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 !