BANANA

The other main musical force behind this affair is, of course, the keyboardist, lead singer and bandleader César "Banana" Pueyrredón. As for the keys, they are always on the bright side of things, contributing symphonic fanfare & soloing (listen to track 2 Víspera) or commanding crisp instrumental charges (listen to tracks 5 El Escultor Y La Estatua and 7 Huellas De La Tierra). The dexterity, being never overcomplex, isn't simplistic either, featuring a great variety of resources in the melodic & harmonic levels, but also in the rhythmic one, with tasty shifts in accent and pace. Being also a very good bandleader, it's in the vocal department where the less remarkable stuff lies. But even so, that relative shortcoming is cleverly managed by resourcing to excellent vocal harmonies, changing register when needed, or tweaking the placement of the voice in the mix. Luckily enough, they never resort to any soundboard effect to modify drastically the natural timbre of César's baritone, which sounds unpretentiously nice and adaptable to the many turns and twists of the music.

What else can I say? The band sounds tight and versatile, adapting themselves to every new mood & move without noticeable effort, the compositions are great in general, and the main sonic references coming to my mind are Kayak, Greenslade, and Supertramp.

It's good to have this album but it is a non-essential piece of progressive rock music.

About 10 years ago I let the album (in CD format) slip out of my hands in favor of Magma's debut. Whilst I adore that album by the crazy zeuhler's in Magma, I have come to regret the decision. It has been 10 long years of trying to get a hold of a copy in CD format. So I haven't excactly devoted all my time in the search, like a prog Indiana Jones, but you get my drift. Just the other day I was fortunate enough to find it in a beautiful papersleeve edition. I was trembling with excitement, I can tell you. At last! The exodus had come to an end. We were finally reunited, Banana and I.

And what about the music? Is this simply a forum for my memoirs? Certainly not. It is primarily a forum for music, so before I drag you all down the path of boredom I will set sail for the proggy garden of the band called Banana.

Who's to say that prog needs to be overly complex? Must the nature of progressive rock at all times be one of impenetrable forests, unclimbable mountains and depths of unfathomable dimensions? I think there needs to be complexity but it need not be overly complex just for the sake of it. It's all about variety, dimension and (in fact) capaility.

To say that Banana offers the most groundbreaking, complex and challenging prog on Earth would be a lie of gargantuan proportions. The music is rather a blend of slightly complex bits and very accessible ones. It could be likened to Camel or Supertramp (if one is to stretch it a bit). One could say it holds similarities to a jazzier Camel flirting with a slightly smoother Supertramp, I guess. It holds both pop, AOR and progressive elements. I do hear echoes of Wakeman's "Journey to the center of the Earth" aswell. It makes up for a delicate and very enjoyable mixture, keeping my interest high.

Keyboards are in the front seat and offers a variety of those. I love keyboards so I find it very pleasing. However, the remaining instruments are as equally compelling, giving texture and structure to this tasteful blend. To me the music resembles deep, dark space where the electric piano acts as glimmering stars in that bewildering universe known as our galaxy. The music is very floating, smooth and emotional. And I love it when music gives me the sensation of gliding through space. It is a very soothing feeling.

The best and by far the most progressive tracks on this pearl of prog are the three longest ones. My favorite tracks are "Vispera" and "Preguntas Al Cielo". These two are magnificent pieces of flowing, gentle quite elaboate prog rock. "Vispera" showcases a great piano intro leading into a very effective guitar riff. Simple yet effective. The main track has to be "Preguntas Al Cielo" with spacey synthesizers and keyboards. The vocals are very pleasant throughout the album and fits in well with the gentleness and kindness of the album. The remaining tracks are all very enjoyable aswell, providing a more pop-rock sound with slightly progressive overtones. The concluding track "Quien Se Acordara" is a late-night jazzy little thing. It rounds off the album in a nice way.

Do not be fooled by me speaking of pop and rock. This is primarily a very nice symphonic prog album. A true work of love and honesty. This album has not diminished in quality over the years. rather it has solidified it's status with me as one of the finest albums coming out of South America in the 70's.

Banana ? That is a type of fruit and a good band name if you do pop or even rock. But a prog rock band ? Nope. A good band name can break you or send you to the scrapheap. It is from the scrapheap this album was rescued from.

