DAMINHAO EXPERIENCA - Planeta Lamma

"Though often compared to Frank Zappa, Moondog, Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, Jandek, and Father Yod, Damiao Ferreira da Cruz, better known as Damiao Experiença, it's a truly unique outsider multi-instrumentalist (without any real capability to play any of the many instruments he uses) compulsive hoarder from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Reportedly born on September 27th, 1935 in Bahia, Damiao lived an unhappy childhood and ran away from home at the age of 10 to escape the mistreatment by his parents. In Rio de Janeiro he served as a radar operator for the Brazilian Navy; while in the Navy he allegedly fell off a ship's crow's nest, hitting his head on the floor, which could have provoked his erratic mental state. Desertion is also sometimes mentioned in his auto-biography as well as the fact that he was sentenced to solitary confinement for many years. After retiring from the Navy, Damiao went to live with a prostitute in a stilt house, became a pimp and was able to produce his record LPs thanks to money obtained via procuring. It was in the early '70s that he adopted the name "Experiença" as an homage to Jimi Hendrix Experience, his favorite band and major influence. In 1974, he self-released his first album, Planeta Lamma, and many others followed throughout the 1970s to the early 1990s, all issued on his own Gravadora Planeta Lamma. Well known for his unsociable personality, he always avoided interviews and attention from the media, even refusing to give autographs or sign any documents. Damião's musical style is impossible to categorize accurately, since he experiments with numerous genres, more prominently freak folk, psychedelic rock, reggae, and experimental music. His songs have no logical sense at first sight, and most of them are sung in a dialect created by him, the "Planet Lamma dialect" (spoken in his eponymous "home planet"), with improvised lyrics. Side One opens with "1308 Registrou gravou rose Oliria Experiença" with Danimhao paying his one-string guitar and singing at the same time in a very primitive folk style mixing Portuguese with his own invented dialect in his lyrics. It continues with the heroic 18-minute "Ritmo Linguagem Planeta Lamma", a purely distilled Phase-3 Damiao Classic of the most refined nature, with the superimposing of many layers of over-recorded Planeta Lamma endurance. Side One ends with "Planeta Lamma", also from his first LP, an intense solo-screaming one-minute piece. Side Two is also pure Phase-3 with his 21-minute "SOL" masterpiece, one of the highest moments in Daminhao Experienca vast discography." - Alga Marghen.