Todas las hojas son del viento

Pescado Rabioso - Artaud - 1973

If Pescado Rabioso had existed in our current times, I'm quite certain that on their Facebook page, in the Status section, they would have chosen "It's complicated".
Halfway through 1973, the band split up due to what's usually called "artistic differences" which, in this case, means that the other members of the band stopped understanding and/or agreeing with the direction that Luis Alberto Spinetta taking. Spinetta, who had created the band, considered that he was the band and released this final album, which is in reality a solo album.
In his personal life, Spinetta had found who would be his wife for 20 years, and the mother of his 4 children. This makes it one of his most personal albums, which is not so much reflected in the lyrics, which are clearly inspired in French surrealistic poet Antonin Artaud, but in the musical style.
It is much different from the previous albums by the band, a much more intimate, jazzy, many times acoustic style than previous albums of Spinetta, and also very different from anything that was being done in Argentina at the time. It's also more experimental, and it would mark the beginning of a musical and lyrical search that would characterise all of his work from this point on.
I think I still like the "old" Pescado more, mostly because it's more my style. Still, this one is considered one of the greatest (if not the greatest) albums in Argentinean rock, and with good reason, because of how innovative it was, and how much quality and complexity there are in some of the songs.
It also has one of my favourite Spinetta tracks ever, a beautiful song called "Bajan".

• As usual, full album can be found here. 
• The song "Por" ("For") has some of the strangest lyrics I have ever heard, which are just a series of nouns without any (apparent) relation, or connection between them. You know, surrealism. 
• The opening track, "Todas las hojas son del viento" ("All leaves belong to the wind") was, for the third time, a song inspired by his ex-girlfriend who, at the time, was pregnant by someone else (they had already broken up), and she didn't know what to do. 
• The cover of the album wasn't square-shaped, but irregular, a sort of irregular star-shaped green octagon over a yellow background, with a picture of Artaud at the top right corner.
• There's a song called "A Starosta, el idiota" ("To Starosta, the idiot"). Starosta was the name of some playing cards he used as a kid and he chose the name because "it sounded a bit like Spinetta". The song refers to the idiot inside of us, and the concept always somehow reminds me of the 1998 Lars Von Trier movie The Idiots. 
• Having more trouble than usual choosing one track here. So I'm choosing two (plus one bonus track). Here we'll have "Cementerio Club", which is a bluesy/jazzy song that I always found a bit haunting and has a brilliant guitar solo. And then, "Las Habladurías del mundo"("The World's Rumours), which is one of the rockier tracks of the album and has some influences from Santana which are great. 

Nekad sam leteo leptir bio i ja

Yu Grupa - Yu Grupa - 1973

The ridiculously vast majority of the music I listen to is in English language, the rest is in Spanish, mostly Argentinean. There are a few bands, here and there in other languages (I even have an album in Esperanto somewhere), but those are exceptions.

Because of that, listening to music in a different language is always a strange experience. So I wasn't really sure what to expect from this album, by Serbian (then Yugoslavian) band Yu Grupa. 

They are a trio and, remarkably enough, they are still playing today. In theory, and according to the information I found, they combine elements of rock with more traditional Serbian music. I really can't hear the latter in this album, which is a very good hard rock album, with some really cool and interesting guitar riffs, and a couple of catchy tunes. There are also a couple of really beautiful ballads. 

The album is a bit uneven, starting off with very good rock / hard rock tracks. Then, in what I guess would be the B side, the energy drops down a bit, with a couple of songs that are a bit more pop-oriented, and two ballads which, as I said, are really awesome. 

I only managed to listen to it a couple of times, and every time I hear it, I seem to like it a bit better, so this is definitely a keeper. 

• The song I'm choosing is "Crni leptir" ("Black Butterfly"), which is my favourite here. It was a very close call between this one and "More"(which doesn't mean "more", but "The Sea"). The title of this section is also from "Crni leptir" and I'm not really too sure what it means (according to Google Translate, it's "I used to be a letting butterfly myself and myself"). 

Lost and not found

There was this album I had at some point, called Amazonas Play Santana, by a band called Amazonas, I guess, doing Santana covers. I can't find it anywhere, and it annoys me a bit because I remember it being quite good. 

I had it when I was not even a teenager, and for the longest time I used to think it actually was Carlos Santana playing. Here's their version of "Black Magic Woman" and I think it's pretty awesome!

Bonus track

• Of course, I was not going to not put "Bajan". I did say it's one of my favourites. This version has Spinetta playing it live with Gustavo Cerati, who was the guitarist and brains behind Soda Stereo, one of the best Argentinean bands. Spinetta died in 2012, Gustavo died in 2014, and they're the two guys I love the most in our music. For me, this is beautiful, it's touching and moving and I could watch it all day.  
• At the end, Gustavo dice "Si hay un sueño cumplido, es este". "If there's a dream come true, it's this one". The respect and admiration those two show to one another is magical.