Mobile Fidelity - UDSACD2136 - SACD Hybrid Stereo 

Numbered Limited  Edition - Plays On All CD Players

Half-Speed Mastered by Kreig Wunderlich from the Original Master Tape at MFSL

Mastered on the Mobile Fidelity GAIN 2™ Mastering Technology for Ultradisc UHR™  SACD  

Accessible and complicated, alluring and challenging, sensuous and liberating, Patricia Barber’s Smash once and for all confirms the pianist/singer exists in an elevated artistic plane reached by none of her generational peers. Four years in the making, and the beloved musician’s first studio record since 2008, her Concord Records debut defies expectations and crystallizes her status as a preeminent songwriter. Informed by personal episodes of significant loss and yearning, the album masterfully unites harmony and melody via uncommon delicacy, tonal intimacy, and ethereal surrealism.

It will likely stand as 2013’s finest jazz effort, an instant classic.

Mastered from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity’s hybrid SACD possesses audiophile-quality fidelity and dynamic transparency unmatched by the commercially released CD. Akin to the reissue label’s previous Barber releases, many of which are long out-of-print and command huge sums on the collector’s market, Smash brings the singer and her band into your listening room, converting it into a recreation of the stage at Chicago’s Green Mill, Barber’s home base. Sonic characteristics crucial to Barber’s sophisticated compositions—atmospherics, decay, whisper-soft transients, mood, acoustic dimensions, precise imaging—are rendered with utmost detail, balance, and accuracy. All else that’s required for your trip to the Green Mill is a stereo and glass of chardonnay. 

And consider what Barber herself has said about the record's producer, Jim Anderson: "Jim brings that uniquely clear sound quality as well as all his expertise to the studio. His equipment and the way he records is so pure. He creates a silence as landscape and an intimacy that listeners understand as such. His mikes pick up so many frequencies he doesn't have to add any."

Punctuated by deft instrumental passages and mysterious verses, Smash marks a triumphant return for Barber after she endured a series of melancholic episodes, including the death of her mother and four other people close to her. In addition, a disagreement with business associate cost her untold amount of money. She also broke away from Blue Note after its president stepped down from his position. Barber channels these painful, often-angry experiences and transitional periods into expressionistic poetry on Smash, transferring her emotions to arrangements that mirror the deep, meaningful cycle of human life and death.

1. Code Cool
2. The Wind Song
3. Romanesque
4. Smash
5. Redshift
6. Spring Song
7. Devil's Food
8. Scream
9. The Swim
10. Bashful
11. The Storyteller
12. Missing

Mobile Fidelity believes that mastering systems should be neutral and transparent. The essential idea is to unveil all the detailed musical information on the original master recording without adding deterioration, coloration or other sonic artifacts. 

It is worth noting that Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab stands out as one of few record labels that independently invests in research and development of audio technology. With proprietary innovations such as GAIN 2™, general music enthusiasts and audiophiles alike have reaped the benefit of a higher consumer audio standard without investing in costly new hardware. Mobile Fidelity is pleased to work with a variety of engineering legends and companies including Tim de Paravicini, Ed Meitner, Pass Labs, Theta Digital and Sony Electronics. 

Our joint efforts to seek out the ultimate audio experience, has resulted in significant advances for the technology of music reproduction. 

GAIN 2™ Mastering Technology for Ultradisc UHR™ Hybrid SACD and Ultradisc II™ 24kt Gold CDs 

For over twenty years, Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has continually searched for the ultimate audio experience. During this search MFSL engineers and associates created The GAIN™ System, a proprietary mastering technology which brought warmth and ambience to the compact disc format. A few years ago - with higher resolution formats on the horizon - the vision of GAIN 2™ began. As it stands today, GAIN 2™ is one of the greatest technical advancements in analogue and digital technology in the last ten years. It consists of a series of critical modifications and new components to Mobile Fidelity's proprietary mastering chain. 

We feel that GAIN 2™ has come extremely close to meeting this goal. The key accomplishments of GAIN 2™ System are 1) the ability to extract all the musical information as possible through the Ultra High bandwidth analogue tape playback system with proprietary custom tape playback heads, reproducer electronics and 2) transparently capturing and storing that information with the Direct Stream Digital recording system.