LAGQ's "Brazil" (SACD)

Telarc is hitting 'em out of the park lately. Hot on the heels of the phenomenal "Ray Sings, Basie Swings," we've got the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet's "Brazil," also to be released September 25, 2007.

The music is intoxicating. The musicianship, amazing. The production and surround mix by Robert Friedrich, outstanding!

Those LAGQ fans disappointed by the conservative, ambient-style surround mix of 2006's "Spin" will find lots to love in "Brazil," which returns to the guitar-in-each-corner aggressive surround approach of "Guitar Heroes."

LAGQ's arrangements in "Brazil" have expanded to include flute, sax, percussion, and vocals on several of the tracks.

The only nitpick I have is that the disc plays rather loud for an acoustic, classical guitar-themed album. Not that it's dynamically compressed, but since there aren't huge transient peaks naturally occurring in the material, the overall level seems to have been "normalized," or raised a bit more than I would like. Still, the clarity of the native DSD recording (recorded on the Sonoma 32-track workstation at George Lucas' Skywalker Sound this past March) once again reveals that there's nothing like hi-res surround. I mean, nothing.

On a scale of 1-10 I would definitely give this a 9. Fantastic release. Looking forward to more from Telarc.

Felix - thanks much for the advance word! - I was looking forward to this and now I'm REALLY looking forward to this:sun

Thanks Felix. I have all the other LAGQ SACD's and was disappointed by the Spin mix. This one moved from my 'maybe' to my 'buy' list with your mini review. Hopefully they didn't brick wall it too badly.

Like the first two SACD releases, "Heroes" and "Latin," "Brazil" is "uber" discrete with each guitar playing out of the 4 corner speakers. Even those with just a slight familiarity with Brazilian music will recognize much of the material here. Not to say that these are pedestrian versions of war horse tunes - these are harmonically rich, technically challenging pieces all executed with top notch playing and passion.

The inclusion of vocals, flute and percussion gives this a more fleshed out sound (IMHO) than the previous 2 "discrete" titles. This along with the just released SACD of Ray Charles/Count Basie title are 2 of the best surround titles released this year or any other year - thank to Felix for the advance word on these - definitely a worthwhile purchase

There's a fantastic price on this out-of-print SACD through this eBay seller with multiple copies available:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221602874030?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

$11.98 with free shipping!

blue.monk said:

There's a fantastic price on this out-of-print SACD through this eBay seller with multiple copies available:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221602874030?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

$11.98 with free shipping!

Click to expand...

Excellent Multichannel SACD - and price! Go for it if you don't already own this SACD.

elmer said:

Like the first two SACD releases, "Heroes" and "Latin," "Brazil" is "uber" discrete with each guitar playing out of the 4 corner speakers. Even those with just a slight familiarity with Brazilian music will recognize much of the material here. Not to say that these are pedestrian versions of war horse tunes - these are harmonically rich, technically challenging pieces all executed with top notch playing and passion.

The inclusion of vocals, flute and percussion gives this a more fleshed out sound (IMHO) than the previous 2 "discrete" titles.

Click to expand...

elmer summed it up beautifully. This is a terrific disc. Is there no poll? New copies are still available at a great price through the link below. That's where I found mine.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221602874030?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

blue.monk said:

elmer summed it up beautifully. This is a terrific disc. Is there no poll? New copies are still available at a great price through the link below. That's where I found mine.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221602874030?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Click to expand...

Jon has added a Hi Rez Poll for the Brazil Multichannel SACD. Rate away!
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/fo...Los-Angeles-Guitar-Quartet-(LAGQ)-BRAZIL-SACD

blue.monk said:

elmer summed it up beautifully. This is a terrific disc. Is there no poll? New copies are still available at a great price through the link below. That's where I found mine.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221602874030?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Click to expand...

Thanks, just got one of the last two!

elroy said:

Thanks, just got one of the last two!

Click to expand...

You will enjoy it. A favorite 5.1 Multichannel SACD here!

blue.monk said:

There's a fantastic price on this out-of-print SACD through this eBay seller with multiple copies available:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221602874030?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

$11.98 with free shipping!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info and link. I had looked for this previously after it went OOP but never purchased it because of the cost. I will now have the four LAGQ surround albums.