VIA PRESS RELEASE | Originally released in 1971, during the dark days of the military dictatorship in Uruguay, Musicasión made a strong and lasting impression on Juana Molina when she was a child. The forthcoming new 50th anniversary reissue, out June 3 on Sonamos (Juana’s recently-formed label), is a patient labor of love conducted by Juana and her associate producer Mario Agustin Gonzalez. This beautifully-crafted reissue of a lost masterpiece is available on limited-edition 2LP and CD. The release includes 16 unreleased tracks plus an informative album booklet.
Musicasión was a series of collective shows by a group of artists, mixing theatrical elements, poetry, improvised stage effects and music with a very special blend of rock (then called Cbeat, in a dual reference to British pop bands of the sixties and to Beat Generation poetry), candombe (the percussion-driven style created in Uruguay among the descendants of liberated African slaves) tango, jazz, and bossa nova. A combination which bears more than a passing resemblance with Brazilian Tropicália, which originated around the same time.
The masterminds behind the concept was the great singer, songwriter and composer Eduardo Mateo and his friend Horacio Buscaglia, a poet, actor and theatre director. Four different Musicasión productions were staged in 1969 (for a total of 14 performances), featuring musicians from Mateo’s band El Kinto and a host of other artists. The original album was put together in 1971, using recordings made before and during these performances.
Already a revered singer-songwriter at the time, Horacio Molina (Juana’s father) was acquainted with Eduardo Mateo who came to visit him when he traveled to Argentina. “Musicasión 4 1⁄2 arrived at my home because Mateo gave it (and dedicated it) to my dad when he came to Buenos Aires to record “Mateo solo bien se lame” in October ’71. I think I do what I do because I listened to Musicasión 4 1⁄2 and Mateo since my early childhood. It’s something I kept to myself (as no one seemed to be interested in it) and that nurtured me without my noticing,” recounts Juana.
Due to then-current circumstances, the original release didn’t reach a large number of listeners outside of Uruguay (where its circulation wasn’t encouraged by the authorities, due to the subversive nature of some of the lyrics and poems). Yet it did exert a subterranean influence. International curiosity for Eduardo Mateo’s work started rising after his death (1990) and the publication of a biography in 1994.
In 2020 in the midst of the pandemic lockdown, a whole additional batch of previously-unreleased tapes made a quasi-magical appearance, opening the possibility of celebrating the 50th anniversary of Musicasión 4 1⁄2 with something more than a reissue. This new edition contains the complete original album (remastered from a recently found safety copy), including poems which were self-censored because of their politically-charged content and left out of the subsequent editions), as well as a second LP with 16 recordings by the same musicians taken from first generation tapes.
“When I listened these unreleased recordings I almost swooned. The shock of listening El Kinto unissued tracks lasted several days until I could finally listen all the stuff, little by little and with identical intensity. How could such a thing have remained in the dark for so long?” said Juana.
