AO VIVO

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.