Name: A Heart In Splinters - More From The CAIFE Label, Quito, 1960-68
Brand: Various

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

HJRLP085

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Colour

black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2022-03-11

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Proper

Tax rate GB

UPC / Barcode

5052442022091

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2 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

Artist

Various

Genre GB

Latin / South American 

Label GB

Honest Jons

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 Quitos 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&amp;M and Pallas.

A Heart In Splinters - More From The CAIFE Label, Quito, 1960-68

Music GB