AAA 100% Analogue This LP was Remastered using Pure Analogue Components Only from the Master Tapes through to the Cutting Head
Analogue Productions - AAPW 29 - 180 Gram Virgin Vinyl
AAA 100% Analogue - Mastered By Steve Hoffman & Kevin Grey at AcousTech
Limited Edition - 45RPM - Two Disc - Pressed at QRP
Stereophile Magazine Record to Die For!
100 Recommended All-Analog ressues Worth Owning - Michael Fremer Analogplanet
1994 Grammy winner for Best World Music Album
Included in Tom Moon's 2008 book "1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die"
"Fifteen years later, thanks to Analog Productions , the wait is finally over. Not only do we finally have the vinyl edition, we have it as a double 45rpm 180g set! CD playback has improved greatly since 1993 so before listening to the vinyl I refreshed my memory with the CD, which still sounds great. Great, yes, but not even close to the serenity and transparency of the vinyl. Now the scrim is lifted, air fills the space around the instruments and you are in the church. String transients and drum skin textures only hinted at on CD come to life. A late-night listen with the lights out must! An essential record in any 21st century vinyl collection!" - Michael Fremer, Stereophile
""…The sound is about as good as it gets, with almost no sense of recording gear between the listener and musicians, who are laid out in a solid horizontal line. The remarkable air and tangible 'thereness' will take your breath away." – Wayne Garcia, The Absolute Sound,
To steal another quote from Corey Greenberg’s original review seems quite appropriate: “A Meeting by the River is the first genuine Audiophile-Approved recording whose spirit matches its sonics; it takes me on a trip every time I listen to it, and recommendations just don't come any higher than that from me. Think about it: Ry Cooder! Improvising slide guitar with an Indian master!
On a 3-D Blumlein-miked triode-tubed analog recording!” Not much more needs to be said…except… BUY THIS ALBUM!
American composer, musicologist and guitar legend Ry Cooder teams with North Indian musician Vishwa Mohan Bhatt to create an exquisite musical realm, with both musicians playing exceptional slide guitar. Their collaboration evokes musical elements from many cultures and styles. Percussion by Sukhvindar Singh on tabla and Cooder's 14-year-old son Joachim on dumbek. This recording won a Grammy Award.
A Meeting by the River can best be described as a spontaneous outpouring of music, unhindered by convention or form, brought into being by musicians so supremely capable that the music is never labored, the technique of their craft always subservient to the final product. Cooder and Bhatt are genuine masters of the guitar and mohan vina, respectively. The latter, an instrument created by Bhatt himself, is a sort of hybrid between a guitar and a vichitra vina, and is played with a metal slide. This fact is just one of the many things that connect Bhatt's playing to Cooder's, who plays nothing but bottleneck guitar here.
The musical interplay between Cooder and Bhatt is nothing short of astounding, especially so considering that they met for the first time only a half-hour before the recording of this album. The voices of the two instruments blend marvelously, first alternating melodic statements, then doing so together, each dancing around the other, playing cat and mouse, probing, answering, reflecting. They are ably accompanied by a pair of percussionists: tabla player Sukhvinder Singh Namdhari and Cooder's own son, Joachim, on dumbek. A Meeting by the River is one of those few cross-genre albums in which the listener never feels for a second that there is some kind of fusion going on; one does not hear the component parts so much as the integrated whole. However, one can theoretically separate guitar from vina, America from India, the Mississippi from the Ganges. Once this is done, the resulting music makes more sense than ever before, the combination of two traditions of stringed instruments that use slides to produce sound and value improvisation and voice-like phrasing.
As good as this sounds on paper, the actual results are even more impressive. The splendor of the music is aided in its transmission by the fact that, like all Water Lily Acoustics releases, this album is masterfully recorded; each instrument is clear, distinct, and three-dimensional sounding.
A Meeting by the River is a must-own, a thing of pure, unadulterated beauty, and the strongest record in Cooder's extensive catalog.
"The quintessential 2 mic Blumlein recording, a musical extravaganza – on 45rpm it destroys the early '90s CD!" – Danny Kaey, Positive-Feedback Online
Musicians:
Ry Cooder, guitar
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, slide guitar
Sukhvindar Singh, tabla
Joachim Cooder, dumbek
Meeting by the River:
1. A Meeting By The River
2. Longing
3. Ganges Delta Blues
4. Isa Lei
Originally released in 1993.
ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES
AAA 100% ANALOGUE
We use the Original Tapes and work with only the Best Mastering Studios
QUALITY RECORD PRESSINGS
Plated and Pressed at QRP the world`s Best Pressing Plant on Virgin Vinyl
UNMATCHED QC
Meticulous Test Pressing evaluation and Quality Control
DELUXE PACKAGING
Highest Quality Jackets and Rice Paper Inner Sleeves
LIMITED EDITION
Less than 1,000 Records per Stamper
Released in Limited Quantities