A.L.F. - Undiscovered Brazilian Treasure.
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Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Suggest New Bands and Artists
Forum Description: Suggest, create polls, and classify new bands you would like included on Prog Archives
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=81889
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Topic: A.L.F. - Undiscovered Brazilian Treasure.
Posted By: yam yam
Subject: A.L.F. - Undiscovered Brazilian Treasure.
Date Posted: October 11 2011 at 10:15
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Brazil is famous for several things: great football, gorgeous women, amazing carnivals, The Amazon (not the one you get your CDs from, of course, but the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world)...and some pretty fine music. There have been a few threads on here regarding Brazilian prog bands over the last couple of years - this one from last year: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=68287" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=68287 , another from 2009: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=55149" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=55149 , and there is also an extensive list you can view of artists from the country who are already on here: http://www.progarchives.com/Bands-country.asp?country=108" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/Bands-country.asp?country=108 . Some bands are quite well known and appreciated (for example Os Mutantes & Bacamarte), and deservedly so too - others far less so, an example being Arion, who despite being together for almost 10 years, and opening for the great Dutch masters Focus when they toured the country in 2002, only ever released one self-titled (and extremely good) album in 2001. Now imagine that you could take all the elements that made Yes such a great band back in the early seventies, and fuse them with some of the more recent subtleties of 21st century prog? Well, a band called A.L.F. (an abreviation of Alien Life Form, not Animal Liberation Front!) did just that in 2004 with an album they released called "Lonelyness Is Mirror" (yes, that's how it was spelt on the album cover!). The band was created by Renato Jardim, the former lead singer of another Yes-inspired Brazilian band called Grandbell (who ARE on here, and released just one excellent album in 1996 called "The Sun And The Embryo"), and drummer Daniel Fontoura after the pair reputedly met up at a Transatlantic Concert in 2001. They were basically a four-piece band, but used several guest musicians to fill out their sound during the recording of the album. Personnel: Renato Jardim - vocals and 12-string guitar Marcelo Playker - guitar Guilherme Aguiar - bass, backing vocals Daniel Fontoura - drums Guest musicians: Malcoln Robert - keyboards, Henrique Wilasco - guitar, Felipe Karan - violin, and Fernando Petri - keyboards The album itself consists of five quite lengthy tracks, the first being a 24-minute epic (in 6 parts), and the last one also stretching beyond the 10 minute mark. "Lonelyness is Mirror" (2004) Tracklist: 01 - Endless Goodbye (24:14) Aslang Chronos Scaling the Wall Air Dance A Bath in the Lake of Fire Healing the Stoned Heart Back to the Wall 02 - By The River (6:48) 03 - Mystery Ride (6:15) 04 - What My Story Would Tell (7:01) 05 - Loneliness is Mirror (10:27) The first track is almost an album in itself, and the whole album features some majestic musicianship, superb songwritng, and an excellent vocal performance from Renato, who at times you could almost swear was Jon Anderson, albeit at a slightly lower pitch. Make no mistake, this is a fine album, and how it has remained such an unknown gem for 7 whole years is a total mystery. Proggnosis have a review of it on their site (M.J. Brady, Feb 2006): http://www.proggnosis.com/PGRelease.asp?RID=18444" rel="nofollow - http://www.proggnosis.com/PGRelease.asp?RID=18444 , where the album is compared to Hamadryad's first CD - "Conservation of Mass". On that site they state the resident bass/keyboard player as being Fernando Ptrio, but to the best of my knowledge he was only a guest musician (playing keyboards, even though bass is his main instrument) & his real name is Petri (Ptrio being a nickname he was given after he formed a 3-piece instrumental group in Porto Alegre in 1997). The review even goes as far as suggesting that the CD is in many ways is better than a lot of Yes's own discography, and I for one would certainly tend not to argue with that as far as their later offerings are concerned. OK enough of the crap - let's listen to some music! Sadly, the only YouTube video I can find, which features just a brief clip of them (about 3 minutes of "Endless Goodbye"), is one called "Progressive Metal Masterpieces 11 - Prog Rock Edition" (which contains no prog metal whatsoever, but that's another story...) There are four very decent pieces of music on it, so by all means have a listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuuJC56Ron4" rel="nofollow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuuJC56RoN4 , but I'm not going to bother embedding it here. For samples we actually have to go to a Brazilian website: http://som13.com.br/#/alf" rel="nofollow - http://som13.com.br/#/alf which gives samples of each of the five tracks, lasting a little over 6 minutes each. When the page loads, click on the little arrow to the left of the green + symbol next to each of the tracks listed under the heading "A.L.F ouvir músicas mais escutadas" (about half way down the page) and they'll open up in the player and remain there as a playlist as more are tracks added and listened to. (Edit: another site that streams the same content, but autoplays it on my computer once the page has loaded is this one: http://palcomp3.com/alf/" rel="nofollow - http://palcomp3.com/alf/ ) We also have drummer Daniel Fontoura's myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/danifontoura/music" rel="nofollow - http://www.myspace.com/danifontoura/music , where he has kindly provided full versions of "Loneliness is Mirror" and " By The River" for us to enjoy. However, your experience of this great band will not be complete until you have heard the opening track "Endless Goodbye" in its entirety. So far I haven't found it streaming in full anywhere on the web, but I will keep looking. In the meantime enjoy what we have so far, I really feel that this band were crazy to quit after just one album - with a bit more refinement in the production department I reckon they had the potential to have become massive. Unfortunately I suppose Brazilian bands just aren't fashionable outside of that country, despite their undeniable talent and creativity, so just like Arion and Grandbell before them they became a sadly neglected 'one-album wonder'. And that, it must be said, is a tragedy.  Edit: For what it's worth, I forgot to include the fact that "Loneliness Is Mirror" was voted third best album of 2004 by a National band in Progressive Rock Brazil's music poll for that year, with a vote tally of 20% - and A.L.F. themselves were voted second best National band, with a score of 60%!! http://www.rockprogressivo.com.br/pesquisas/2004.htm" rel="nofollow - http://www.rockprogressivo.com.br/pesquisas/2004.htm 
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Replies:
Posted By: Andy Webb
Date Posted: October 11 2011 at 18:02
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Nice stuff, very melodic and peaceful. I think they would be a nice fit for Crossover - I'll alert the team. ------------- http://ow.ly/8ymqg" rel="nofollow">  
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Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: October 12 2011 at 07:52
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Common Yam, it is Loneliness, not Lonelyness. But because I wondered if it's not by purpose, I was getting no results at all.
