AVE SANGRIA

A charming bit of Brazilian psychedelic hippy folk-rock. At points it seems a little reminiscent of the folkier moments in David Bowie's early discography, but such influences are quickly mastered and integrated into a distinctly Brazilian take on the general style. The use of keyboards and synthesisers are for the most part understated but give a refreshing twist to proceedings. Had this emerged in, say, California in the 1960s people would have been all over it; as it stood, Ave Sangria don't seem to have gained much traction outside of Brazil, and to be honest over time I find it gives diminishing returns unless you are very into the samba aspects of the group's sound.

AVE SANGRIA (Sangria Bird as evidenced on the rather bizarre album cover) was a rare example of a progressive folk rock band that came from the western most part of Brazil in the Pernambuco region and released this one specimen of progressive psychedelic folk rock in 1974. While psychedelic folk that mixed in European progressive rock was unusual in Brazil, there were other bands such as Alceu Valença, Flaviola, Bando do Sol, Lula Côrtes, Marconi Notaro and Lailson that ventured down the same path and like their more famous contemporaries Os Mutantes utilized their own native Brazilian musical styles to add flavor into a more European derived sound.

The band started out under the name Tamarineira Village but took the advice of a gypsy friend who suggested the admittedly better band name AVE SANGRIA. The band consisted of Marco Polo (vocals), Ivson Wanderly (guitar), Paulo Raphael (guitar, synthesizer, vocal, Almir de Oliveira (bass), Israel Semente (drums) and Agrício Noya (other percussion) and together would craft their one and only self- titled album that found the band the subject of military and government censorship for their hippie ideals and outlandish stage performances where they wore lipstick, kissed each other and talked dirty on stage. They sort of had a punk attitude and a glam rock image but were considered extremely shocking by the 1970s conservative values of Brazilian culture. Lyrics are exclusively in Portuguese.

Bandleader Marco Polo was a former legal scholar and led an unsuspecting sheltered band out of their home enclave of Recife and took them to the wild and crazy big city of Rio de Janeiro and without any recording experience under their belts the band successfully created a splendid album that mixed the disparate elements of 60s based psychedelic folk and rock, progressive rock and the Brazilian musical styles of samba and xote. Like most Latin American based traditional musical styles, AVE SANGRIA's addition of their own local flavor allows a super catchy, instantly infectious mix of musical styles that offered the band a small amount of success within Brazil but never caught on beyond its borders. Unfortunately the band ruffled all the wrong feathers and found themselves censored and harassed by the government which ultimately led to their disbanding and only leaving behind this one and only album.

Despite all the censorship, the album sold fairly well in some parts of Brazil but not enough to keep the interest of record companies upon which bands were utterly dependent in those days particularly in far flung regions of the globe. AVE SANGRIA crafted a beautiful mix of rock and folk tinged with progressive elements and local homegrown extras. While this album would fall into the obscurity bin for most of its existence after its initial release, it has been reissued on a remastered CD formate in 2014 but nonetheless remains hard to find, at least for a decent price. In this case, the internet is your best friend. AVE SANGRIA's one and only album is an excellent mix of Brazilian and European folk, nice heavy guitar rock workouts and tasty solos. Even the synthesizers scream the early 70s. This one deserves to be rediscovered.