Mardel-X
Contraluz : Americanos (1973)***°° -click picture for color version-
Contraluz made a great album in 1973 with a nice progrock but mostly heavy rock sound, heavily influenced by Jethro Tull, especially the flute. The singing is Argentine rock, with emotional vocals. Some songs have really raw heavy part, with enough space in the songs for quieter instrumental passages. Good album !
“We started off as a kind of imitation of Jethro Tull (see picture) but throughout the years we have evolved to a symphonic rock influenced by local folk music such as the "Carnavalito" (which in fact comes from Bolivia) with a touch of "milonga" or "tango" every now and then.
A couple of years ago we played as opening band in a theatre in Buenos Aires where Steve Hacket performed and we keep playing regularly in local concerts. Our instruments include drums, electric bass, electric and Spanish guitar, keyboards, "charango", "legüero" drum, "papus" (a kind of mini-guitar bought in the USA) and traverse flute.”
Private Contraluz : Ramos Generales (2003)***'
The new album has a more “sophisticated” & well recorded sound with some folkloristic, tango, jazzy piano, and other elements used here and there as varied instrumental themes in between the songs. The flute sound is still there too, at various moments. The instrumental ideas melodically are mostly built around the songs. This widely worked out variation gives the song orientation an unusual approach, making it interesting enough for the progressive music listener. And most songs really work that way very well. One or two tracks emphasize a bit more on the song itself, even when they are more than 7 minutes in length. In general we have pretty long tracks, most of them are over 7 minutes, with 2 counting over 10 minutes, showing a variety of arrangements like I described before. Here and there it becomes even more a kind of symphonic progressive, like in “Llevo..a mi padre” (11 minutes). Most clear "progressive rock" elements are perhaps shown in the accompanying instrumentation of “El despertar de la bestia” (7’39”). I don’t understand enough Spanish to understand the complete score.
More info on Contraluz :
CONTRALUZ DISCOGRAPHY:
AMERICANOS (1973) - Vynil LP (45') EMI
QUE TU VOZ SE ESCUCHE (1974) - Vynil single (7') EMI
EL PASAJE (2000) - CD
RAMOS GENERALES (2003) - CD
