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The Beatles still
pretty good
After being asked by the
remaining Beatles, Ringo and Paul, along with Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia
Harrison, to make experimental mixes from their master tapes for a
collaboration with
Cirque du Soleil, Sir George
Martin, The Beatles legendary producer, and his son Giles Martin have
been working the entire archive of Beatles recordings to create
LOVE. The result is an unprecedented approach to the music.
Using the master tapes at Abbey Road Studios, Sir George and Giles have
created a unique soundscape. The release of this album, which is also
featured in the Cirque du Soleil/Beatles collaborative production of the
same name at The Mirage in Las Vegas, has been much anticipated.
"This album puts the Beatles back together again, because suddenly
there's John and George with me and Ringo," said Paul McCartney.
"It's kind of magical."
"George and Giles did such a great job combining these tracks. It's
really powerful for me and I even heard things I'd forgotten we'd
recorded." commented Ringo Starr.
"The album has the
feeling of love and that's why the title is Beatles LOVE," added Yoko
Ono Lennon, "They have let everything that is beautiful and daring come
out."
"The music is stunning.
I think the most amazing thing about is that you can pull it apart and
all the elements carry with it the essence of the entire song," said
Olivia Harrison.
Tony Wadsworth, Chairman and CEO of EMI Music UK and Ireland said,
"George and Giles' highly original work in creating the LOVE album gives
us a genuinely new Beatles album. It makes us respect even more, if that
were possible, the creativity and brilliance of the band behind the
greatest catalogue in the history of recorded music."
From:
http://www.beatles.com/hub/love/site/
It’s a complete oxymoron, but “new Beatles album” is one of the most
overused of phrases in music. Every few years, the line is rushed out
and devoured by an expectant media. So far there have been three
anthologies, the Yellow Submarine “song track,” the 1 compilation, and
Let It Be: Naked. Now there is Love, a soundtrack to the
Cirque du Soleil show of the same
name. It’s a collection of well-loved Beatles classics, remixed and re-
mastered by George Martin and his son Giles. It’s not really a new
Beatles album—no one’s risen from the dead—but, unlike a simple best of,
this “soundscape” does make you listen again, sliding previously
unrelated bits into each other in such a way that music recorded before
a lot of us were born seems freshly conceived.
The piece begins with an a capella version of “Because”; the only
adornment is a twitter of birdsong—a reminder that, despite their
monolithic cultural status, The Beatles were just four otherworldly
blokes from England. Its mixture of magic and realism sets the tone for
what follows. The harmonies fade to silence; the opening chord of “A
Hard Days Night” bursts through, spins itself out into a drum sample
from “The End,” then into the choppy grooves of “Get Back.” It’s
powerful, evocative and, most of all, fun.
In the wake of The Grey Album and less publicized exercises in re-
contextualization, such as ccc’s Revolved, Apple Corps are somewhat
inevitably a little late to the party, but, in having full access to the
original masters, they have a rather large advantage over any bedroom
beat matcher. The remastering is exemplary; many of the annoyances from
the first run of CD reissues are ironed out, giving these songs a
sprightly, crisp feel. Indeed, much of the material, even in strange new
guises, has never sounded better. The understated take on “While My
Guitar Gently Weeps” may be preferable to the histrionics of the
po-faced original; “Strawberry Fields Forever”’s growth from demo to
soundclash, picking up the harpsichord parts of “In My Life” and the
coda of “Hello Goodbye” along the way, is astonishing. Nearly every
track emphasizes the mix of warmth and genuine strangeness that
characterized their later endeavors. There is little from the Fab days,
but then the simplicity of earlier efforts would hardly suit the kind of
sonic alchemy at play here.
Over the 26 tracks, the ghosts of 130 different individual recordings
are referenced; sometimes the whole song, often just a snippet of organ
or guitar. Slithers of sound float into the mix, touch the periphery of
consciousness, then back away. Figuring out where each part is
originally from will be fun for the fanatics, but isn’t necessary to
enjoy the mix. In an odd way, The Beatles already sort of sound like
this—these sounds are so ingrained into the cultural fabric that, though
you may be unable to place it exactly, most can arouse a cursory note of
recognition.
This isn’t the “new Beatles album” that the world has been waiting for
since 1970. As much as many desire it, recapturing the spirit of that
time is a task that is at best quixotic, at worst soul-destroying. There
is talk of the band’s back catalog being re-mastered and, with this kind
of quality, that can only be a good thing, because, like it or not—and
it certainly is easy to resent their omnipresence—people are going to be
listening to these recordings for a few more years. So then: press still
looking for the next echo of Beatlemania; popular music still fun and
occasionally beautiful; Love still a nebulous but inspirational concept;
The Beatles still pretty good.
From:
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/the-beatles/love.htm
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil (French for "Circus of the
Sun") is an entertainment empire based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and
founded in Quebec in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy Laliberté
and Daniel Gauthier. It was an answer to a call by Commissariat général
aux célébrations 1534–1984 of the Quebec Government for the 450th
anniversary celebration of the arrival of French explorer Jacques
Cartier (1491–1557) to Canada. Gauthier, who left the company in 2001,
now owns the ski area Le Massif, on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec.
Cirque du Soleil is now "guided" by Laliberté.
Overview:
It has been described as the modern circus,
and focuses upon a storyline as well as amazing performances. It has
several resident and touring troupes and draws heavily from the circus
tradition. Emphasizing the use of humans as performers, Cirque du Soleil
does not make use of animals. Instead, its performances combine elements
of street performances and busking, circus, opera, ballet, and rock
music. Acts include contortionists, jugglers, feats of strength,
clowning, and trapeze artists. Their costumes are very colorful.
Cirque shows do not use pre-recorded music; all music is played live,
and in many performances the spoken parts are done in Cirquish, an
imaginary language invented by the company.
Cirque shows begin as a creative concept, usually with elements of a
central story line, a design concept and the selection of a composer for
the music. These elements remain relatively constant throughout the
production run of a given show.
However, the shows also include both "house" and "guest" acts. House
acts are performed by the full-time cast members, some whom may be
involved in several routines. Not all prepared routines are presented in
every performance. Guest acts rotate in and out over the run of the show
(clowns are typically guest acts). As a result, Cirque shows can vary
somewhat performance to performance, and shows tend to evolve over time.
Cirque creators borrow from some of circus's earliest forms (for
example, banquine and teeterboard acts) but also regularly introduce new
apparatus. For example, Cirque introduced the use of bungee cords to
aerial acts and created a modified tumbling trampoline called a Power
Track, both of which have since been adopted by other circuses.
Cirque du Soleil recruits acts from different world circuses, including
from China and Russia, blending them into their own style.
Among veteran circus performers, Cirque is regarded as one of the
world's best circuses, due to higher than normal pay scales and
benefits.
Cirque du Soleil has produced a number of performance DVDs and
soundtrack CDs.
The troupe was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.
From : Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia
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