Opa, from Uruguay in 3 albums: Back Home the Lost Sessions 1975, Goldenwings (1976) and Magic Time (1977)

 

Randomly found this thanks to the 'suggestions' (also random) on discogs of similar albums.  From there:

Fusion band from Uruguay. They mix a lot of South American cultural elements, sometimes adding funky and samba type grooves. The band name is sometimes spelled OPA but it's not an abbreviaton or acronym, making Opa a correct spelling ; the sleeve of OPA - Magic Time and other sources confirm this. "Opa is a Uruguayan slang greeting, a sort of "Hello" it says in Angel Atienza's liner notes for OPA - Back Home: The Lost 1975 Sessions.

For those curious, the band comprises 3 founding Fattoruso brothers (visible on this release page), two are on drums and keyboards. These 2 are responsible for most of the compositional credits, I think.  Note the involvement too of the great Hermeto Pascoal (flute, percussion) on the first.  Also note the drummer, Jorge Fattoruso, played in the later 1970s with Flora Purim.

Their music is so similar to other 1970s smooth, warm, tropical and perky latin fusion outfits, eg. Crucis, Tantra, Nuevas Aires, Sacba from this blog, or to hark back to one of the classics I still love and enjoy and return to periodically, Caldera which hailed from NYC.  Very similar to the latter, with some US influence I believe.

Pieces / Goodbye is so heartful it really pulls you in:

And the second album, a little less interesting, closes out with a nice longer track called Malisimo which reminds me just a little of the glorious and incomparable Argentinian Alas band:

Surprisingly there were unreleased tracks from 1975 that were subsequently dug up, and despite the not ideal sound, these turned out to be quite enjoyable, tragically left off any legit LP release, but here we are so many years later able to listen and appreciate today.  The early rendition of Goldenwings, title track of their first of course, is even better than the official version, being more raw, an unusual thing to see generally speaking. They do a cover version of the Jacksons' Never can say goodbye which is a little annoying, but really the sole annoyance to put up with.

The (unreleased) track called Casa Forte is so good, it's surprising it got left out:

Really nice, randomly found stuff. Another surprise!