ARCHIVE
REDISCOVERED
Uncovering the underrated and overlooked
Walter Smetak in his studio
WALTER SMETAK
Smetak/Interregno (reissues, 1974, 1980)
BUH
7/10
Brazilian avant-gardist’s curious sonic experiments
WALTER SMETAKis one of those curious, genre-fluid figures who seem unique to Brazil: a conceptual artist and avantgarde musician, a sculptor and a scientist, at once bafflingly highbrow and childishly lowbrow. Born in Zürich in 1913, the son of Czech parents, Smetak trained as a cellist in Salzburg and Vienna (even taking lessons from the great Pablo Casals) before moving to Brazil in 1937. He joined a symphony orchestra in Porto Alegre and, whenit dissolved, spent the next decade freelancing in various São Paulo and Rio De Janeiro radio orchestras and dance bands (accompanying Carmen Miranda, among others). He joined a mystical association called the Brazilian Theosophical Society and became fascinated by the way in which Brazil’s melting pot thrived on cannibalising African, European and Amerindian cultures, a process described as “anthropophagic”.