreds of ways, but this experiment with a “one-disc” album with the second disc containing all of the individual bits of music broken up is nothing short of amazing, providing a musical document with unmatched depth.

1. “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball” – Aphex Twin
2. “The Invisible Dog” – Electrelane
3. “Cold Winter Day” – Blind Willie McTell
4. “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 9 for String Orchestra – Fugo (Poco Apressado)” – Heitor Villa-Lobos
5. “Present Tense” – Pearl Jam
6. “Rising Sun Shine On” – Big Bill Broonzy
7. “Track 02” – Tom Zé
8. “It’s Only Divine Right” – The New Pornographers
9. “Vibes” – μ-Ziq
10. “Venus” – Air