Even after David Byrne brought him to a new international audience in the early '90s, Tom Zé stayed true to his idiosyncratic artistic impulses. A science-fiction concept album of sorts, Fabrication Defect imagines a near-future third world dystopia in which the poor are turned into corporate-owned automatons. Far from the bleakness that that implies, these defiant, joyously experimental songs range from the trip-hop-like instrumental "Emerê" to the fractured Tropicália of "Esteticar." Zé's conversational vocals recall Lou Reed on the understated "O Olho do Lago."