Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Brain Salad Surgery (Barry Diament Mastering) CD Track Listing

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer Brain Salad Surgery (Barry Diament Mastering) (1973)
Brain Salad Surgery (Barry Diament Mastering)\nEmerson, Lake & Palmer\n2002 Victor Entertainment, Inc - Japan\n\nOriginally Released November 19, 1973\nRemastered Edition Released July 16, 1996\nJapanese Mini LP Version Released November 25, 2002\nJapanese Version featuring a Limited Edition LP Style Slipcase for Initial Pressing Only. \n\nAmazon.com Album Description\nJapanese exclusive 24-bit K2 remastered reissue of 1985 album. Packaged in a limited edition miniature LP sleeve. \n\nAMG EXPERT REVIEW: The trio's most successful and well-realized album (after their first), and their most ambitious as a group, as well as their loudest, is also their most electronic sounding one. The main focus, thanks to the three-part "Karn Evil 9," is sci-fi rock, approached with a volume and vengeance that stretched the art rock audience's tolerance to its outer limit, but also managed to appeal to the metal audience in ways that little of Trilogy did. Indeed, "Karn Evil 9" is the piece and the place where Emerson and his keyboards finally matched in both music and flamboyance the larger-than-life guitar sound of Jimi Hendrix. Pete Sinfield's lyrics, while not up to his best King Crimson-era standard, were better than anything the group had to work with previously, and Lake pulled out all the stops on his heaviest singing voice in handling them, coming off a bit like Peter Gabriel in the process. The songs (except for the throwaway "Benny the Bouncer") are also among their best work -- the group's arrangement of Sir Charles Hubert Parry's setting of William Blake's "Jerusalem" manages to be reverent yet rocking, while Emerson's adaptation of Alberto Ginastera's music in "Tocatta" outstrips even "The Barbarian" and "Knife Edge" from the first album as a distinctive and rewarding reinterpretation of a piece of serious music. Lake's "Still...You Turn Me On" is his last great ballad with the group, possessing a melody and arrangement sufficiently pretty to forgive the presence of the rhyming triplet "everyday a little sadder/a little madder/someone get me a ladder." The Rhino CD is to be preferred over all other domestic reissues, as it features an improved remastering, an interview, and packaging with a very cool three-D cover design. However, the Castle CD also impresses with two bonus tracks (the singles for "Brain Salad Surgery" and "When the Apple Blossoms Bloom in the Windmills of Your Mind I'll Be Your Valentine") and a set of excerpts from the album. -- Bruce Eder\n\nAmazon.com Editorial Review\nWith orchestral swells and symphonic arrangements, Emerson Lake & Palmer put the Prague in '70s progressive rock. There was something of that dark, European artistry in their compositions that always made their music more grandiose than their stateside counterparts. Brain Salad Surgery was a conductor's wet dream. Works like the "Impression" study in four movements were epic to the nth degree. Influenced by Mussorgsky and Stravinsky, ELP wreaked havoc with the conventions of what rock and classical music could and could not be. In typical fashion, the trio included one highly accessible cut, in this case the haunting "Still... You Turn Me On." The CD also contains the enigmatic favorite, "Karn Evil 9." --Steve Gdula \n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\na must have for ELP fans, May 23, 2001 \nReviewer: keyboardguy from savage, mn United States \nadmittedly am a bit biased to liking this one, as am a professional keyboardist, and Keith Emerson (in my opinion the greatest rock keyboardist of all time) was my inspriration to play the moment I first heard his version of "Hoedown"\n\nI know that some have felt the original ELP recordings had great production I have often felt different; that they lacked true low end, and high end clarity This remix addresses both of those issues wonderfully in fact, depending on how you have EQ'd your system, the bass may actually get to "overkill" levels (I had set up my system with Steely Dan DTS and Eagles DTS mixes as references, and this disc came through with earthshaking (literally) moments of bass not necessarily a bad thing at times) must say, its nice to hear Keith's Moog lines re-engineered with the power and clariy they deserve\n\nthis remix takes full advantage of the 3D aspect of 6 channels lots of panning all around, especially of the synth leads it happens a lot, to the point where one might wonder if the remix is just sweeping the panning for