Various - A Heart In Splinters

Honest Jon's

£25.20

Format: 2 x LP
Catalogue No.: HJRLP085
Release Date: 11 Mar 2022
Genre: International

01. Olga Gutierrez - A Veces He Pensado
02. Hnas. Mendoza Suasti - Alas de Sombra
03. Benitez y Valencia - Amor En Tus Ojos
04. Caspi Shungo - Mal Pago
05. Gladys Viera - Palomita Cuculi
06. Orquesta Nacional - Ponchito al Hombro
07. Lida Uquillas - Tengo un Amor
08. Los Inaquingas - Blanco Lirio
09. Segundo Bautista - La Naranja
10. Benitez y Valencia - Lindos Ojos
11. Los Barrieros - Siendo Triste Vivo Alegre
12. Segundo Bautista - Soledad
13. Raul Emiliani y Hector Bonilla - Imploracion Indigena
14. Caspi Shungo - Indio Soy
15. Duo Aguayo Huayamabe - Mi Ultima Ilusion
16. Conjunto CAIFE - Huasipichay
17. Hnas. Mendoza Suasti - Para Ti
18. Olga Gutierrez - Despedida
19. Lucho Munoz - Lamparilla
20. Hnos. Valencia Con Conjunto CAIFE - Destrozado Corazon
21. Luis Alberto Valencia - Toro Barroso
22. Los Barrieros - Ashcu de Primo
23. Duo Aguayo Huayamabe - Panuelo de Penas
24. Hnas. Mendoza Suasti - Alma Enamorada
25. Benıtez y Valencia - Lamparilla
26. Orquesta Nacional - Atahualpa

Impatiently returning to the golden age of Ecuadorian musica national, this second round of retrievals is more of a selectors’ affair: less reverent, more free-flowing, with more twists and turns. There is no let-up in musical quality, maintaining the same judicious, heart-piercing balance between emotional desolation and dignified endurance, the same bitter-sweet play between affective excess and musical sublimity.

This time around, the woman steal the show. Laura and Mercedes Suasti were child stars, with an exclusive Radio Quito contract. Unlike nearly all the men here, they lived long and prospered: Mercedes died last year, at the age of 93. Gladys Viera and Olga Gutierrez both came to Ecuador from Argentina. To start, Gladys plugged the scandalous new Monokini swimwear; Olga performed for visiting British royalty in 1962. Olga was glamorous but tough. She would make little of the amputation of one of her legs: ‘I don’t sing with my leg.’ She is accompanied on our opener by quintessentially reeling, sultry musica national: haunted-house organ, twinkling xylophone, Guillermo Rodriguez’ heart-plucking guitar-playing, and lilting, dance-to-keep-from-crying double-bass. ‘Sometimes I think that you will leave me with no memories,’ she sings, ‘that you hold only disappointments in store for me… In the future your love will search me out, full of regret. By then it will be too late, there will be no consolation, only disappointment awaiting you.’

Other highlights include the two contributions of Orquesta Nacional: Ponchito Al Hombro, like an off-the-wall forerunner of the Love Unlimited Orchestra, beamed into the tropics from an unknowable time and space; and the tone poem Atahualpa, a mystical yumbo invoking Quito’s most ancient inhabitants, the Kichwa. Also the tremulous, gypsy-flavoured violin-playing of Raul Emiliani, who arrived in Quito from Italy, suffering PTSD from the Second World War; the inscrutable, sardonic experimentalism of organist Lucho Munoz; and the mooing and whistling of Toro Barroso — school of Lee Perry — in which a muddy bull dashes home to his darling chola, fearless, full of desire.

Lavishly presented, with a full-size, full-colour booklet, with transporting art-work and expert notes. Luminous sound, by way of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas.