Arthur Verocai

Take Brazilian producer Arthur Verocai's music on its face, and you can group him with David Axelrod, Charles Stepney, and other American studio wizards from the '70s who wrangled psychedelia and orchestral arrangements into an R&B context. But unlike Axelrod or Stepney, Verocai did his thing under a military dictatorship that regularly jailed artists, censored lyrics, and banned suggestive stage dancing. Luv N'Haight's reissue of Verocai's rare, eponymous solo album from 1972 offers a snapshot of a sonic craftsman working in -- and subtly commenting on -- a political and artistic environment controlled by the badge and the gun.

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More About

• Arthur Verocai
• David Axelrod
• Charles Stepney
• Jorge Ben Jor
• Gal Costa

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You can't exactly call Verocai an outright renegade; he both produced largely uncontroversial Brazilian artists of the time like Jorge Ben and Gal Costa and composed TV themes. But he generously sprinkles Arthur Verocai's pop-soul casserole with the kind of intriguing flavors that would later turn on current retro-experimentalists like Stereolab and Zero 7: snarling horn-section lines, sharp string-section stabs, and twinkling electric-piano solos.

Certain moments on the album, though, reach out beyond the producer's quirky brand of Brazilian groove. Elements like the off-rhythm shaker in "Caboclo" and "Velho Parente," the clanking Bahian percussion of "Sylvia," and Luiz Carlos' willfully flat vocals on "Pelas Sombras" reflect Verocai's tangible desire to toss a wrench into the repressive order of the time. Perhaps Edson Maciel's tipsy two-minute trombone solo on the album-closing "Karina" best encapsulates the attitude: Like a trapped elephant, it mumbles, then trills, sputters, and trails off before building into angry whoops, the defiant sound of artistic energy held down for too long.