Lô Borges
Lô Borges (EMI/Odeon 541834)

In the alternate pantheon where Caetano Veloso is John Lennon, and Milton Nascimento is Paul McCartney, and Gal Costa is both Janis Joplin and Bette Midler, and the Mutantes are the Rutles, and We All Together is Badfinger, Lô Borges is George Harrison. And whether you are George Harrison or his third-world equivalent, it's a pretty great thing to be.

Lô Borges is Lô's first solo album, released in 1972, the same year as Clube de Esquina, which is the Brazilian equivalent of, like, John Lennon and George Harrison recording All Things Must Pass and Imagine as one record. That album, a collaboration between Borges and Nascimento, contains some of the most beautiful music you will ever hear. This album is a great place to go once you've parachuted down and got your bearings from that one. Fifteen tracks, alternately groovy and lilting, trancey and poppy, cloudy and clear – and pretty much every track is about 1:50! That is reason enough to love this album.

Super-pretty, mellow, primarily acoustic-based, and not very dated-sounding (unless it's just that my ears are just so tightly calibrated to early 70s pop), Lô Borges is a nice walk uptown on a sunny day. The sort of album Badly Drawn Boy would die to make, but never will.

Oh, and incidentally, Gilberto Gil is Steve Winwood.

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Brianna Cheech-Chong