The terror of cosmic loneliness

Tony Da Gatorra is a cult Brazilian musician, protest singer, sometime TV repairman and, from the looks of him, a hippy flowerchild gone to seed. He is, in addition, the inventor of his own musical instrument. The gatorra is a bizarre contraption, equal parts synthesizer and drum machine. Putting him together with Super Furry Animals' chief space cadet, Gruff Rhys, the results were bound to be unconventional.
Recorded in a mere five hours and mixed in a further 12, these hastily assembled tunes are little more than stream-of-consciousness ramblings. The adventurous nature of the recordings and tight time constraints echo the improvisational exercises of the Konkurrent label's In The Fishtank – a series which has generated equally mixed results. Arrhythmic beats, slashes of guitar and spaced-out murmurings inform these lo-fi sketches. The bonkers 'O Que Tu Tem' sets the tone, Da Gatorra's mutterings underscored by blasts of raucous guitar and various electronic blips and bleeps woven into the mix. Throughout, the duo split vocal duties, with our hippie shaman chanting in fervent Portuguese over the minimalist electro of 'Espirito Luz'.
On occasion, these audio splurges throw up the semblance of a tune. Notable are the rollicking, Jack White-esque guitar stomp of 'In A House With No Mirrors (You'll Never Get Old)' and '6868', the latter full of wonky electronica and references to the era of the Paris student uprisings. Overall, though, the whole thing smacks of music therapy hour at the One Flew Over The Cuckoos' nest compound – therapeutic to make, but one demented racket.