Butchershop Quartet - The Rite Of Spring 2 x CDs
SKU
GALAPACOS47701
I saw these guys last nite perform this and the CDs arrived this morning! How timely! The Butchershop Quartet are a 2 guitar, bass, drums quartet (who have great shirts made up with embroidered namepatches that say "drums" "bass" "guitar 1" "guitar 2") from Chicago. Their repertoire consists of the complete and unabridged version (as can best be successfully reduced for 16 strings + kit drums) of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring. Now, this is kind of a big deal; this is one of the most imporant compositions of the 20th century, and certainly one of the most famous. Parts of The Rite of Spring has been attempted by rock bands before; Egg famously used to do "The Augurs Of Spring" section as part of "Long Piece No. 1", but had to leave it off their first album due to copyright problems, and Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic did a charming reduction of it on Magnetic Flip, their first album. But this is the first time that this august piece has been performed in its entirety in this fashion. They obviously put a lot of thought into both the transcription and the performance of this. While some parts of an orchestral piece are - not surprisingly - lost by such a reduction, it's *basically* all there and exceedingly well done, imo. The 2nd disc is completely disposable hip hop remixes, but since the 2nd CD comes at no charge, it doesn't detract from my firm recommendation of this! [Galapogos4]