Balaklava

Description

With Balaklava, their second album released in late 1968, Pearls Before Swine delivered music with an uncanny sense of what young Americans wanted to hear. One Nation Underground had been an unexpected success upon its release in 1967 on the hip free-jazz indie label ESP Disk, generating incredible reactions. Emerging from obscurity in Florida and finding themselves in a position to speak to the masses, Tom Rapp and his band felt emboldened to elevate the standard of their new record. Balaklava's music sheds frantic post-garage diversity to refocus the production around Tom Rapp's guitar and vocals, with touches of instrumental colors all the more dramatic and striking. Producer Richard Alderson used reverb, sound effects, tape manipulations, and spoken word recordings. There are also numerous instrumental overdubs of banjo, marimba, organ, clavinet, flute, English horn, and strings performed by the band with jazz musicians Bill Salter and Al Schackman, Lee Crabtree of The Fugs, legendary saxophonist Joe Farrell, as well as contributions from Selwart Clarke and Warren Smith for the string arrangements. These instrumentations help achieve the universal space Tom Rapp sought to create with his meditative and existential songs. The pacifist message between the lines of Balaklava is elegantly written, distinguishing it from most other protest music of the Vietnam era. The original producer, Richard Alderson, remastered the album, restoring the precision of the original mix and thus celebrating the album's 50th anniversary in the most beautiful way. The music and the message the band wanted to convey to the world are still relevant today. And so, Balaklava has a new purpose, after all this time. Tom Rapp, who spent most of his life working as a lawyer, practicing humanist and equal rights law, passed away during the preparation of this album's re-release. The Drag City label is proud to contribute to the elevation of this music to the eternity it deserves. It goes without saying that this anniversary reissue of Balaklava is dedicated to the memory of Tom Rapp. May he rest in peace, in the positivity that Pearls Before Swine brings to all who hear their music.