VELUDO

Veludo was one of the most important underground bands from Brazil during the difficult 70´s. Several important musicians played in this band and it was not easy to maintain a stable line up. And although their concerts were quite famous and the band cut a big name with the youth, they never released anything during their time, Legend says fans took tape recorders to some of their shows and recorded the basis for this live album. According to the same story, a fan would had pressed 2000 copies of this album in 1975. A nice tale, but unfortunately it seems that someone made it up, since all the official information I got from all the sources I could find (including their own site) tells that those songs were recorded on a cassette direct from the mixing board and only resurfaced in 1985. The first ever release of these tapes came in 1994, when it was released on CD, by bassist Nelson Laranjeiras.

The show was recorded in 1975 during a prog festival called Banana Progressiva. Here we can hear for the first time their music. Obviously the sound quality is not great, but acceptable for the times and circumstances (but a good remastering with available technology would make it much better). Their songs are a complex mix of late 60´s psychedelia, hard rock and symphonic prog plus a few braziian rhythms throw in for good measure. Long instrumental passages are a must with a lot of improvisations and solos, as it was a kind of norm at the period. Clearly not the kind of music the recording companies saw as "marketable". The keyboards parts are the best feature , although some guitar lines are also creative and interesting. The vocals remind of O Terço and Mutantes were doing at that time.

The bonus track . Suite As X Fases Do Homem Comum is very interesting: it´s the only studio song on this album and was recorded some three years later, in 1978, with a completely different line up when it was made. Only Paulinho Laranjeiras and Paul De Castro remained from the original members. At that time they were incorporating folk. latin and and MPB elements to the music. The piece is divided in ten parts and features some guests on vocals and trumpet. Although very different and experimental, it had fine original, creative moments and makes us all speculate how far this band would go if they had indeed released a studio album with that personnel.

All in all I found this record an important document from the brazilian prog scene of the 70´s. It showed that we had many unsung heroes around and I´m glad their voices finally found a way to be heard at last.

Veludo was one of the most important underground bands in Brazil during the 70´s, but never released anything during that time. The only CD available of that period is a live album recorded during a festival in Rio, released some twenty years after the event (although it is erroneously cited as 1975, the effective year of that show). In 2002 founder member Elias Mizrahi (keyboards, guitars and vocals) joined forces with original member Gustavo Schroeter (drums and percussion) and newcomer Lincoln Bittencourt (bass) to record and album under the Veludo banner. The title is a word game with revolta (revolt) and re-volta (re-turn). It went largely unnoticed and only recently I came to know of its existence.

I was not quite happy to see this band coming up as a trio. I wish they had come back as a full band and less like a Elias Mizrahi solo record using the famous name. Certainly the CD has an overall band feeling, but it is also clear that he is is calling all the shots here. Veludo had two distinctive phases during their lifetime: a more straight ahead hard rock;/progressive combo at the first half of the 70´s and a more prog folk outfit after 1975 . Re-volta is more of the first, with generous doses of brazilian popular music and a few jazz rock/fusion leanings added here and there. It´s almost totally keyboards driven, although veteran guitarist/producer Marcelo Sussekind does add guitars on a couple of tracks. The music here in general is good, not too much noodling, all tracks are relatively short. There are a lot of instrumentals, but with Mizhari sounding surprisingly good as the lead singer on the vocal tracks. Sometimes the influences of ELP are obvious (Imperio Romano), but most of the time it sounds like a good mix of brazilian fusion with some progressive moments. It is quite varied and pleasant enough. Nothing to write home about it, but very good and interesting anyway. The best track is the instrumental La Sonata Claríssima (with a very nice guitar solo from Sussekind). Production is also good, but not spectacular.

Overall a nice effort, although not the Veludo I heard of in the 70´s. This is more like a solo album from Elias Mizrahi, and in this vein, quite convincing. Despite of not being what I wanted to hear from them, I was glad to find this CD and it is worth a listen. Final rating: 3.5 stars.

One of the most innovative and experimental groups of 70's Brazilian Prog, Veludo appears to have evolved in 1974 from Veludo Electrico, a band that included some members of more well-known Brazilian groups, like Lulu Santos and Fernando Gama of Vimana.The initial core was keyboardist Elias Mizhrai, guitarist/violinist Paulo de Castro, ex-Bolha drummer Gustavo Schroeter and bassist Pedro Jaguaribe.The later was replaced at some point by Nelsinho Laranjeiras.Featuring a proggy and extremely complex sound, Veludo failed to attract the interest of music companies and their only documented live appearance at Teatro da Fundacao Getulio Vargas in 1975 during a Prog festival was captured due to some fans carrying tape recorders.I doubt that this performance was ever released on vinyl at the time, the only proper release of this performance comes from the 98' CD issue of Sonopress under the simplistic title ''Ao vivo''.

Veludo seemed to share the same passion for experimental, groundbreaking and dark music with the German Kraut Rock acts of the 70's, even if their sound was much more keyboard-driven, occasionally flirting with some E.L.P.-like keyboard fanfares in a Classical/Fusion mood.Another band to come to mind are Canadians EXCUBUS, although Veludo's style was much more improvised and complicated with endless twists and changing tempos.Their 75' live performance includes five rather long tracks with extended instrumental work, based regularly on the Hammond organ, piano and Moog synth workouts of Mizrahi, featuring though a good bunch of abnormal, psychedelic/jazzy guitar moves and exploring the boundaries of Classical Music, Jazz, Avant-Garde and Psychedelic Rock.The result is a schizophenic listening experience with plenty of jamming sections, narcotic soundscapes, extremely dense keyboard tricks and endless shifting themes.The band was fond of creating unique and daring palettes with low-key, experimental textures followed by bombastic jams, always with the keyboards in evidence, while the longer cuts contain also some bits from electronic oscillators, not far from the live executions of KEITH EMERSON.There are still parts in here covering a more rhythmic Psych/Prog path with the organ in the forefront, but this whole sum of different influences ends up in an epitome of Kraut-linked Prog Rock.

This CD features also another piece recorded by Veludo in 1978, when the only original members left were de Castro and Laranjeiras.Paulino Muylaert handles the guitars and flute, Falavio Cavaca comes on voices and percussion, Rui Motta on drums and Constant on keyboards complete the line-up with two guest musicians on vocals and trumpet.''Suite as X fases'' is divided in 10 short themes, resulting 9 minutes of happier and jazzier Progressive Rock with some Latin, psychedelic and Folk tunes added for good measure.Much more structured than the live tracks, this comes as a varied piece of instrumental music with lots of impressive breaks and an overall more optimistic atmosphere due to the heavy use of trumpet.

Kraut Rock and Experimental Prog lovers should hurry and pick up this album.Basically this is keyboard-led, Kraut-tinged Prog Rock with loose arrangements, numerous, flexible climates and powerful instrumental deliveries.Recommended, an almost unknown pearl of the 70's and totally different from what you would expect by a Brazilian Prog Rock band.