Material Inédito de La Orquesta de Animales (LODA)
Bajo: Adolfo Sarabia
Guiatarra: Carlos Bolívar
Batería: Fernando Benítez
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releases November 6, 2021
Grabado en 2007 por Adolfo Sarabia en Estudios Taxqueña.
Re-Mezclado (con doblajes) por Carlos Bolívar en 2016.
Todas las composiciones por LODA.
Fotografías: María José Bazán & Revista Switch
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LA ORQUESTA DE ANIMALES
BIO
La Orquesta de Animales (LODA) was an instrumental, 70’s-infuenced psych and hardprog band form Mexico City, Mexico. A power trio formed by Carlos Bolivar (ex Orfeo) on guitar, Adolfo Sarabia (ex Bailarinas, THC) on bass and occasional keys and Fernando Benítez (ex El Diablo, Sweet Leaf, THC) on drums, they were very active from 2004 up until 2008. Oddly enough, at its inception, the main objective was to create something closer to stoner-pop, something a little more comercial than their previous outfits, which were decidely intrincate and underground-bound. But it didn’t quite work out that way. The jamming turned into songs, some of them catchy enough, but it all progressed quite rapidly towards a marijuana/lsd-drenched heavy rocknroll feast for the ears. Plus, no vocalist ever showed up for an audition! This is already evident in their debut CD, ‘En Rock’ (meaning In Rock, as a tribute to one of their main influences, Deep Purple), where it all starts out in a friendly manner, with songs you can rock out or even dance to, like a funkier Kadavar (though the Germans had yet to appear on the global secene); however, towards the end, you can hear their love for the 70s darker side of heavy psych creep in, with ‘Anfibio’, a sometimes speedy, sometimes moody tune in the vein of bands like Armageddon, Steamhammer, Mahogany Rush and Captain Beyond, and the 32-plus minutes closer ‘Pazoozoo’, a tribute to ‘the evil spirit of the air’ (actually, a heavy krautrock-like jam the engineer recorded without telling them after a big smoke-out right there in the studio). After two years of non-stop gigging, jamming, rehearsing and..eh…drugging and drinking, they decided to record new stuff in Adolfo’s basement studio, everything harder, trippier and louder than before. This time around Can, Faust, Amon Duul 2, Steve Hillage, Sabbath, Miles Davis, Hendrix and magic mushrooms were their main inspirations. Sadly, by the time they were finished they gigged a bit more, but they really had had enough of each other, plus no label back then showed interest, the new wave of stoner rock being in its infancy in Mexico. Internal fighting ensued and it all came to an abrupt end, so this second album never saw the light of day. Carlos formed stoner/prog band El Brujo with old Orfeo bandmates, while Adolfo and Fernando revisited their metal roots along with THC’s guitarist in sludge/thrash/doom band Neckless. And the band never reformed again. The tapes used for this second outing began to gather dust in some moldy cave up in the mountains, awaiting a new era. Dormant, never dead.
But now, thanks to LSDR Records we will be able to partake of LODA’s weirder, yet more solid side, with the release of ‘Archivos Inéditos Redux: 2007’. It’s the whole album, recorded back then by Adolfo and re-mixed with a few overdubs by Carlos, just a couple years ago. Please grab yer bong, drop a little acid, drink a couple of shots and come take a trip to a time when stoner rock was not even a dirty word in Mexico. You’ll make it back, my friend… or will ya?
