#progarchives

A very dissonant band. Not (at all) mainstream music. Classically trained musicians working in a genre that isn't for usual melodic/loud/groovy listeners. [This may be the only song I go back to, once in a while.]

A read-up on the band from the Progarchives page can help get some idea...

Desde Chile, Perú, Bolivia, Argentina, puntales de la música andina más o menos politizada de los años setenta: Quilapayún, Inti Illimani, Los Kjarkas, Los Calchakis, Savia Andina... pero en lo tocante a su fusión con el rock, sobre todo los chilenos Jaivas ("Alturas de Macchu Picchu", "Las Obras de Violeta Parra"). "Mira Niñita" es una de las mejores de su segundo álbum homónimo de 1971 con la colaboración de Patricio Castillo de Quilapayún tocando el charango. La canta Eduardo “Gato” Alquinta, motor de la revolución musical en los Jaivas. Como unos Módulos andinos. Ese LP, también conocido como "La Ventana", fue el de su gran éxito "Todos Juntos".

"Eventualmente, Los JAIVAS desarrollaron un sonido único que es difícil de comparar con cualquier banda conocida de rock progresivo. ¿Quizás podrías decir "Los Incas conocen a Mike OLDFIELD"?". Progarchives.

Reprinted by permission. Read the original review here.

The most recent double album of CARY GRACE wanders in the realms of pleasant vintange psychedelic rock music. The album is built from three types of songs; Longer jam- oriented songs varying leght from eleven to twenty four minutes, shorter compositions  emphasizing melody and songwriting approach, and the some shorter middle sections,  resembling little "Promenades" of Moussorgy's "Pictures at an Exhibition" for these tracks.

Beautiful "Scarab" opens the album with pretty acoustic minor-key melodies and vocals,  giving fine first impression for anybody open to acid folk, pleasant lady singer's voice and  an analogue synthesizer sounds. First "Between Pages" shifts in as calm and melancholic  progression lead by keyboards. The next song is then a first longer track here, "Cassiopeia 1572" running over thirteen minutes. Oriental resembling chords starts the song, and it's feeling is more playful and peculiar. Tender instruments are weaved around a bass guitar  playing nice high pitch patterns. Like the name suggests, the synthesizers deliver spacey cosmic tones to the pleasant, free and relaxed comsic jamming built from two modal  themes between a more stagnant galactic aural space. Second mellow "Between Pages"  introduces the longest track of the album, "Queen of Pentacles" running over twenty four minutes. The song forms a kind of circle, borne from quiet pulsings, distant sounds and  growing bass guitar presence, then chord change leading to a theme for singing and  marching rhythm which swithes with a harder guitar riff. Later the song ends to same  theme and ambience from where it started, and between lies a fine, long, hypnotic jam lead  by both synthesizers and guitar solos. This spontaneous song really flows pleasantly and  logically, feeling much shorter than the time it really lasts. Great!

Second disc starts with the third "Between Pages", which delivers more playful feeling after  the long trip, and leads to "Dream Catcher", an euphoric and beautiful song with some  slighlty oriental chords. Fourth "Between Pages" is a bluesy shorite, referring the melody of  the first song in a nice way. It prepares well for the following "Helleborus", written and  performed in the way of bluesy 60's American psychedelic sound (JEFFERSON AIRPLANE  is an association here for me). In the jam section a violin mingles neatly with the guitar,  creating a relaxed hazy summer feeling in line with the mellow melancholy of the other  tracks of the album. Vocal sections visit and fade away from the theme variations, and the  song ends to an electronic ambience leading to the final title track, "Perpetual Motion". This song excluding 20 minutes of lenght starts pleasantly, fading in directly to an active  improvistation process, pleasantly wandering keyboards presenting the theme for group's  support. A bluesy meldoy theme circles lingering around one note, tension gaining height  calmly. The bass progression varies the note progressions for calmly voyaging  synthesizers and guitars in a dreamy echo-treated realms, flowing towards a quiet cosmic  direction, where the song and album at the end fades.

So, the dominant overall impression for me here was a calm, pleasant, mellow and pretty  psychedelic musical trip. Often this kind of music is also aggressive, neurotic and chaotic,  but here we get quite accessible, but still vintage, personal and pleasant experience  without psychosis. Thus I find the album and artist recommendable to the vintage psych  prog portfolio for the fans of the music genre concerned. If desccribing with comparisons,  some kind of idea of the music style could be blending cosmic synth sounds of 70's  HAWKWIND to the tender "Meddle"-era PINK FLOYD tones with touch of psych folk, strong  synthesizer presence and female voice in front!

"Autumn" es un temazo en muchos sentidos. Por calidad, que es lo que siempre andamos buscando, pero también por los 9 minutazos, un rasgo típico del hard rock progresivo de la época. Es un género que me encandiló durante mucho tiempo y ahora tengo un poco abandonado, pero que siempre tengo en la récamara. Nunca faltan dos o tres buenos discos de rock progresivo en mi mp3. "Reflections", de Twenty Sixty Six And Then (queda claro que para ser progresivo se debe empezar por tener un nombre muy progresivo) acostumbra a ser uno de ellos. Es un disco que descubrí gracias a un magnífico blog que ahora, lamentablemente, está desaparecido pero que era de lo mejor que nunca vi en el género. De cualquier modo siempre nos quedará progarchives.com (pese a que esta banda no aparece, es el mejor archivo de rock progresivo que hay en la web sin ninguna duda).