BANDA ELASTICA

I got this LP yesterday. So - this is the first effort of BE and is maybe too "plane- sounding" compared to their following recordings. But the music is quite interesting having some similarities with first albums of brazilian RIO-ish jazzrock combo Raiz de Pedra. And two tracks (surprise to me) have vocals - weird and rock'n'rollish and in Spanish but that's quite funny. My personal fave is the last and the longest instrumental composition Quepocalipsis with adventurous developments and hot brass + marimbas of course. Very promising album. In my oppinion the following items of BE are even more adventurous and the quality of soundspectrum on these has noticeably got better. 3,5 stars really!

Banda Elastica were definitely among the most legendary names in the Jazz/Fusion/RIO field coming from Mexico, found in 1983 in Ciudad de México and led by keyboardist Rosino Serrano, guitarist Guillermo Gonzalez, bassist Lucio Sanchez, wind instrumentalist Jose Luis Romero, while the group featured also two drummers and percussionists, José Navarro and Rodolfo Nava.They debuted in 1986 with a private self-titled LP.

This was denitely a very daring album regarding its year of release and today ''Banda Elastica'' sounds still fresh and captivating.It is a nice mixture of complicated Jazz/RIO music, featuring plenty of sax and clarinet passages, with Latin-American Folk and more proggy moments, usually highlighted by the nervous keyboards of Serrano.The compositions sound tight, innovative and really challenging, containing countless of interplays and breaks, making the whole listening quite difficult at moments but still enjoyable.The music is strongly based in Jazz/Fusion with very technical performances and a very rich sound, but the band blended it with some nice Latin-American traditional tunes, either coming out of the acoustic guitars and flutes or the somber violin parts and the marimba sounds, which are all over the place.Even better Banda Elastica were lucky enough to have a talented keyboardist and Serrano appears every now and then with some fiery synthesizers, jazzy piano paces and 70's-sounding organs to add the album a very proggy taste, ''Infrasapienz'' even sounds symphonic at moments.Just a couple of short uninteresting instrumental tracks sound like fillers in ''Banda Elastica'', hurting the album's consistency, however the rest of it is pretty outstanding for the most of its length.

Adventurous and complex Jazz/Fusion/Prog of very high musical level and significant value.Strongly recommended to fans who starve for endless interplays and changing moods...3.5 stars.