Brian Eno PORTSMOUTH SINFONIA PLAYS THE POPULAR CLASSICS 1974 LP 1st USpress NM-
$
72
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Description
What would happen if you got 50 accomplished musicians together, and formed them into a classical orchestra, but told them they had to play instruments they'd never played before? Would their musicianship make the results great? Or would they sound like beginners?
Brian Eno, the genius behind several prog/glam rock albums of the early 70's, original member of Roxy Music, inventor of ambient music, producer of Talking Heads and U2, tried this amazing experiment together with Gavin Bryars. The result was the Portsmouth Sinfonia, who released two albums in the mid-70's. This is the more rare of the two, and barely sold at all, since the very straight-faced traditional record sleeve gives no indication that this is Eno, Gavin Bryars, and other luminaries of the British progressive scene, all doing the best they can to play popular classical tunes, but with no real understanding of how the instruments work.
The results are indescribable...definitely a kind of collision. Among prog fans and Eno fans, this was a party record back then. It's enough to say that the orchestra's sound is so unique that Eno actually hired them to provide aleatory "sweetening" (souring?) for his own early prog albums (which if you haven't heard, hear!)
Gavin Bryars is in the cello section...Eno on clarinet.
This is the first pressing in the US, and must be the oddest classical record Columbia ever released. It's hard to believe they issued it in 1974 in the US, with no name recognition for its hyper-brutish members and in a non-comedy sleeve. I wonder if their labelmate Leonard Bernstein ever heard it?
Very light surface noise, inaudible paper scuff, light touches of sleeve wear. NM-/NM-
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