Van Morrison - Astral Weeks ( USA /RTI ) - 180g LP

Product no.: R11768

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Van Morrison - Astral Weeks ( USA /RTI ) - 180g LP
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US IMPORT RECORD PRESSED IN EU

Warner Music Group Company, 777 S, Santa Fe Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90021  Manufactured in the E.U

AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head

R1 1768 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl -  Mastered By  Kevin Gray at Acoustech Mastering

 Mastered from the Original Analog Master Tapes by Kevin Gray at Acoustech Mastering!

100 Recommended All-Analog ressues Worth Owning - Michael Fremer Analogplanet      Image result for acoustech mastering

"…it obsoletes the original in almost every way…When you hear the new reissue, even if you've heard the original 100 times since it first came out, which would easily be me, you will almost jump out of your seat when you hear these familiar elements move from the shadows to the foreground…Astral Weeks, one of the great records of the rock era, is destined to become one of the great reissues of the post-CD/analog revival era." Music = 11/11, Sound = 10/11 – Michael Fremer

 "Once the needle drops, it's as if the music is being piped in from the heavens. Vocals are lifelike, levels non-fatiguing, and instruments richly detailed." The Absolute Sound Rated 5/5 Music, 4.5/5 Sonics

Mastered from the Original Analog Master Tapes by Kevin Gray at Acoustech Mastering

Astral Weeks is generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history, but for all that renown, it is anything but an archetypal rock and roll album. It it isn't a rock and roll album at all. Van Morrison plays acoustic guitar and sings in his elastic, bluesy, soulful voice, accompanied by crack group of jazz studio players: guitarist Jay Berliner, upright bassist Richard Davis, Modern Jazz Quartet drummer Connie Kay, vibraphonist Warren Smith and soprano saxophonist John Payne (also credited on flute, though that's debatable--some claim an anonymous flautist provided those parts).

Producer Lewis Merenstein added chamber orchestrations later and divided the album into halves: "In The Beginning" and "Afterwards" with four tunes under each heading. Morrison's songs are an instinctive, organic mixture of Celtic folk, blues and jazz. He fully enters the mystic here, more in the moment than he ever would be again in a recording studio. If his pop hit "Brown-Eyed Girl" was the first place he explored the "previous"--i.e. the depths of his memory--for inspiration and direction, he immerses himself in it here. The freewheeling, loose feel adds to the intimacy and immediacy in the songs. They are for the most part, extended, incantory, loosely narrative and poetic ruminations on his Belfast upbringing: its characters, shops, streets, alleys, and sidewalks, all framed by the innocence and passage of that era. Morrison seems hypnotized by his subjects; they comfort and haunt a present filled with inexhaustible longing and loneliness.

He confesses as much in the title track: "If I ventured in the slipstream/Between the viaducts of your dream/Where immobile steel rims crack/And the ditch in the back roads stop/ Could you find me?/ Would you kiss-a my eyes/... To be born again...." Morrison doesn't reach out to the listener, but goes deep inside himself to excavate and explore. The album's centerpiece is "Madame George" a stream-of-consciousness narrative of personal psychological and spiritual archetypes deeply influenced by the road novels of Jack Kerouac. The climactic epiphany experienced on "Cyprus Avenue" paints a portrait of place and time so vividly, it fools listeners into the experience of shared---but mythical--memory. "The Way Young Lovers Do" is the most fully-formed tune here. Its swinging jazz verses and tight rhythmic choruses underscore a simmering, passionate eroticism in Morrison's lyric and delivery. Astral Weeks is a justified entry in pop music's pantheon.

It is unlike any record before or since; it mixes together the very best of postwar popular music in an emotional outpouring cast in delicate, subtle, musical structures.

• Mastered from the Original Analog Master Tapes by Kevin Gray at Acoustech Mastering!

Arranged By – Larry Fallon
Bass – Richard Davis
Drums – Connie Kay
Flute, Soprano Saxophone , John Payne )
Guitar – Jay Berliner
Percussion – Warren Smith
Producer – Lewis Merenstein
Written-By & Vocals  – Van Morrison
 

Selections: 

Part One: In The Beginning
1. Astral Weeks
2. Beside You
3. Sweet Thing
4. Cyprus Avenue
Part Two: Afterwards
5. Young Lovers Do
6. Madame George
7. Ballerina
8. Slim Slow Slider

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks 180g LP

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RTI HQ-180 Vinyl

Record Technology is a world class record pressing plant located in Camarillo, California. We have been operating since 1974, pressing for most audiophile record labels and for many quality minded independent and major record labels from around the world.

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