From Chile comes another long time great progressive band that has announced this will be their last recording as a band. They go out with a bang! Included with this nice fold out package is a booklet and on the disc is a CD-ROM section. It gives you two live performances, pictures, and lyrics in English to aid the enjoyment and involvement in the concept of the music.
It’s already so difficult for any progressive band to be heard, get gigs, gain large fan bases, and even come close to making a living off their music. La Desooorden took on the task of staying independent and releasing their own music over something like 18 years and have not been heard on a large scale in too many countries. The music on this CD is exotic, varietal, jazzy, vibrant, intelligent, and powerful. It’s a sad day for me to know this is their last output. The fruitful thriving artistic talent in the band is clearly in the high ranks of anything I have ever heard. I love the equal spoonfuls of avant garde, jazz fusion, ethnic, native, and rock that they stir the pot with. The vocals are in Spanish but like all the endless import bands I have loved from all over the world, that also sing in their native language, I have still loved them the same, and maybe sometimes more. Remember when you have heard a couple of translation issues only to see how it totally threw off the meter and rhythm of the songs? (example ‘The World Became The World” by PFM, that lost some of it’s stability with the English vocal version).
The movements in the music are swift and immediately satisfying. There is a sense of getting to the point and also one of importance that every second count. At times I feel they are putting their sorrow of ending into the music. It’s potent with raw emotion and the passion of the playing is head first evident. I love the added trumpet and winds in places where the guitar is crunching nice Fripp chords ala “Red”. Part of this awakens me to the old days of Osanna and ZAO. I also hear moments of Nova but there is much more than any of these comparisons to enjoy. Violin, reeds, woodwinds, didgeridoo, tambourines, guiro (along with other native South American instruments) and nature sounds take you on a tumbling journey to far away places (at least in your mind). You’re often jerked back into reality by a robust guitar entrance and some more fire jumping music. You’re treated to everything but the kitchen sink with integration of free jazz, zeuhl, ballad, and fusions of many sorts. The unique combinations of instruments and arrangements is something to behold. I don’t say this lightly. I’m highly impressed with this epitaph.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED and I dream of this band deciding to get back together. Other than that, I look forward to any and all solos the members might do in the future.
Reviewed by Lee Henderson on July 10th, 2012
