Psychedelic rock from Venezuela? That works wonderfully, as Grupo Geyser shows. The combo from Caracas, which was founded in the mid-’60s, is heavily influenced by its British and American contemporaries on the four »Singles 1970-1973« and B-sides collected here, but further enriches the tracks on the collection with Latin American and Afro-Cuban rhythms and a little blues rock. The polyphonic vocals lend the songs a hymn-like quality, while the use of bongos, congas, Farfisa organ and saxophone make the music danceable. Publio and Ebenezer García, as the heads of the band, were not only pioneers in fusing different musical styles, but also worked very early on with home recording and multitracking, recording their music partly as a duo, but also with different guest musicians and line-ups. The compilation of songs, classified by the label as »Fuzzy Latin Psych«, sounds like a unified whole, even though the tracks can have different musical characters. As an encore, there is even a soulful Latin ballad that could have made it into the charts.
Fabiano Do Nascimento & Sam Gendel
The Room
Real World