He languished for years until David Byrne found his records during a stay in Saő Paulo. Byrne tracked down Zé and arranged to release the Brazilian's older songs on his Luaka Bop record label. The first collection, "The Best of Tom Zé," is a pleasant mix of acoustic guitar melodies, strange sounds and Zé's soft, almost soothing voice. At the same time, it's very, very odd: One minute back-up singers coo lullabies, the next there's the sound of metal milling against a grinding wheel. Odd, and very, very pretty.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Zé in the Irving Plaza lobby: "Politics are in my songs in the same way that to be lovers -- to have a relationship -- is politics, the same way that staring at the moon is politics. For us Brazilians, politics is a very important matter, because politics is destroying us. It's fucking up the country. Politics are in my music because it is part of our food. It is very important."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Tom Zé is jumping up and down onstage at Irving Plaza. There are 1,100 people in the audience and the show is sold out. He is playing percussion by thumping his chest. Behind him, the members of Tortoise plink on vibes and shake rattles and play fuzzed-out guitar.

People in the audience are not really dancing: They are listening. When Zé asks them to, they sing entire choruses. Some speak Portuguese, many know the lyrics and sing along.

Zé is very pleased with a just-finished version of "Defect 2." He smiles at the mike, gleams at the lights and addresses the crowd. "You know that I no speak English," he says. This does not stop him.

"In Africa, I am the slave. In Brazil, I am the slave. In Brazil, the republic is the slave. But here, here I am the boss."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Fabrication Defect" (1998), Zé's third record for Luaka Bop, is a concept album of sorts, based around some of the esthetic theories Zé has been toying with since he began studying music at a university in Bahia in the early '60s. An essay in the liner notes explains that Zé believes that people in the third world have been converted to "a kind of android," which allows them to serve "first world bosses." The androids, however, are not perfect yet, they have defects, which include the ability to think, dance and dream. Zé's album then is a celebration of those defects, broken down into 14 different songs, each celebrating a separate defect.

It's smart music, obviously, but the ideas never seem forced. The three-minute songs effortlessly segue from one to another. "Defect 1: Gene" is a sprightly tune based around ringing guitar patterns and chiming tambourines. "Defect 2: Curiosidade" is a quieter ballad, its acoustic guitar riffing off "Defect 1," with Zé baby-talking in the background.

It's almost suspiciously tight, musically at least. Did Zé ever abandon the album's concept for musical concessions? Is there a difference between the fabrication defect idea and "Fabrication Defect"? "My attempt was to make the record very simple: Defect one, to think, that is the most dangerous defect; defect two can be to love, to study, to dance, to think. These are all defects," he says. "But the songs I get to compose -- like the winds in navigation -- change the direction of the target. My own inspiration changes direction too. It fucked me up."

Not too much. There are moments when you can hear Zé's past, like the "vasolina-gasolina" rhyme he rips off from Caetano Veloso on "Defect 3: Politicar." And there are other moments when Zé sounds like the future, or at least hyper contemporary. The record's figurative centerpiece is the loping, accordion-driven finale, "Defect 14: Xiquexique," which flips from found-sound to rhythm sticks, methodically builds new patterns upon each section and crescendos at five and a half minutes with all the different sounds ramming into one another. It's as dramatic and complicated and weird and exciting as the best songs by Beck, Stereolab or Tortoise.

Brazilian music, once again, is reaching critical mass in the States. Consider: