ARCO IRIS

This self title album represents the most spiritual, "pop" folk side of the band and the less jazzy one. This first effort is characterised by the typical "beat" sound of the 60's. Consequently it's more in the vein of proto-prog bands as Vanilla Fudge and others but with a nice emphasis on acoustic parts. "Quiero Llegar" starts as a calm, "enchanting" song then goes into a rock 'n roll "trip", featuring some beautiful electric guitar solos. "Hoy Te Mire" is one of these mellow, mainstream acoustic ballads, including Spanish lyrics about love and desire. "Camino" is a "sunny", pastoral, romantic ballad with some "naive" pop accents. "Coral" is an emotional and "nostalgic" polyphonic chant with nice dialogues between the voices. "Te Quiero, Te Espero" is an other love ballad, probably the most achieved on this album, very "sensitive" with a memorable, "dreamy" acoustic instrumentation. "Luli" is an acoustic interlude including a "fragile" woman voice. "Cancion de Cuna..." begins as a mysterious, strange folk ballad. The break features some really "weird", "acid" accentuations. "Y Una Flor" is a little poetic folk ballad for flute, guitars and voices. "Tiempo" is maybe the only rock tune on this album. It features captivating jazzy rock sequences dominated by the sax. "Y Ahora Soy" which closes the album starts with a dark musical sentence played by the sax and then goes into a mainstream jazz. A very convincing debut. The band rapidly demonstrated their capacity to impose their own style.

3,5 stars

Released in 1969, the first album from this Argentinean band is very fresh and cheerful. A mellow folk with traditional south american influence, nice voices and an early psychedelic side. On an instrumental level, the guitar is clearly the most impressive instrument with excellent fuzz and wha wha parts. The flute is gentle and contributes to this warm, sunny and soft mood. The band successfully combines gentle pastoral folk and genuine psychedelic inspiration. A promising debut album from an original band.

It is an special and rare album, mixes jazz, rock, southamerican folk, a little of spice. It's not the best album of Arco Iris but it's a good start, and easy to listen. Is a shot album, exept the suite "Y ahora soy" it is a 11 minutes song but is very dumb. This album is for the rainy days. Their style is very particular but is essencial

I've been enjoying this cd this past week and decided to listen to it on my way into work today on this beautiful sunny Saturday. And it was a pleasure listening to this romantic, innocent and almost naive recording from 1969.This band is from Argentina and this is their debut which is very much a Pyche / Folk flavoured album that reminded me constantly of the RPI genre. It's not all laid back but that is the predominant feature of this album. Some nice flute, guitar and sax excursions as well, and I like the Spanish vocals.

"Quiero Llegar" has a relaxing mood to it with reserved vocals.The flute replaces the vocals briefly and I really like the instrumental section that starts before 2 minutes. Lots of bass, percussion and drums.The guitar comes in a minute later sounding quite raw. How cool is this ! "Hoy Te Mire" features fragile vocals in a pastoral setting. It does pick up some before a minute but not for long. "Camino" is a top four track for me. It opens with guitar, flute, vocals and a light beat. Beautiful stuff. It kicks in briefly and the contrasts will continue. I love both the mellow and more aggressive sections.

"Coral" is a short piece with vocal harmonies. "Te Quiero,Te Espero" is mellow with tender vocals.Gorgeous. Piano after 1 1/2 minutes to the end. "Luli" is a short (thankfully) male and female vocal piece totalling 39 seconds. "Cancion De Cuna Para El Nino Astronauta" is another top four track.This is laid back and melancholic with vocals and strummed guitar. Flute joins in too and i'm reminded of LANDBERK especially the acid guitar. Check it out 2 1/2 minutes in. A definite psychedelic flavour to this one. "Y Una Flor (El Pastito)" is mellow with vocals and flute. A strong Folk flavour here.

"Tiempo" opens with sax and drums. I like the beat here with guitar.The vocals here are the most aggressive on the album. It settles back as the sax leads and we get some nice bass too before 3 minutes. Now it's the guitar's turn as they jam. This is great ! A calm with piano and flute ends it. A top four. "Y Ahora Soy" is my final top four and the longest track at almost 12 minutes.This is surprisingly dark with sax to start.That changes when the tempo picks up. It settles back again with sax but it's brighter than the intro. Flute and acoustic guitar come in before vocals and a fuller sound takes over. A change before 7 1/2 minutes then we get this cool sounding beat with sax and guitar before 10 minutes.

A special album that hits that emotional cord.

Usually, late 60's/early 70's albums are not my favorites. It's just not my favorite kind of sound, simple as that. In addition, Psychedelic Rock in general is not my favorite genre as well. However, every now and then we find pearls. And this is one of them! Arco Iris (Rainbow) is a band from Argentina that recorded many records throughout the 70's. Their self-titled debut album is a great album that I can barely say it's Psychedelic. Sure, there are many elements of Psychedelic music here, but I would say that they play a strong Proto- Prog kind of sound. The Prog elements are all here but not quite matured yet.

In addition, the Pop flavor is all around, you can sing along with half of tunes and the other half are more experimental in a way.

I would expect this kind of album from any English band from late 60's, that's where the sound came from anyway. But as I mentioned, every now and then we have some bands like Arco Iris or Os Mutantes (from Brazil) that defies all the major league countries and record true great albums.

