As Mercenárias are an all-female punk/funk post-punk group from São Paulo, Brazil. During their high point of activity in the mid 80s, the line-up consisted of Sandra Coutinho on bass, Ana Maria Machado on guitar, Lou on drums and Rosalia Munhoz on lead vocals. They came together in 1982 when two of the members, Ana and Sandra, met at CRUSP University of São Paulo and decided to form a punk band inspired by the American and British indie and punk sounds flooding the country at the time. The band played their first live show in February 1983 at the opening of the Napalm club in São Paulo with then drummer Edgard Scandurra. Lou joined the line-up two years later, just in time to record the debut album Cadê As Armas? on the label Baratos Afins. The album featured ten tracks, each around two minutes long for a total running time of about 24 minutes.

Their next, and ultimately final, release was Trashland in 1988 recorded for EMI. Despite finally attaining some level of acclaim after the record’s release – including being voted best album of the year by Bizz, an influential Brazilian music magazine – they were dropped by the label soon after it’s release. The group disbanded soon thereafter, Rosalia, Ana and Lou distanced themselves from the music business, while Sandra moved to Berlin and continued to pursue a musical career.

In 2005 the band came together again with a slightly modified line-up featuring Sandra and Rosalia joined by Georgia Branco on guitar and Pitchu Ferraz on drums. Soul Jazz Records released a retrospective of the band that same year entitled The Beginning of the End of the World, collecting the Mercenárias’s 1986 debut and half of the tracks from 1988's Trashland.