Banana does in-offensive generic prog rock in the vein of Yes, Camel and Genesis. I would also add Saga to the mix. The last two songs of this album reminds me about Saga from their Worlds Apart era. Banana's music is neat, at times pastoral and very Genesis from their Selling England By The Pound era. In other words; the golden era.

The quality is good throughout. The lack of identity is the major problem here. I don't think I would be able to get this album if put through a blind test. The album has a slight Latin flair (South American, Iberian and Italian) but that is all. But the music is good though with Un Hombre En La Hoguera as the best song. Another thing about this album is that it is not the Moog or Hammond fest as I expected. There are far more guitars here than the usual Genesis clone fest. That is a positive in my book. This is a good album, but nothing more.

3 stars

Mainly influences are YES, GENESIS or even some melodic FOCUS, but what keeps more rejoicing is the own band melodic Argentina expression. Yeah, the music is more in accessible side, probably not requiring repeated listens to grow on like more adventure Argentina bands such as ALAS, MIA, BU BU, even so I highly recommend "Aun es tiempo..." as the proposal is perfectly reached, I mean the mood is in heart beauty art realm; to get pretty convincing is this field, is also a gift.

"Aun es tiempo de sonar" is a jewel; you have masterly placed organ, moog, ARP, electric piano by the band leader Cesar Pueyrredon (compositions comes from him) and his voice and chorus band are stellar (yeah sometimes his vocal interpretation talent can fit to AOR or popish side). Guitars comes in precise measure. Compositions are coherent and tight.

This BANANA can be compared with PABLO EL ENTERRADOR, but has the advantage of having perfect 70's studio sound production while the last suffers with sonic problems. The authentic south American melodic emotion can also be compared with the Venezuela masterpiece ESTRUCTURA "Mas alla?", but "Aun es tiempo?" is overall a more coherent album.

My 1991 Music Hall made in Canada CD has no band information; Friends told me that the other 4 albums by BANANA are commercial (?), being the only worth to prog ears this 1979 one. I can't take opinion as I never listened their other albums. The 70's rock movement in Argentina was largely more expressive than in Brazil. Here in brazilian seventies, record companies and mainstream critics gave value to brazilian popular music (MPB) as an original creation and rock acts were regarded as something like (my words) " foreign easy to play using loud electric instruments and silly lyrics" music. Funny to remind those times, anyway there are cool 70's prog brazilian bands like SOM NOSSO DE CADA DIA, O TERÇO and MUTANTES (prog phase). BACAMARTE could record only in the 80's.

I should had given 5 stars to "Aun es tiempo de sonar" as it is underrated, here in PA. This is one of the best prog albuns from South America and one of the best romantic prog albuns I know.

The other difference from most symphonic bands is that there is a lot more emphasis on electric guitar, and mostly at the expense of keyboards which play a noticeable but somewhat diminished role. There are some nice synthesizer arrangements here and there, like the strings and organ on the “Un Hombre en la Hoguera” trilogy, and some stilting keyboard progressions on “Preguntas al Cielo” that place the music on the eighties side of the decade change that occurred around the time this released.

But the guitar is the preeminent instrument here, played by various musicians throughout but equally featured on almost every track. The vocals are unexceptional, and were it not for the instrumental arrangements this could just have easily been one of those slightly pretentious acts that Don Francisco invites onto Sábado Gigante once and a while to keep the older folks interested.

This is decent music, very professionally played and with enough nods to several British prog acts of the seventies to convince you the members of the band really listened to that kind of music and liked it. “Vispera” is the most obvious example, with keyboard progressions I’ve heard before from Kansas, Jon Lord and even Genesis. But that’s the point I suppose - there is little here that I haven’t heard before in one form or another.

The group and their one album were the project of Argentinean musician Cesar ‘Banana’ Pueyrredon, who has since gone on to a long and fruitful career (unintentional pun there!) making more mainstream music. This one gets barely a mention in his biography today.

A mildly interesting if rather obscure collection of music that is worth a spin or two if you happen across it, but more as a curiosity than something you’d want to go out of your way to add to your collection. Three stars is fair, and recommended to collectors who are always in the market for something a little different, but not very much so.

peace