condition (record/cover): NM / VG+ (1" rip near edge)

Gatefold sleeve with booklet glued inside.

The Grupo de Experimentación Sonora was set up inside Cuba's national film institute in 1969 under Leo Brouwer, with the stated purpose of teaching young songwriters to read music and the unstated purpose of giving Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, Noel Nicola and others a room to work in while the cultural bureaucracy decided what to do with them. What came out was nueva trova with a film composer's palette: electric guitar and flute in counterpoint, Bartókian harmony under a bolero, arrangements that owe as much to Jobim and to the Beatles as to Cuban son.

The numbered Areito albums collected the group's work as the film institute released it, and 4 is among the last before the members went their separate ways. Original Cuban pressings are thin, noisy, badly stored and difficult to find. This one plays.