Buscar:lindos

Norwegian artist Tarjei Nyga°rd first touched on the ESP Institute spectrum in 2016 with a limited red flexidisc of Bleusa that accompanied issue 21 of New York City's acclaimed Love Injection fanzine, and since then, his poetic music has been a staple in our arsenal (especially during Summer), for its ability to effectively direct moods is second to none. Across the four tracks on this debut EP, Tarjei paints quite viscerally using the most fundamental of tools—melodic and rhythmic hooks—and as obvious as this may sound on paper, its his deliberate approach to songwriting that brings these productions to life. Bleusa is literally dripping with a sense fantasy and adventure—island pads, golden bent notes, even a cameo bird-call from the infamous Acid House loon—yet Tarjei exhibits a mature level of restraint, a highly sophisticated sleaze recognizable to refined pleasure-seekers. Forus Echo furthers this notion but expands into full-blown rapids of ecstasy, rolling over soft-thumping percussion that mimics the human heart while smothering the listener in euphoric waves of pads and delays. Side B shifts us from the melodic dynamic heard thus far over to a strong rhythmic palette, not acknowledging any specific reference point but loosely hearkening back to early-era turntablism, the demented title track Lost In Lindos is a aquatic beat thats both deep and buoyant, the type of liquid tool that works at any BPM. Øylie closes the EP with a signature ESP vibe that has us lying on our backs, drawing finger pictures in the opium smoke above, feeling the warm embrace of collective consciousness while telepathically harmonizing our plans for a bright utopian future.

Impatiently returning to the golden age of Ecuadorian musica national, this second round of retrievals is more of a selectors’ affair: less reverent, more free-flowing, with more twists and turns. There is no let-up in musical quality, maintaining the same judicious, heart-piercing balance between emotional desolation and dignified endurance, the same bitter-sweet play between affective excess and musical sublimity.

This time around, the woman steal the show. Laura and Mercedes Suasti were child stars, with an exclusive Radio Quito contract. Unlike nearly all the men here, they lived long and prospered: Mercedes died last year, at the age of 93. Gladys Viera and Olga Gutierrez both came to Ecuador from Argentina. To start, Gladys plugged the scandalous new Monokini swimwear; Olga performed for visiting British royalty in 1962. Olga was glamorous but tough. She would make little of the amputation of one of her legs: ‘I don’t sing with my leg.’ She is accompanied on our opener by quintessentially reeling, sultry musica national: haunted-house organ, twinkling xylophone, Guillermo Rodriguez’ heart-plucking guitar-playing, and lilting, dance-to-keep-from-crying double-bass. ‘Sometimes I think that you will leave me with no memories,’ she sings, ‘that you hold only disappointments in store for me… In the future your love will search me out, full of regret. By then it will be too late, there will be no consolation, only disappointment awaiting you.’

Other highlights include the two contributions of Orquesta Nacional: Ponchito Al Hombro, like an off-the-wall forerunner of the Love Unlimited Orchestra, beamed into the tropics from an unknowable time and space; and the tone poem Atahualpa, a mystical yumbo invoking Quito’s most ancient inhabitants, the Kichwa. Also the tremulous, gypsy-flavoured violin-playing of Raul Emiliani, who arrived in Quito from Italy, suffering PTSD from the Second World War; the inscrutable, sardonic experimentalism of organist Lucho Munoz; and the mooing and whistling of Toro Barroso — school of Lee Perry — in which a muddy bull dashes home to his darling chola, fearless, full of desire.

Lavishly presented, with a full-size, full-colour booklet, with transporting art-work and expert notes. Luminous sound, by way of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas.

Gonzalo Benitez and Luis Alberto Valencia were kingpins of the musica nacional movement in Ecuador. Check them out on the cover, on a rooftop in Quito’s Old Town, surveying their dominion. In 1970, when Valencia collapsed onstage during a performance of the yaravi Desesperacion — ‘My heart is already in ashes’ — and died four days later, aged 52, his coffin was carried through those city streets on the shoulders of his fans.

They began singing as a duo in their mid-teens. During twenty-eight years together they recorded more than six hundred songs, for Discos Ecuador, Nacional, Granja, Ortiz, Rondador, Onix, Fuente, Real, Tropical, Fadisa, RCA Victor — and of course CAIFE.

Their exquisitely romantic harmonising is a sublime blend of collected forbearance and abject self-annihilation, underpinned and elaborated by the heart-piercing, improvisatory guitar-playing of Bolivar Ortiz. Effectively the third member of the group. ‘El Pollo’ sets the tone and intensity for everything that follows: listen to his soloing at the start of our opener, Lamparilla.

Musically a pasillo — a cross between a Viennese waltz and the indigenous yaravi rhythm — Lamparilla draws its verses from a poem by Luz Martinez from Riobamba, written in 1918 when she was 15, under the influence of Baudelaire and Mallarme. Another pasillo here, Sombras is one of the best-loved songs in the musica nacional canon, setting lines about undercover sex and loss by the Mexican poet Maria Pren, which were considered pornographic on publication in 1911.

And Benitez & Valencia looked back still further, to the indigenous roots of Ecuadorian music, as the key to its future. Carnaval de Guaranda is their take on a song dating back to the era of the Mitimaes, a broad group of Bolivian tribes conquered by the Incas and displaced to Ecuador. ‘Impossible love of mine / I love you for being impossible / Who loves what is impossible / Is the truest lover.’

Lovingly presented in a gatefold sleeve with spot-gloss, and printed inners, with stunning photos and expert notes. Excellent sound, drawn from original tapes, by way of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas.

Brazilian bossa nova legend with his much revered self titled 1973 album. ROLLING STONE called it one of the 100 best Brazilan albums in history, features Miucha on backing vocals and famous American jazz drummer Sonny Carr.

(Colour Vinyl LP) The Record Store Day 2021 vinyl edition of Super Nova Samba Funk – the comeback album from Banda Black Rio, featuring Brazilian heavyweights Seu Jorge, Marcio Local, Elza Soares, Cesar Camargo Mariano & more. Originally released in 2011, this new special edition for RSD features two tracks from the project that were never released on vinyl, ‘Irerê (feat. Gilberto Gil)’ and ‘Aos Pés Do Redentor (feat. Caetano Veloso)’.