Cuasares :: Afro-Progresivo
Upon its first listen, one could naturally assume at least half a dozen musicians are working alongside each other in hopes of bringing together the radically rich and elemental energy that is found within the feverish fibers of Cuasares’ lone 1973 masterpiece, “Afro-Progesivo.” The captivating vibrations found within its instrumental intensity are both cinematic and uniquely universal, as sonic scenes of a detective story unfold or a vision quest takes place deep in the vast Patagonia mountains. Instead, you'll find that it’s the late Argentina-based pianist, conductor, composer, and all-around visionary Waldo Belloso behind the ship’s systems and galactic gadgets, whose nerveless navigations take listeners deep into the unknowns of the universe like no other. A prodigy? A poetic prophecy? Hailing from Capilla del Señor, a city in the northern part of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, Belloso’s atmospheric ability to shapeshift from one genre to the next is, overall, overlooked in the grand scheme of things. Having first started studying piano at the age of six, he quickly graduated as a music teacher at just thirteen, nonetheless, and later joined several local ensembles, one being the already highly influential Los Hermanos Abrodos. While capturing the electrifying essence of folk, country, Latin, and even children’s educational nursery rhymes, the late composer sincerely followed the pulse of music with a piercing precision that can still be heard around the world, and even made time to put together a widely unknown studio project, Cuasares, in the midst of it all. Between 1972 and 1973, Belloso took a liberating left-hand turn and began experimenting with several anarchic applications to express his cultural concerns towards the more rebellious side of the growing psychedelic and funk scene in North America.
“Waldo gave us specific instructions, and we put forth our best effort to accomplish them.”
With a consistent revolution on planet Earth for the better part of human existence, Cuasares’ “Afro-Progesivo” molds the melodic memory of the present moment by demonstrating an incredible institution of instrumentation, timing, and the formations found in some of modern film’s most favorable moments via the Pulp noir movement over the decades. The album’s overall contemplation is a steady journey into the lavish layers of life, while simultaneously enlightening the holiness of the human spirit, and influencing it in a way that echoes a sincere, solar phenomenon across numerous galaxies and stationary stars. Inspired by the interstellar intensities of a Cuasares, or Quasar, “Is a very bright, starlike object in space, powered by a supermassive black hole at the center of a distant galaxy,” making the perfect title to express the eternal efforts explored across the album’s 10 tracks. To bring the essence of the music to its full potential, Belloso invited the likes of Mingó (Hector Quatromano), Enrique “Zurdo” Roizner on drums, and Tómas Gubitsch, who was only 16 at the time, on guitar, to creatively conjure the melodic magic found on tracks like “Vertical,” “Pentatonik,” and “Trasmigración.” Truly inspired by Santana, the album was recorded on the shortly lived label Pais, which only lasted a few months. Now a rarity like no other, the original tapes were lost in the sonic sands of time. Still, with an official reissue from the archival labels Guerssen and Pharaway Sounds, its sophisticated spirit lives on through Argentina’s melodic landscape to this day.
