Originally released in 1971 during the dark days of the military dictatorship in Uruguay, Musicasión 4 ½ is a unique album that made a strong and lasting impression on Juana Molina when she was a child. This 50th anniversary limited-edition reissue on Juana's recently-formed imprint Sonamos contains the remastered original LP, and a followup LP which has never been releasedMusicasión was a series of collective shows by a group of artists, mixing theatrical elements, poetry, improvised stage effects, and of course music, with a very special blend of rock, candombe, tango, jazz and bossa nova. A combination which bears more than a passing resemblance with Brazilian Tropicália, which originated around the same time. The masterminds behind the concept were the great singer, songwriter & composer Eduardo Mateo, and his friend Horacio Buscaglia, a poet, actor and theatre director. Four different Musicasión productions were staged in 1969, featuring musicians from Mateo's band El Kinto, and a host of other artists. The original album was put together using recordings made before and during these performances.Already a revered singer-songwriter at the time, Horacio Molina (Juana's father) was acquainted with Eduardo Mateo, who came to visit him when he traveled to Argentina. "Musicasión 4 ½ arrived at my home because Mateo gave it (and dedicated it) to my dad when he came to Buenos Aires to record 'Mateo solo bien se lame' in October '71. I think I do what I do because I listened to Musicasión 4 ½ and Mateo since my early childhood. It's something I kept to myself (as no one seemed to be interested in it) and that nurtured me without my noticing", recounts Juana. Due to the subversive nature of some of the lyrics and poems, the original release didn't reach a large number of listeners outside of Uruguay. Yet it did exert a subterranean influence. In 2020, an additional batch of previously-unreleased tapes made a quasi-magical appearance, opening the possibility of celebrating the 50th anniversary of Musicasión 4 ½ with something more than a reissue. This new edition thus contains the complete original album (remastered from a recently found safety copy), including poems which were self-censored because of their politically-charged content, and left out of the subsequent editions), as well as a second LP with 16 recordings by the same musicians, taken from first generation tapes.
