Long before the advent of samplers, Brazilian avant-Tropicalist Tom Zé was uniting seemingly opposed styles and constructing instruments from found objects – blenders, typewriters, floor polishers, doorbells. Inspired by Schönberg and samba and São Paulo's skyscrapers and slums, Zé (now sixty-two years old) dissected the metaphysics of everyday life with decomposed polyrhythms and satirical poetry that crossed lines of geography and history; in the process, he helped found Brazil's Tropicalia movement three decades ago.

Divided into fourteen so-called defects (only the second and last of which exceed four minutes), Fabrication Defect (Com Defeito de Fabricação) exhibits a symphonic precision rare in music of such percussive complexity. Voices imitate guitars when they're not imitating stumping politicians or drunken derelicts or The Threepenny Opera. The album's most memorable hook – bookending a five-minute musique concrète masterpiece called "Defect 14: Xique-xique" – is the sound of a rubber balloon abrading Zé's tooth.

Still, the mesh of orchestrated tapestries and cha-cha chorales is lovely. There's weird wit and warmth in how the mechanical ticktock of "Defect 8: Onu, Arma Mortal" and the sleepy dada noisescape of "Defect 4: Emerê" evolve out of the rain-forest-funk syncopation of "Defect 3: Politicar." For such a mad scientist, Zé sure does throw a sweet, sweaty street carnival. (RS 800)

CHUCK EDDY