Radiodiffusion Internasionaal Annexe

♬ Ayúdalos

Singer / guitarist Marco Tulio Guzmán, bass player Alexis Velásquez, drummer Alcides Monroy and percussionist Henry Velásquez formed Grupo Bota in Caracas, Venezuela in the early 70s. They would go one to record around twenty singles and five albums. The band broke up in 1979, Guzmán and Velásquez continued together under the name Los Bota.

The band’s fusion rock style had a huge influence on the Venezuelan music scene after their records gained cult status. Interest in the band had a resurgence in the mid-1990s after Los Amigos Invisibles covered the song “Dime” on their debut album A Typical & Autoctonal Venezuelan Dance Band. You can find the song “Solos” on the Soul Jazz Records‘ compilation Venezuela 70 Volume 2 (Cosmic Visions of a Latin American Earth: Venezuelan Experimental Rock In The 1970’s & Beyond).

Catalog number 59203 on Discos Dark of Venezuela, pressed in Colombia by Industria Colombiana. Released 1974.

♬ Un Kilo de Kilovations

About a year or so ago, I stumbled on the reissue of Chelique Sarabia‘s Revolución Electrónica en Música Venezolana album – and it blew me away.

José Enrique “Chelique” Sarabia was born in La Asunción, Isla Margarita, Venezuela on 13 March 1940. In 1971, Chelique recorded an album of traditional and folkloric songs but giving them a modern touch, using specially developed equipment based on the principles of the Moog synthesizer. He employed traditional instruments like the cuatro and the bandola llanera, filtered these instruments through oscillators, playing with feedback, tape delay, synthesized frequencies, echoing sounds. Originally, the album was sponsored by the Shell Company in Venezuela, given away to customers, employees and friends of the company as a Christmas gift in 1973. It was titled 4 Fases del Cuatro – Música Venezolana desarrollada Electrónicamente por Chelique Sarabia / 4 Phases of Four – Venezuelan Music Electronically Developed by Chelique Sarabia. Once the exclusivity period with the petrol company was over, Chelique did a commercial release, this time under the name of Revolución Electrónica en Música Venezolana / Electronic Revolution in Venezuelan Music.

This single was a co-release between the C.A. La Electricidad De Caracas and C.A. Luz Electrica De Venezuela. No catalog number or release date listed.