Embrujo

Chilean band Embrujo's lone self-titled album, originally released in 1971, is one of those records that was beyond the grasp of the public at large for decades, unless you wanted to fork over an unreasonable amount of money for it on eBay. But the psychedelia archivists at Shadoks gave it a 2011 CD reissue, reminding the world of the place this nearly lost classic holds in the history of South American psychedelic rock. Progressive rock was still in its embryonic stages in 1971, and even though the Summer of Love was already receding into the mists of history, psychedelia still had some steam left, probably even more so in South America, where there was still a bit of a time lag for Anglo-American musical influences to take root. In fact, Embrujo had already released an album in the late `60s under the name Kissing Spell, but due to the highly charged political climate of the time, with foreign intervention being a particular hot-button issue, they abandoned their English-language moniker in favor of the Spanish word for "spell." As Embrujo, the band delivered a highly melodic record colored as much by pastoral flute and plaintive piano and organ as guitar, leaning more toward folk and pop influences than the blues-based sounds of the San Francisco psych scene, and occasionally evoking a sort of South American version of Traffic. Even when the guitar comes to the fore, it bears a lyrical, jazzy feel, rather than the fuzzed-out sound that was all the rage in the hippie era. While Shadoks seems to have done as much as possible to clean up the sound, the production here is mediocre to begin with, so the level of fidelity can only get so high. Still, there's enough melodic invention and psychedelic charm to render such concerns negligible. ~ J. Allen