AV ABUC

In 1993, three out-of-the-box thinking Cuban musicians and composers recorded a smorgasbord of progressive and avant-rock music in different places around their home country and in Spain, taking until 1998 to complete and release it on a Mexican label only to disappear for the next 22 years. Not a recipe for great commercial success, but as it turns out, it was in fact the recipe for one of the greatest Latin American prog albums in history.

The trio's biggest limitation lay in the fact that while all were clearly skilled keyboard players, in addition to Orlando Bernal being able to play some commendable guitar lines and Pedro Pablo Pedroso holding his own on multiple bowed instruments, excess money and good equipment were probably wanting, leading to a slightly muddy recording quality and an overreliance on cheap digital synthesizers and drum machines (even some bass parts appear to have been played on a keyboard). The production and mixing is all over the map too but somehow all this manages to add up to a strikingly unique sound.

While some common influences such as King Crimson and Henry Cow can be identified throughout the whole album, there is nonetheless a dichotomy between songs that are recognizable as rock, and other tracks that deconstruct that very notion. "Suite #3" is somewhere in the middle, beginning as a fast minimalism-inspired and arpeggio-driven guitar and keyboard piece before promptly making way for a sampled orchestra and atonal violin improvisations, only blending back into something resembling the first part by the song's end. "La Tristeza" on the other hand has no tonal centre at all or even much of a rhythmic centre, sounding more like a dissonant King Crimson jam from the double trio era, while "Anunciación" comes close to electroacoustic free improvisation in its first half and haunted, mournful chamber music being played on an underwater radio in its second part. "Hierba Mala" constantly fights to regain and retain its structure but keeps disintegrating into discordance, resulting in a deeply paranoid, unsettling and unpredictable piece, one of the album's better moments.

Still, the most memorable parts of the album remain the more "conventional" progressive rock songs, including "D' Cada 10 Hombres" and the excellent opener "Parche", both of which emit an air of panicked desperation. The only song that falls in neither category is "Baile De Payasos" which feels much more symphonic and reminiscent of standard adventure film music, the only slight misfire on an otherwise outstanding effort. I also have to give credit to the 1-minute title track that closes the album and managed to fool me thrice in a row as to what it was going to be, starting out as an acoustic guitar shuffle, then turning into a random sound collage before a funky beat starts going which then immediately gives way again to reveal that the track is a random sound collage after all.

The 2021 re-issue (labelled a "remaster" despite few noticeable improvements to the sub-optimal sound quality) adds a track that was left on the cutting room floor: the jazzy Holdsworthy "El Lagarto Del Cuello Rosa" which feels slightly out of place but its cool chord progression and guitar and synth solos are a welcome addition nonetheless.