------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu  Even my |
Posted By: yam yam
Date Posted: October 12 2011 at 10:25
The actual word in the title on the album cover is "Lonelyness", as you will see from the image of it in this video: You often see it spelt on various sites it as "Loneliness", I know - but "Lonelyness" is the way the band intended it to be! Enjoy this great piece of music, which at last is up on YouTube in its entirety!  |
Marty McFly wrote:Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: October 13 2011 at 01:46
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I see. You know, I even follow your two links (brazil one and Proggnosis) seeing Loneliness there, can this conspiracy be so big ? The way band intends it to be is of course the true way, so Y stands and I stand corrected. ------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu Even my |
Posted By: yam yam
Date Posted: October 13 2011 at 09:43
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Many album titles have deliberately used the wrong spelling of words over the years. It is nobody's right to change them to the correct English way, but so many times it happened with this band! I hope they make it into the database.
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Posted By: Marty McFly
Date Posted: October 13 2011 at 11:36
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Yes, I don't know any example now, but I'm sure I saw many such album titles, band names, songs ... but they are usually spelled correctly. This is by far the most wrongly spelled album name I've seen. So many websites have it wrong.
------------- There's a point where "avant-garde" and "experimental" becomes "terrible" and "pointless," -Andyman1125 on Lulu Even my |
Posted By: yam yam
Date Posted: October 13 2011 at 12:24
Very true indeed! As long as they are remembered for the excellent album they gave us, I think we can probably accept either method of spelling their name. The one used on the album cover has to be the absolute correct one though. Sorry if I caused confusion in my O.P.
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Posted By: Windhawk
Date Posted: October 23 2011 at 13:36
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added to Crossover.
------------- Websites I work with: http://www.progressor.net http://www.houseofprog.com My profile on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/ |
Posted By: Fernando Petry
Date Posted: February 24 2012 at 16:30
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I was a member of ALF, playing bass and keys live and keys on the record. If you want to get the full record I would be glad to send you all the mp3 files. Send me an email to mailto:[email protected]" rel="nofollow - sete.luas AT yahoo.com.br I am a music producer and teacher, so If you want to check my progressive instrumental stuff, feel free to check my 5 records at http://www.ptrio.com.br" rel="nofollow - www.ptrio.com.br . Also, in 2012 I´ll be releasing an amazing prohressive project called Fractal Illusions. This CD features the ALF singer Renato Jardim - you can check here http://www.fractalillusions.tk" rel="nofollow - www.fractalillusions.tk To rap it up... the album cover was written on purpose... Best wishes Fernando Petry |
Posted By: yam yam
Date Posted: February 24 2012 at 19:19
Welcome to Progarchives, Fernando!  Thank you so much for the information you have given us here! I looked at your website and have checked out samples of your albums at your myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/ptriomusic" rel="nofollow - http://www.myspace.com/ptriomusic . All but two of the samples are short previews of just over a minute long, but from what I did hear I feel you could be considered for inclusion on the site in your own right under JR/F subgenre. Is there some place where we could find more (and complete) samples of your stuff? I didn't find any music on your website, only the basic information about the songs on each album. The streamed snippets from Fractal Illusions website sound very good indeed - as soon as the album is released I'm sure there will be no problem getting the project added to our site. I also looked at Renato Jardim's Skyfox 8 project, and once again, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that this is excellent material for Progarchives, so I will make a suggestion in this forum for their inclusion sometime over the next few days. Thank you again for dropping in and sharing this information with us, and for your previous contributions to the excellent A.L.F. band.
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Posted By: Fernando Petry
Date Posted: February 25 2012 at 08:57
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Thank you About my stuff... besides the short clips from amazon and Itunes in my website http://www.ptrio.com.br" rel="nofollow - www.ptrio.com.br I have another website where I deal more internationaly and you can listen to some other samples and my very first record in its entirety http://www.fernandopetry.tk" rel="nofollow - www.fernandopetry.tk Send me an email to mailto:[email protected]" rel="nofollow - sete.luas AT yahoo.com.br and I will send you the ALF record so you can post it here. I can send you some of my songs too (but only the ones which I have the full copyright) My 6th instrumental record is coming out soon and so is Fractal Illusions record. I will keep you guys posted for shure, I will share with you guys some material. Thanks for your kind words and keep up this amazing space for the Progressive Rock lovers (the best music genre ever made) Best wishes Fernando Petry
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Posted By: Marcelo Playker
Date Posted: May 08 2014 at 22:42
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Full Song - Endless Goodbye https://soundcloud.com/marceloplayker/01-endless-goodbye  Marcelo Playker.
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