the novelty of it, but still, if you are hoping for ELP in the third audio dimension, you will surely have it\n\nthere is one disappointment for me in the production (hense the 4 stars instead of 5 which most others seem to have bestowed); while the bass guitar is huge in the subwoofer channel, Carl's kickdrum is oddly absent that would have added such a great addtional power to this wonderful revisiting of great musicians at work\n\nThat one point aside, in short, if you are ELP fan (this disk opens up this classic recording like never before), and/or if you are looking for a show-off 3D audio dvd audio disk, stop reading and hit the "order" button immediately! --This text refers to the DVD Audio edition. \n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\n"Load Your Program- I Am Yourself!", December 15, 2000 \nReviewer: take403 from Jerusalem \nThis edition includes insightful liner notes and interviews with Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, and Carl Palmer at the end of the CD. The cover sports a 3D version of H. R. Giger's sinister artwork. This album is one of ELP's finest moments as a band! \n\n"Jerusalem", a traditional Anglican hymn, opens the set. Apparently, they got heat for doing a "rock" version of it by some purists. This follows "Toccota", a variation on a piano concerto by Alberto Ginastera. Their rendition features lots of eerie sounds from Keith's keyboards and Carl playing drums with computerized gadgetry. ELP were way ahead of their times back in 1973! This cut almost didn't make the album, as they had to pay a personal visit to the composer Ginastera who complimented this piece by declaring it "diabolic"! "Still You Turn Me On" is a nice acoustic track by Greg and features him on a wah-wah pedal. "Benny the Bouncer" is a cute vaudevillian number about a big bully who messes with the wrong guy and features some fine honkey tonk piano by Keith. \n\n"Karn Evil 9" is a 3 part suite which features some lyrical help from Peter Sinfield (a King Cimson alumnist). The 1st Impression Part 1 starts out with promise ("I will be there, to heal your sorrow, to beg and borrow") and winds up in spectacle (moving onto Part 2, which many of you know as "Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends"). The 2nd Impression is a Latino jazz piece (piano and steel drums). In the 3rd Impression, computers have taken over society ("Load your program, I am yourself") and are seen as Big Brother. It's funny how true their prophecy has become! \n\nIf you've never heard this masterpiece in its entirety, you're in for a big surprise! \n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nELP's Masterpiece Speaks of A New Clear Dawn, October 24, 2000 \nReviewer: Lawrance M. Bernabo from The Zenith City: Duluth, MN USA \nThis 1973 ELP album with the original painting by H. R. Giger is one of the great covers of all time and if you really pay attention to the details in the artwork you can figure out what "Brain Salad Surgery" means in British slang terms. For me this is the best album by the Progressive (nee Classical) Rock Power Trio. The synthesizer-saturated sound that dominated "Tarkus" has been toned down considerably to great effect, which you can tell immediately with the opening organ chords of Keith Emerson's organ on "Jerusalem," the best-known Anglican hymn. "Toccata," an adaptation of the 4th Movement of Ginastera's 1st Piano Concerto features an impressive percussion movement from Carl Palmer. "Still...You Turn Me On" is Greg Lake's best composition since "Lucky Man," and you can only wish his work had not always been so overshadowed by Emerson's pyrotechnics on the keyboard. "Benny the Bouncer" is another one of those annoying little honky tonk ditties that ELP was so enamored of for some reason that passeth understanding.\n\nThe highlight of the album is the "Karn Evil 9" Suite, which seems to me to be a nice synthesis of what the group had gone for in earlier albums with the "Tarkus" Suite and "The Endless Enigma," although more like the latter of that particular pair in terms of employing the forms of classical composition. The First Impression offered the line that came to sum up the group's performance, "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends," although you find yourself wishing they had used computer magic to get rid of the fade out/fade in that we had to endure on vinyl when we flipped sides of the record. The Second Impression is arguably their finest instrumental track while the Third Impression brings the album full circle, offering a hymn for the new clear dawn. To make this album perfect all you have to do is program your CD player to skip