Okay I have a problem with this album and it is not in the sound or quality of the music, or anything to do with the band or the music, which is rather quite lovely. But what it has to do with is this, as a re-release it presents very little information about the band. There is this like one page write up inside about how they recorded this album. Now perhaps they re-issued the first album and filled it with loads and loads of information, but I have never heard of Blops before and was hoping to get at little something from it.
Now I know you will say well you can just look it up on the internet, but I expect something a little more from re-releases. Like: a reason why this is still relevant and deserves to be re-released, and really what does it cost to spend a little time and effort in chronicling the bands efforts etc, and at least give a little re-cap of their history for those that don’t know a thing about them.
I was looking at some releases from the Omni Recording Corporation and maybe this has spoiled me because these are excellently done, lots of stories and tidbit’s about the albums. Break downs of songs interviews with the band members. Lots of goodies for those who are interested. As after all isn‚Äôt the whole point of re-issuing something, to try to give people a chance to discover some excellent music that has perhaps been forgotten (or as a total cash grab for recognized bands, re-mastered my ass Beatles)?
And now onto the positive, for Blops are something that truly deserves to be re-discovered. This is an excellent album. Okay Del Volar De La Palomas was originally released in 1971, as a sort of psych/prog folk outing for the Chilean Blops. It has this weird what sounds to me like a traditional Spanish folk feel but mixed in with these strange instrumentations and really nice choruses and sort of trippy vibes. It is actually very pretty and I suppose nice to listen to even while it is very sort of strange and psychedelic prog.
Apparently the master tapes were destroyed for everything that was released on this label (DICAP) which was a communist youth friendly label during this time of socialist reform and progression in Chile, however after the military coup of 1973 and Pinochet took power the army destroyed all their master tapes and stuff . Which is really pretty fucked. I guess I have hard time imagining something like this being seen as a threat to the state, though I suppose my lack of knowledge of Spanish could have something to do with this lack of comprehension. I have no idea if Blops were politically active or not. But that still is pretty fucked. This is the kind of stuff I would have found even more fascinating. Yes I agree, it has nothing to do with the music, but I find music made in these times of turmoil to be really interesting.
But yeah the music is really good. It gets you sort of swaying and is very surrealist and dreamlike. Just really gets you into this otherworldly space and that is pretty damn neat. Yeah the music is totally otherworldly and subdued enough to not yell at you, but still with some nice, I guess it‚Äôs flamenco style guitar playing and lots of pan flutes and pianos. And vocals are incredibly subtle and really well done and interesting. But now it’s got me curious about what else a communist youth record label from the 1970s was releasing.
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