Elis Catharsis

A French band with a very distinctive sound centered around Roland Bocquet's ghostly Farfisa organ. Their first album (recorded March 1971 at Studio ETA) was a mixture of easily accessible tunes, strange wordless chanting, high hippie spirits, Arabian elements, strong percussion and a few avant-garde excursions. Their music had a very spontaneous feeling, as if the group was assembled for some kind of occult ritual using music to reach a higher consciousness. Arguably they had some common ground with the early Pink Floyd and Amon Düül philosophically, but it lead to other conclusions musically. Masq is also notable for its surrealistic cover design…

Elis has been considered the best Brazilian singer of all time only surpassed by singer Tim Maia. This album was arguably the most successful of his career, and is recognized as one of the most representative of Brazilian popular music. The idea for the album came out of that Elis developed alone one season titled 'False brilhante' (from late 1975 to early 1977), which reached over 1,200 performances. With part of the repertoire she performed this record was made.

This is a fun album that sees Elis taking herself a bit less seriously than would be the case in years to come. Beginning with the beautiful photo on the album cover, it’s sunshine all the way through. Recorded and released in 1970, it sits on a precipice of musical history sort of like the proverbial time capsule left for the extra-terrestrials to tell them about contemporary MPB. With consistently interesting and flawless arrangements from Erlon Chaves, Elis rips through a repertoire of songs that couldn’t get much better spanning Bossa Nova, Jovem Guarda, Brazilian Soul and Tropicália and spinning them into a weirdly unified whole.

Catharsis is the ninth album by American heavy metal band Machine Head, released on January 26, 2018 via Nuclear Blast.

Classic Brazilian Bossa and Jazz album by the queen Elis Regina and featuring arrangements by Roberto Menescal and Erlon Chaves. Originally released in 1969, this is the 1998 Brazilian reissue.