PIRATA

A hard to find album, I don´t know if it´s been released on CD. I think its the best album by A Barca, The first song is a typical brazilian folk from the countryside. The second song begins with the afro brazilian berimbau, the flute work is really nice, the lyrics are great if you can understand portuguese. the third songs are northeastern style of the baiao rhytms, with fine nylon guitar playing and the solos are with the brazilian viola, a kind of medieval 10 steel string folk guitar used in northeastern and country music. ( a nice sounding instrument by the way dont confuse it with the viola used in orchestras! ). The lyrics are poetic and abstract throughout the record. The highlight of the record is "cavalo marinho ( seahorse )" it starts with a nicely played classical nylon guitar, the singing begins, a touchy and mesmerizing simple poetry. afterwards the 10 string viola enters to make it really surreal, the solo is with the third nylon guitar, the vocal work is great. the tune ends just to the openning of the lenghty intrumental "Jando", that resembles the voyage of the " seahorse " tru the air " as the lyrics implied in the previous song ". The song starts with the Fender Rhodes piano, but is entirely dominated by many amazing flute and flautim solos by David Game, the percussion and vocals are crucial. The song is a crazy moving journey. a must hear! The rest of the Disc is less moving but good as well with a note to "manoel" wich is a typical samba you can hear in some bar in Rio´s copacabana streets, not very progressive though.., and the instrumental Rio Preto is the highlight on the B side of this record, good playing overall. I love it !

Pirata (pirate) was the final CD released by this interesting brazilian band. In the late 70´s prog music was stuck in a rut, so many artists started to look for other ways to deliver their works. The band was fired by their recording company after two LPs that did not produce substantial sales. So, the original Pirata Lp was an independent effort and showed the band shifting to a more traditional path. By this time cellist Jacques Morelebaum had left the fold and his presence is sorely missing. However, the songs were good and showed some promising, even if at the cost of their terrific originality.

All band members were outstanding musicians, capable of tackling almost every style. But this is a very much a record bearing the traditional brazilian sounds of the time: there are sambas, sertanejo, ballads, instrumentals and so on. Nothing that reminded the boldness of their early works. Even the lyrics are more down to earth here. And, sorry to say it, almost not prog at all. It is all very well done and played, of course, but clearly they were trying to reach a more radio friendly approach at the cost of some of their identity: they sound too much like what a lot of artists were doing by the late 70´s in Brazil. Small wonder the record was ignored by public and critics alike.

If you´re looking a for a good, simple, straight brazilian folk rhythms with some prog influences here and there, you should listen to this one. Those guys were skillful and the songwriting is above average. But it is far less challenging and progressive than the two previous ones.

Rating: 2,5 stars that I will round up to 3 for the great musicianship of all involved.