Veloso, Caetano

***BACK IN PRINT ON CLEAR VINYL!!! Apparently when this album was originally released in 1972, confused and bewildered fans, expecting more of the same found on Transa, released earlier that year, returned the album to the shop, demanding a refund. Meanwhile, critics raved, and many now consider Araçá Azul, known as Veloso’s experimental album to be one of his great creative moments. To be fair to his many fans, it was a stark departure from his previous releases, which were decidedly more pop, but Veloso had been through a lot recently, having just returned from political exile in the UK, so it is no wonder that the artist was feeling a bit like he needed to fly in the face of conformity. In Veloso’s own words, “I made this album without thinking, without taking the time to stop to think.” He refers to the album’s insolent experimentalism and calls it a kind of “last stand.”