THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,527) Kissing Spell — “Sueno o Realidad”/”Dream or Reality”
A beautiful and haunting song from the Chilean band’s (see #360, 453) classic ‘70 psych LP Los Pajaros [The Birds].
The LP “is one of the best and most sought after South American psych albums . . . . [It has w]ell-crafted songs with an attractive dreamy quality enhanced by spacey effects, occasional bursts of well-handled fuzz guitar, and strong harmonies . . . .” (https://johnkatsmc5.blogspot.com/2016/08/kissing-spell-los-pajaros-1970-chile.html?m=1) “Without doubt . . . one of the best 60’s psychedelic albums period! contains beautiful melodic compositions, killer fuzz leads peppering the disc, a superb dreamy atmosphere and great drifty vocals (mostly in English).” (https://www.roughtrade.com/en-us/product/kissing-spell/los-pajaros) Norman Records calls it “a lovely example of hazy late 60’s atmospherics with nods towards Love, Friends era Beach Boys and the Canterbury bands. Vocals are kinda English-as-a-second-language hesitant but there are lots of sweet harmonies. Ah what a vibe. Was life really all as laid back and chilled as this back then?” (https://www.normanrecords.com/records/148773-kissing-spell-los-pajaros)
Ana María Hurtado tells us of Kissing Spell (courtesy of Google Translate):
Like many other Chilean bands of the time, Kissing Spell began performing in 1968, influenced by the likes of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, although their influences also included certain Argentine and Brazilian music. This mixed origin, coupled with its members’ approach to poetry, made this group one of the most original of its time. Related in sound to the Blops [see #541] and Los Jaivas, Embrujo [Spell, the band’s later name] represents another strain of the fundamental fusion rock that emerged in Chile in the early 1970s, and whose path was interrupted by the 1973 coup d’état. Kissing Spell was originally a trio: Juan Carlos Tato Gómez, Carlos Fernández, and Ernesto Aracena had played Brazilian music together while the former two were still in school. As a quintet, they began producing material primarily in English, in addition to setting poems by Federico García Lorca and Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer to music. In developing their work, they had great support from Fernández’s father, a psychiatrist who ran the Institute of Applied Psychology and who provided them with a rehearsal room in the institute’s building . . . in Santiago. In a studio at the same location, Kissing Spell made a recording that reached the ears of Camilo Fernández, producer of the Arena label, who had previously worked with rock groups such as Aguaturbia and Escombros. Fernández agreed to record the quintet’s first album, Los pájaros (1970). Before recording their second album, the group decided to change their name to Embrujo, and thus released the album Embrujo in 1971. It featured Spanish-language compositions that bordered on progressive rock and displayed a wide range of nuances. . . . The military’s rise to power forced them to put an end to the project. That same year, guitarist Ernesto Murillo left for the United States, followed later by Carlos Fernández. The latter remains connected to music through the production of advertising jingles and has participated in two Blops regroups. Tato Gómez . . . works as a music producer in Germany, where he also formed part of the group Santiago in the 1970s . . . .
Here is a recent cover by the Chilean band Raíz de lo Oculto/Root of the Occult. “’We chose it as a single this time to symbolize that same debut and birth of the group,’ say Raíz De Lo Oculto members Edson [Espinoza] and Francisco [González Ponce], who also highlight the value of the lyrics, which express ‘a pastoral and dreamlike beauty.'” (https://horizontesnacionales.cl/noticias/raiz-de-lo-oculto-embrujo-que-besa/)
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