the fourth track. Enjoy. \n\nAmazon.com Customer Review\nTHE MOST IMPRESSIVE ELP' STUDIO ALBUM, October 6, 2000 \nReviewer: DANIEL BENTO \nIt's not as much about being the best ELP album than being the most perfect realization they did still with the fire of their golden age. Later albums have lots of matured ideas, maybe more than here, but the lacerating sound was being changed into a truly epic nobility, another moment of ELP's history. I can't think another album in rock history more related to the idea of art rock and conceptual album than this. H. R. Giger's artwork is ELP's music in image - one of those happy coincidences when artists interact. There's metal, bones, flesh and eternity in vision as in the refining agressive music.\n\n"Jerusalem" was rejected as single, probably because of conservative reasons. One may think it's contradictory such a sharp-pointed rendition of a Hymn. What you hear sounds more ELP than Parry/Blake, but there's no disrespect, only succeeded appropriating. Ginastera's "Toccata" is an example of the greatest honor a musical arrangement can get: the admiration of the composer. The immortally respected argentinean composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) once said "Keith Emerson has beautifully caught the mood of my piece". It's possible to understand better the original version of Ginastera's fourth movement of the first piano concerto after hearing BSS. "Still.... You Turn Me On" is from "Lucky man" lineage, as "Benny the Bouncer" from "The Sheriff". "Still...." is one of Lake's most beautiful compositions, perhaps the only really serene moment of the entire album, few seconds after the "Toccata" nightmare. "Benny", on the other hand, is the humored scene of BSS, the rest of it has an eventually subtle sarcasm, in a most of time heavy atmosphere. After this song, you have less than four seconds to tight your belt, the next song is "Karn Evil 9"(the name comes for carnival). No matter how good are the first four pieces of the album, still, you got the feeling that the real message of BSS is inside "Karn Evil 9". This is the best ELP contribuition, not better than Emerson's Concerto or "Pirates", but more "Elpian".\n\nThe first impression of "Karn Evil 9" is a long tense increasing in its first part, violent hammond sounds, syncopated rhythms and a very wise impressing appearance of new motifs almost without notice - a skilful dealing with larger forms, culminating in a plain and somehow lighter guitar solo, but the tensions increase again and the plain turns into climax. The following second part is what usually ELP played onstage after the 1973-4 tour, it's a pitty they hadn't played "Karn Evil 9" entirely more times. It's a kind of stabilized version of the of first part' second half, within a more rock format. On the vinyl, one had to turn to B side to hear the first impression' second part, with a fade out on the end of A side and a fade in at the beginning of B side. The first release on CD (Atlantic) kept this effect, though it may have some point for collectors, its terrible keeping this limitation musically speaking. Nowaday's CD versions present first and second parts of first impression perfectly continuous, a dream for ELP fans.\n\nThe second impression has probably the most daring musical textures in ELP, a jazz fusion feature, and a sensuous caribbean accent sometimes, the lips of the cover. Basically, you find this rock band changing into a powerful jazz piano trio.\n\nThe third impression is the most melodic part of the piece, with a folk-song like theme, but paradoxically with very provocating lyrics (with Pete's Sinfield contribution) and technology decry. But again the edged rhythms, sounds and harmonies come and you realize that it was just a typical break of ELP's world, inside their own world. So those breaks are their very style.\n\nIt is almost comical to know that critics once criticized ELP because of technology abuse and at same time an elephantine dealing with classical tradition. Although this is the first band to play alive with synthesizers in history, mostly they never substituted acoustical instruments with synth replicas - they used synths for original sounds, not for imitating. They never used sequencers for playing faster, only for special effects (like the end of Karn Evil 9). On the other hand, their classical and jazz influence never had arguments with their rock side, and that's probably the great accomplishment of Progressive Rock.\n\nIt's very interesting to know through the bonus track "The making of BBS" that Emerson knew "Tocatta" because of brazilian pianist Jo

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