Benítez & Valencia* – Impossible Love Songs From Sixties Quito

Thank you Honest Jon's, once again, for your dedication and courage. I can't see an obvious customer target here, apart from some fairly wealthy Ecuadorians and some occasional anthropologically interested music lovers. I guess I personally fall into the second group, although I spent a handful of long winters in Ecuador between 2014-2020, and was in many ways "adopted" to the northern Andean culture.

From the first moment I heard the harmonies of Andean folk music I felt "at home", and spent countless hours on markets buying pirate CDs with traditional recordings. Back in Europe in the summers I spent equally many hours in libraries, copying hordes of records from this specific space and time. No music touch me as deeply as the various Andean music traditions. If the concept of past lives is true I must've been an Andean farmer multiple times in the past.

Nowadays, due to family responsibilities, I can only dream of going back to Ecuador physically. But these recordings awakens the passionate and mystically inclined part of my soul. Wonderfully packaged, and lovingly re-mastered from the original tapes. I can only applaud Honest Jon's for this project. I will cherish this record for many years to come, and will probably invest in the other Caife compilations soon enough.