Primal energy unleashed on vinyl

Eighteen years after his first encounter with the Master Musicians, Brion Gysin takes Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones to Jajouka to experience the group’s wild and wonderful trance music. Jones spends a month recording the group and releases the album Brian Jones Presents The Pipes of Pan at Jajouka. While the Jones record brought attention to the group, leading to associations with musician/legend Ornette Coleman and writer Robert Palmer, Jones treated the music with special effects.

In 1972, Joel Rubiner made his way to Jajouka to do fresh recordings of the group. He knew that there was an audience for the unfiltered sounds of the Master Musicians of Jajouka and spends the summer with a tape machine and the musicians. Jams formed into songs, Rubiner had tapes that music freaks would die for. Hypnotic, pulsing, energetic, and discordant - the Rubiner recordings needed to be released. In 1974, Adelphi Records took a chance on the Master Musicians and released The Primal Energy That Is The Music And Ritual Of Jajouka, Morocco. When the album was released on CD, it netted the All Music Guide’s Best of Genre award.

Out of print on vinyl for over twenty years, The Primal Energy... makes a return on Sol Re Sol Records (a spin-off of avant-rock label S.S. Records). Sol Re Sol’s repressing of this classic album contains the music of the original (remastered by John Golden), plus the original liner notes by Robert Palmer. The packaging however is something new - housed in a gatefold sleeve, it includes a new cover with little seen Rubiner photographs (see above) from the time the album was recorded. The recordings and photographs have been fully licensed. The group’s publishing royalties have been paid. No one is getting exploited in order to return this wonderful music to vinyl. Fans of Sublime Frequencies, Mississippi Records, the Nonesuch Explorer series, Ocora Records, and the Ethnic Folkways series will dig this release.
That refreshingly evangelical copy comes from the website of Sol Re Sol Records. More on this path in Discord among the Master Musicians and Who are the real Master Musicians? Back in July 2007 On An Overgrown Path was saying Move over iPhone - here comes vinyl.

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Comments

Pliable said…
"But while the vinyl record is impractical, fragile, bulky and expensive, it is also beautiful, evocative and, like the music it contains, synonymous with the identity both of the person who made it and the person who bought it".

Vinyl in the news today - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/the-week-in-radio-the-stylus-gurus-know-how-to-spin-a-good-yarn-6285043.html
Anonymous said…
Well, I first bought what was called an "LP" in about 1962, and I don't think I've been without the capability to play "vinyl" since. Haven't bought any LPs other than places like EBay in a long while, and I only convert to CD those LPs which are annoyingy noisy. And I'm pleased at the vinyl revival interms of ongoing supply of equipment and parts.

However, some of what's being written about vinyl is pseudo-mystical and essentially meaningless as far as I can see.

"But while the vinyl record is impractical, fragile, bulky and expensive, ..."

No argument there.

"... it is also beautiful, evocative ..."

OK. I'm looking at an Archiv box of Bach cantatas for Advent and Christmas with Richter et al. The beauty and elegance of the package certainly drives home what's been lost with CDs.

"...and, like the music it contains, synonymous with the identity both of the person who made it and the person who bought it".

What does this mean? What could this possibly mean? I have no idea.

As I said, strikes me as pseudo-mystical.
Pliable said…
Scott, I am right with you. As has been stated here a number of times, classical music needs to bring back the mystical - pseudo or otherwise.

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/10/classical-musics-11-billion-market.html

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