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Sui Generis - Confesiones de Invierno - 1973
Sui Generis - Pequeñas Anécdotas sobre las Instituciones - 1974

It was bound to happen. At some point, I would completely forget about some albums.
I had a different set of Argentinean albums, one of them being the one I'll be posting below. But in the meantime, I realised I had forgotten about the other Sui Generis albums, so here they are.
When I wrote about their first album, Vida, I mentioned how they were mostly a folk-rock duo. In these albums, their sound changed quite a bit.
Confesiones... still keeps a bit of that folk rock sound, although the songs are less naive than in their debut album. But there are elements that are a lot more rooted in straightforward rock, and some other that veer a bit towards a form of symphonic rock. The latter style is, actually, what I like the least from the album. I think they were much better at either rock or folk-rock.And, at least in this album, their attempts at a more symphonic sound end up coming across as unfinished and a bit lame. Their rockers, like "Bienvenidos al Tren" ("Welcome to the Train"), or "Mr. Jones" are fun and energetic, and still sound quite fresh after all these years. The more melodic tunes are all simply classics, and they're probably much better than anything they had done before.
Instituciones is even farther removed from their original sound, and that's probably the reason why it's been the album I've always listened the least to. It was also quite poorly received by both critics and audiences at the time. Listening to it now, I realise it's really not that bad, although I think they went a bit too far with the use of keyboards, and some of the songs feel a bit too long (and this is coming from someone who doesn't find "Echoes", "Tubular Bells" or "Supper's Ready" long at all). I don't think the length of the songs is the problem, most of the longest ones are about 6 minutes long. Rather, I think there was a lack of form in them, as it would sometimes happen with the more symphonic attempts with many bands.
So, definitely a plus for Confesiones, and a big maybe for Instituciones.
  • As usual, you can find the whole albums on Youtube. Confesiones is here, and Instituciones is here
  • They had taken a liking for long song titles. In Confesiones, we have "Mr. Jones, o Pequeña semblanza de una familia tipo americana" ("Mr Jones, or small portrait of a typical American family"), "Tribulaciones, lamentos y ocaso de un tonto rey imaginario, o no" ("Tribulations, sorrow and decline of a foolish imaginary king, or not"). 
  • Instituciones was recorded and released during quite violent times in Argentina. Most of the lyrics have political content, including censorship, repression, and injustice. 
  • One of their biggest classic is "Rasguña las piedras" ("Scratch the rocks"), from Confesiones. The lyrics begin with the line that I chose for a title, which translates as "Behind the walls that were built yesterday", and continues saying "Te ruego que respires todavía" ("I beg you to continue breathing"). There was a myth stating that this referred to a girlfriend of Charly García's who had been buried alive by mistake. 
  • I am putting "Rasguña las piedras" and "Pequeñas delicias de la vida conyugal" ("Small delights from the spousal life") from Instituciones. The former is a classic, the latter is one of my favourite songs from that album.


Yo era un hombre bueno, si hay alguien bueno en este lugar

PorSuiGieco - PorSuiGieco - 1976

Ok, back to our current year. 
It's funny how memory can deceive us. I was pretty excited about listening to this album. For some reason I remembered it as if it was an almost "hidden gem". Not that it's a completely unknown album, and some of its songs were relatively well known, but it's a bit less known than the ones above, for example. 
PorSuiGieco was a sort of "supergroup" formed by Raúl Porchetto, both of Sui Generis members and folk-rock singer León Gieco. A female singer, María Rosa Yorio also took part in the group. Apparently, their full name was PorSuiGieco y su banda de avestruces domadas (PorSuiGieco and their band of tamed ostriches). They only released one album and had a "tour" (three gigs, actually). 
Most of the songs are quite melodic, and rely heavily on vocal harmonies. That's one of the problems, because most of the vocals are too high-pitched for my liking (Yorio, of course, but also Nito Mestre and Porchetto). Charly was never a good singer, so that leaves only León Gieco. And it's actually the songs he sings that I ended up liking the most. 
There's also something seriously wrong with the mixing / production of the album. This has been the case since I could remember. All the songs sound very low, the vocals get lost sometimes. 
A bit of a disappointment, to be honest. Still a few good songs here. 
  • You can find the whole album here.
  • The album was released only days before the 1976 military coup. The original pressing had the song "El Fantasma de Canterville" ("The Canterville ghost" , just like Oscar Wilde's story). The song was censored, but not before some vinyls managed to make it to the market (without naming the song). The song would also be put in León Gieco's album released that same year, and also sung live by Sui Generis. 
  • I'm putting that song here. It's by far the best song of the album, and it's also a bit of a classic. 

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