Arco Iris (1970) was re-released a couple of times in Argentina, including a 2004 version (with Bonus tracks) and a recent re-edition in Cardboard Sleeve. If you find it? buy it. It'll be worthy!

My first exposure to the music of this highly-acclaimed band from Argentina! I'm excited as I love the inextricably entwined infusion of Latin and indigenous folk traditions poured into South American musics.

1. "Quiero Llegar" (3:51) using a bossa nova/"Take Five" rhythm pattern and palette foundation, some quite lovely folk vocals give it a SERGIO MENDES & BRASIL '66 kind of feel, but then at 1:45 the music takes a turn into a more rock and surfer-rock form for an extended instrumental passage. The first minute of the instrumental passage is early-60s sounding while the final minute takes on more of a DOORS sound and feel with the introduction of a rock electric guitar to deliver a rather aggressive solo. The delicately delivered vocals alone are worth numerous repeats. (9/10)

2. "Hoy Te Miré" (2:21) almost pure folk music with its all-acoustic instrumental palette (simply-strummed acoustic guitar, bass, vocals and background vocals). At 0:58 there is a sudden speed up with an electric lead guitar, but these instances are very brief and only happen twice and are followed by a return to the delicate folk music of the opening only with a zither-like instrument replacing the strummed acoustic guitar (citarina?) (8.875/10)

3. "Camino" (3:57) Prog Folk of a rock nature that turns blues rock with the instrumental final minute. I'm a sucker for these indigenous clay flutes used in South American music. A surprisingly well-composed and rendered song. (8.875/10)

4. "Coral" (1:16) an interesting blending of church/monastic choir vocals with ethnic/indigenous traditions. (4.375/5)

5. "Te Quiero, Te Espero" (2:36) delicately picked electric guitar chords with perfectly-matched electric bass support the delicate harmonized folk vocals of Gustavo and mates. Great, heart-wrenching melodies and harmonies. Reminds me of the power of Tracey Thorne's early solo music. Piano enters at the end to carry the melody home. (9.125/10)

6. "Luli" (0:41) Dana's operatic vocal is a little more warbly with her vibrato than I'm comfortable with. (4.25/5)

7. "Canción De Cuna Para El Niño Astronauta" (4:02) great soundscape created by classical guitar, saxes, and heavily- reverbed "room" of drums, electric bass, electric guitar and one extraordinary lead vocalist. (Still Gustavo?) A song that could have fit in perfectly with the psychedelic rock wave hitting San Francisco in the late 1960s. Awesome. (9.75/10)

8. "Y Una Flor (El Pastito)" (1:57) delicate anachronistic acoustic folk instruments like harp and recorders help found a folk sound for a song that is more folk or liturgical than prog but still excellent and impressive. (4.5/5)

9. "Tiempo" (5:42) sax and rock band instrumentation (heavy electric bass) set up a blues rock flow over which Gustavo sings with a fire and aggressiveness that he doesn't use much on the rest of the album. At 1:30 the music shifts into a little more rock-oriented blues-rock for a brief passage before settling into a full-on psych rock/R&B passage with lots of free-form additions to the music--including wild purcussion and vocal sounds and some proficient wah-wah guitar soloing--all delivered over a very solid and groovy bass and drum rhythm pattern. Nice! Then there are a couple more odd shifts that let me know that this song is really a suite--the final passage being piano and flute delivering a pastoral finish. (8.875/10)

10. "Y Ahora Soy" (11:59) opening with an ominous bass arpeggio that is repeated over and over as it is joined by electric guitar, saxophone and theater/orchestra-like drums. At the one-minute mark the band switches gears to introduce a more jazzy palette and motif over which saxophonist Ara Tokatlian lays down his "vocal" melody for about 90 seconds. Then there is another stop and pause before the citarina and clay flute enter to introduce a more ethnically-traditional theme, but this lasts only about a minute before Gustavo and the rock band rejoin to present some awesome blues-rock music in which vocals, sax, and wah-wah-ed electric guitar take turns playing off one another. A sudden stop and pause at 5:27 seems to want to last, but then everybody comes back in full volume to continue the exposition of the same blues-rock motif--both the heavy and more-plaintive side of it (chorus and verse, respectively). At 7:20 another stop and pause clears the palette for entrance of a Latinized instrumental passage (that sounds like "Tequila") over which Ara saxophone and an interesting variety of percussion instruments weave and solo. At 9:30 that lead instrument becomes a distorted electric guitar. Not anything mind-blowing in terms of ground- breaking or musicianship, this is merely an interesting "first" epic. (21/25)

Total time 38:22

The vocal skills and sensibilities exhibited by these artists are definitely advanced: they all carry their tunes with near- perfect pitch, perfect harmonies, perfect inflection and pronunciation, and perfect dynamics; the vocals alone make this a wonderfully enjoyable listening experience. The infusion throughout this album of more ethnic instruments, melodies, and vocal stylings that are more traditional to South American cultures is something that adds tremendously to its inherent charm.

B/four stars; a very solid and eminently enjoyable debut album from these talented and adventurous musicians. I am left feeling quite excited to continue to move forward chronologically in my exploration of Arco Iris' discography!