Gandharva by legendary Moog pioneers Beaver and Krause has been a favourite of mine since I was a teenager. It is only recently that I discovered that this album was a milestone in commercial quadraphonic recording.
You can read all about it on this link RE/P Files: Inside The First-Ever Commercial Quad Recording Sessions - ProSoundWeb
Not many people realise that the album was also a major influence on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon. It is known from interviews with band members that Pink Floyd heard the album and probably in Quad. Parts of the album bear an uncanny resemblance to DSOTM. In particular, the opening synth sound effects to "Soft/White" on Gandharva are very much like those on DSOTM and the improvised vocal performance in the song "The Great Gig in the Sky" sounds identical to "Walkin" (sung by the brilliant Clydie King) putting pay to Claire Torry's claim that she came up with the idea (I suspect that she was told to improvise in that style). The saxophone phrasing of "Us and Them" and even parts of the melody bear a similarity to "By Your Grace" and "Good Places". Saxophonist Dick Parry said that Gilmour asked him to try to get the "breathy" tone that he'd heard on Beaver & Krause's Gandharva parts of which had been played by the legendary Jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan.
But check out the calibre of the musicians on the album :
Alto Saxophone, Flute – Bud Shank
Baritone Saxophone – Gerry Mulligan
Bass – Ray Brown, Rod Ellicott
Drums – George Marsh, Lee Charlton
Guitar – Howard Roberts, Mike Bloomfield, Rik Elswit, Ronnie Montrose
Harp – Gail Laughton
Piano – LaMont Johnson, Mike Lang
Producer, Organ [Pipe], Synthesizer [Moog], Organ [Hammond] – Paul Beaver
Voice [Lead] – Clydie King, Patrice Holloway
Even in stereo it is a beautiful and varied recording that mixes electronics, rock, jazz and acoustic music together in a way that no other album I know has done before or since. So imagine my joy when I finally located a near mint Japanese copy of the album in Quad! (in France?!) No Obi but heck who cares. It arrived today and I just played it and it totally blew my mind. I can't begin to describe how amazing it sounds particularly the intense synth into rock section at the start that has Mike Bloomfield soloing over an insane bass and electronic back section that is bouncing round the room like crazy. The sections recorded in the Cathedral are equally amazing with a huge, cavernous sound that can only be described as awe inspiring. The bass tones of the Cathedral's organ shake the room! Quite why this record is not recognised to the same degree as Dark Side of the Moon is beyond me but I guess it's because it contains no songs, is entirely instrumental and is in many ways far more experimental. DSOTM is a pop record by comparison.
Anyhow I digress. If anything is worthy of a Quadio release this is! I read that all US copies of the album were EV encoded but not labelled as such. I just tried a UK copy and I can confirm that there is definitely no Quad effect to be heard via either QS or EV decoding. (I am using an Involve Audio Surround Master to decode). If anyone has a US copy or CD they may want to try but the Quad effect is really obvious on my Japanese LP with discrete audio in each channel. If it isn't doing crazy shit it isn't Quad. I don't believe the album was issued anywhere in Quad other than Japan. It is on Warner Brothers who as far as I am aware didn't support QS (they used CD-4) so maybe the Japanese edition was some kind of exception for the Japanese market due to it's importance as a Quad recording ?
You can read all about it on this link RE/P Files: Inside The First-Ever Commercial Quad Recording Sessions - ProSoundWeb
Not many people realise that the album was also a major influence on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon. It is known from interviews with band members that Pink Floyd heard the album and probably in Quad. Parts of the album bear an uncanny resemblance to DSOTM. In particular, the opening synth sound effects to "Soft/White" on Gandharva are very much like those on DSOTM and the improvised vocal performance in the song "The Great Gig in the Sky" sounds identical to "Walkin" (sung by the brilliant Clydie King) putting pay to Claire Torry's claim that she came up with the idea (I suspect that she was told to improvise in that style). The saxophone phrasing of "Us and Them" and even parts of the melody bear a similarity to "By Your Grace" and "Good Places". Saxophonist Dick Parry said that Gilmour asked him to try to get the "breathy" tone that he'd heard on Beaver & Krause's Gandharva parts of which had been played by the legendary Jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan.
But check out the calibre of the musicians on the album :
Alto Saxophone, Flute – Bud Shank
Baritone Saxophone – Gerry Mulligan
Bass – Ray Brown, Rod Ellicott
Drums – George Marsh, Lee Charlton
Guitar – Howard Roberts, Mike Bloomfield, Rik Elswit, Ronnie Montrose
Harp – Gail Laughton
Piano – LaMont Johnson, Mike Lang
Producer, Organ [Pipe], Synthesizer [Moog], Organ [Hammond] – Paul Beaver
Voice [Lead] – Clydie King, Patrice Holloway
Even in stereo it is a beautiful and varied recording that mixes electronics, rock, jazz and acoustic music together in a way that no other album I know has done before or since. So imagine my joy when I finally located a near mint Japanese copy of the album in Quad! (in France?!) No Obi but heck who cares. It arrived today and I just played it and it totally blew my mind. I can't begin to describe how amazing it sounds particularly the intense synth into rock section at the start that has Mike Bloomfield soloing over an insane bass and electronic back section that is bouncing round the room like crazy. The sections recorded in the Cathedral are equally amazing with a huge, cavernous sound that can only be described as awe inspiring. The bass tones of the Cathedral's organ shake the room! Quite why this record is not recognised to the same degree as Dark Side of the Moon is beyond me but I guess it's because it contains no songs, is entirely instrumental and is in many ways far more experimental. DSOTM is a pop record by comparison.
Anyhow I digress. If anything is worthy of a Quadio release this is! I read that all US copies of the album were EV encoded but not labelled as such. I just tried a UK copy and I can confirm that there is definitely no Quad effect to be heard via either QS or EV decoding. (I am using an Involve Audio Surround Master to decode). If anyone has a US copy or CD they may want to try but the Quad effect is really obvious on my Japanese LP with discrete audio in each channel. If it isn't doing crazy shit it isn't Quad. I don't believe the album was issued anywhere in Quad other than Japan. It is on Warner Brothers who as far as I am aware didn't support QS (they used CD-4) so maybe the Japanese edition was some kind of exception for the Japanese market due to it's importance as a Quad recording ?
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