Artaud (; commonly pronounced or by Hispanophones) is the third and final studio album credited to Argentine rock band Pescado Rabioso, released in October 1973 on Talent-Microfón. It is essentially the second solo album by singer-songwriter Luis Alberto Spinetta, who used the group's name despite their disbandment earlier that year.
The album is named after and dedicated to French poet Antonin Artaud, and was conceived as a reaction to his writings. The album's original packaging is famous for its odd shape, which the record label initially resisted. Spinetta presented Artaud with two morning shows at the Teatro Astral on Avenida Corrientes, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar. Each audience member received a copy of Spinetta's manifesto Rock: Música dura, la suicidada por la sociedad, in which he presented his vision of the countercultural Argentine rock movement.
It is considered Spinetta's masterpiece and one of the most influential albums in Spanish-language rock music. It has been selected as the greatest album in the history of Argentine rock on several occasions, most notably Rolling Stone Argentinas The 100 Greatest Albums of National Rock in 2007.
Background and recording
After the 1970 dissolution of Almendra—a foundational band of the burgeoning Argentine rock movement along with Manal and Los Gatos—three new groups emerged as its former members sought to create new projects. Edelmiro Molinari formed Color Humano, Rodolfo García and Emilio del Güercio created Aquelarre, and Luis Alberto Spinetta put together Pescado Rabioso along with drummer Black Amaya and bass guitarist Osvaldo Frascino. The short-lived Pescado Rabioso was a conscious shift from Spinetta's previous acoustic and melodic music, favoring a more violent, "electric, raw and powerful style" influenced by his new friendships within the "heavier" rock scene of Buenos Aires, which included acts such as Pappo's Blues, Manal and Tanguito. Spinetta himself referred to it as his "punk moment". The project experienced various line-up changes (a characteristic of almost every local rock band during that time) and released two studio albums—Desatormentándonos (1972) and Pescado 2 (1973)— before disbanding. By the time Pescado 2 was released in March 1973, the band had already split up.Marchi, 2019. p. 221 Amaya told Crítica Digital in 2009 that David Lebón and Carlos Cutaia left Pescado Rabioso to pursue their solo careers and that they communicated their disbandment to Spinetta in the Planeta theatre, which he took as a great offense. He also claimed to have been the last member to leave the band and to have rehearsed for Artaud. One of the reasons was that Oscar López, their manager at the time, wanted Lebón to become the lead singer and guitarist and for Spinetta to play bass. According to Spinetta, his fellow band members did not share the more "lyrical" vision that he was developing, and wanted to change the style of the band into rock and roll and blues. Both Amaya and Cutaia have said that they wished to play something "more bluesy", with the latter explaining that they wanted Lebón to participate more as a composer and get away from Spinetta's more complex compositions. However, Lebón and López have denied that there was a plan to turn Pescado Rabioso into a blues band. Spinetta told Eduardo Berti in 1988: I experienced that as a great paradox: Pescado Rabioso was me, and I could have had those musicians like others; I wanted to play my songs, express how I felt, and it seemed like a deformity to start to make rock and blues songs as if it were the time of Manal. At that time there was still that mania to play rhythm & blues, but shortly after David [Lebón] released his solo album and it was not only in that style. After all, he was as lyrical as I was.
In Ezequiel Abalos' 1995 book Historias del rock de acá, Amaya recalled: "He felt abandoned because he wanted to continue playing with the band, as he was left alone and it was still pending to record another album with Microfón, he recorded Artaud with the songs he had for Pescado Rabioso. When I heard the album, I wanted to [die]." As a result, Spinetta enlisted his brother Gustavo and former Almendra members Emilio del Guercio and Rodolfo García to play in the album. Spinetta explained to Berti that he decided to release the album under Pescado Rabioso's name because he felt using his own would be "too pompous", and "to prove to the former members of the group that Pescado Rabioso was [him]." The use of the band's name has also been described as a contractual obligation. Artaud was recorded at studio Phonalex in the barrio of Belgrano, a few blocks from the Spinetta house.Ortelli, 2013. p. 24 Journalist Miguel Grinberg described the sessions as "a very private ceremony". According to Rodolfo García, the songs were "practically made in the studio" and recorded in few takes. He stated that in "Superchería" and "Las habladurías del mundo", "the concept with which the tracks were created was similar: to play them with absolute freedom [and] the biggest swing of which we capable". Spinetta composed and recorded almost the entire album with a Harptone acoustic guitar that he called "the Standel". Lyricist Roberto Mouro has claimed that Spinetta used a Hagström electric guitar in "Todas las hojas son del viento", while journalist Juan Carlos Diez recalled that the musician told him that he recorded the whole album with a mahogany-colored acoustic Gibson guitar. Artaud was produced by publisher Jorge Álvarez for his label Microfón, a subsidiary of record company Talent. Álvarez had founded Microfón after the 1970 closure of his company Mandioca, the first independent record label of Argentine rock. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the circulation of Artaud's bibliography intensified and Álvarez played an important role in this process by publishing an anthology of the poet in 1968.
The creation of the album was deeply influenced by changes in the musician's personal life. Twenty-three-year-old Spinetta considered that it was time to settle down and stay away from the excesses, so he decided to return to his parents' house in Belgrano. During that time, he was beginning a relationship with Patricia Salazar, with whom he would remain for over twenty-five years and have four children. His brother Gustavo Spinetta stated in 2009 that the music and lyrics in Artaud were the result of the "climate of much love" in which Luis Alberto and Salazar lived.
Writers often analyze Artaud in relation to the convulsive sociopolitical context of Argentina in 1973,de Moraes, 2016. p. 1 with the fall of the military dictatorship, Héctor José Cámpora's electoral win and the news of Perón's return bringing "a hope of liberty in the midst of oppression." This short period under Cámpora's rule is known as the "Camporist Spring" (Spanish: "primavera camporista") and was characterized by a new sense of liberation and optimism among young people. Discussing the social context in which Spinetta produced "Artaud", Grinberg told Rolling Stone: "At that time we were all Peronists. After the results of Héctor Campora's triumph were known, I remember that there was a spirit of total liberation fervor. Suddenly a truck full of people passed by Teatro General San Martín and I see a hanging Luis hugging a bunch of young people." In the summer of 1973, underground art and press grew in dimension, with parks and alternative magazines being their means of communication. Spinetta took part in Sunday youth gatherings that Miguel Grinberg organized in Parque Centenario through his radio program El son progresivo, where people formed groups dedicated to rock nacional, poetry, theater, psychology and plastic arts; and edited a magazine made collectively every Sunday. Some of the other musicians that went to Parque Centenario included Emilio Del Guercio, Rodolfo García, Gustavo Spinetta, Miguel Abuelo and, "without integrating so much", Raúl Porchetto and León Gieco. These meetings, which managed to gather 500 people, have been described by Rock.com.ar as "a true experiment of community integration, [with] debates taking place between the people of the park and the occasional passers-by." According to Del Guercio, they "were concerned to know what was going to be the place of art and culture in the society to come, how the personal transformation of each one and the understanding of the other could modify society"; according to Schanton, Artaud is the "offspring of that total liberty".
Concept
Artaud has been described as "the most literary record of rock nacional", along with Vox Dei's 1971 album La Biblia. Writer Juan Pablo Bertazza considered that the album "reaches the closest and most fertile and visceral point that there can be between music and poetry, or better: between music and literature." Spinetta was an avid reader and literature was a fundamental influence throughout his career; such as Julio Cortázar in Almendra, Carlos Castaneda in Spinetta Jade and Carl Jung and Chinese philosophy in Invisible. At the time of Artaud composition, the poètes maudits and surrealist literature were a great influence on him. In addition to Antonin Artaud, Spinetta read other French poets such as Arthur Rimbaud, René Daumal, Charles Baudelaire, Jean Cocteau, André Breton and Comte de Lautréamont.Diez, 2012 . p. 371
Spinetta discovered Artaud through Jorge Pistocchi, a journalist and artist.Pujol, 2019. p. 2019 In a November 1972 Pescado Rabioso interview for Gente magazine, Spinetta discussed his affinity with poetry and described Rimbaud as "a rock guy a hundred years ago", as he "developed in a way to express his inner sensuality and to express his own energy in a luminous way". He also mentioned Artaud in the same manner, stating that he: "lived the life of a rocker, like Hendrix... The vibes that Artaud threw for other men to understand were thinking, you see, thinking and thinking, really thinking about what it is that happens. Musically, that's Hendrix, for example." Artaud's influence has been linked to the "iconoclast and libertarian spirit" of the album.
Spinetta was particularly influenced by his essays Heliogabalus; or, the Crowned Anarchist (French: "Héliogabale ou l'anarchiste couronné") and Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by Society (French: "Van Gogh le suicidé de la société"). He envisioned the album as an "antidote" to the nihilistic message and "contagion of pain" conveyed in Artaud's work.Diez, 2012 . p. 290 Spinetta told author Eduardo Berti in 1988: "Whoever has read him can not escape a quota of desperation. To him the answer of man is madness; to [John] Lennon it is love. I believe more in the encounter of perfection and happiness through the suppression of pain than through madness and suffering. I believe that only if we worry about healing the soul we will avoid social distortions and fascist behavior, unjust doctrines and totalitarianism, absurd policies and deplorable wars. The only way to raise the weight is with love."
Composition