Gene Clark - No Other (Limited Deluxe Boxset) - 4AD 0071 MXX 2019 remastered (originally Asylum Records, 1974) "One of the greatest albums ever made. Initially celebrated for its obscurity, it is now celebrated for its magnificence. It was in every way a magnum opus: epic, sprawling, poetic, choral, rococo." The Guardian Gene Clark - No Other (Limited Deluxe Boxset) 4AD 0071 MXX 2019 remastered (originally 1974) Folk Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Pop Rock, Country Rock 2ch & Mch | DR10-11-10 | full artwork 3xSACD-rip via Cambridge Audio CXU to iso (2.25/1.90/2.12 GB) All alone you say That you don't want no other So the Lord is love And love is like no other If the falling tide Can turn and then recover All alone we must Be part of one another All alone you say The power is perfection Is the power peace Or merely the connection To the God of Love That powers the protection From the tide of life That flows in each direction When the stream of changing days Turns around in so many ways Then the pilot of the mind Must find the right direction Upon its 1974 release, Gene Clark's No Other was rejected by most critics as an exercise in bloated studio excess. It was also ignored by Asylum, that had invested $100,000 in recording it. A considerable sum at the time, it was intended as a double album, but the label refused to release it as such. Ultimately, it proved a commercial failure that literally devastated Clark; he never recovered. Though Clark didn't live to see it, No Other has attained cult status as a visionary recording that employs every available studio means to illustrate the power in Clark's mercurial songwriting. He and producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye entered Village Recorders in L.A. with an elite cast that included Michael Utley and Jesse Ed Davis, Butch Trucks, Lee Sklar, Russ Kunkel, Joe Lala, Chris Hillman, Danny "Kooch" Kortchmar, Howard Buzzy Feiten, and Stephen Bruton. Clark's vocalists included: Clydie King, Venetta Fields, Shirley Matthews, the Eagles' Timothy B. Schmidt, and Claudia Lennear among them. These musicians all brought their best to the material. As a whole, No Other is a sprawling, ambitious work that seamlessly melds country, folk, jazz-inflected-gospel, urban blues, and breezy L.A. rock in a song cycle that reflects the mid-'70s better than anything from the time, yet continues to haunt the present with its relevance. re no edges on the set, even in the labyrinthine, multi-tracked title track that juxtaposes guitar-driven psychedelia and out jazz saxophones and flutes with lush vocal harmonies. Even its tougher tracks, such as "Strength of Strings," that echoes Neil Young's "Cowgirl in the Sand," melodically, delivers an alluring, modal, Eastern-tinged bridge adorned by slide guitar wizardry. In the textured darkness of "Silver Raven," Clark's falsetto vocal is framed by an alluring synth, and muted bassline and is embraced by a chorus that rivals CSNY's, making for a heartbreaking, yet blissed-out country-folk song. "From a Silver Phial," as haunting and beautiful as it is, is one of the strangest songs Clark ever penned. Its anti-drug references are especially odd as this is one of the more coked-out recordings to come from L.A. during the era. The final two cuts, "The True One" and "Lady of the North" (the latter co-written with Doug Dillard), are the only two pieces on the disc that mirror where Clark had come from musically, but as they wind around the listener, even these are far bigger than mere country-rock tunes, offering glissando passages of pedal steel and piano ostinatos that actually create narrative movement for the lyrics to turn on. No Other's songs lend themselves to open-ended performances in the studio. Because of his spacious, yet always beautifully centered compositional style, they are well-suited to Kaye's use of the multi-tracked instruments and vocals, ambient sonic echoes, and textures that surround them. Clark's unlikely classic, No Other is continually continued rediscovered by succeeding generations. allmusic.com The range of packages available in the reissue campaign devoted to the late Gene Clark's No Other (Asylum, 1974) mirrors the evolution of fascination with the former Byrd's fourth solo album. The progression is almost linear from single vinyl and compact disc to deluxe and super deluxe editions and encompasses a protracted sequence of events: beginning with the initial dismissal of the record when first issued to a burgeoning word of mouth over the forty-five years since, the process that now takes the form of breathless hyperbole in more than a few instances. But the tipping point of this phenomenon may well have been the 2003 release of an expanded double compact disc version of this album. Without exactly rendering that title obsolete, this more recent two-CD set achieves the same end through its inclusion of bonus tracks (not all of which are the same as the other's) sans the extravagance adorning the initial eight tracks Clark fashioned with producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye. Even as the lush baroque approach seems less of an aberration than a logical extension of the earlier influence of The Beatles on early tunes of The Byrds such as "She Has A Way," these stripped-down arrangements represent a more natural progression of the respected singer/songwriter's fusion of country music with rock and roll, extending back to work with the Gosdin Brothers and Doug Dillard. The original version of No Other almost literally smothers Gene Clark's persona as it evolved following his departure from that aforementioned iconic American group. And it isn't so much that strings, horns and vocal accompaniment actually appear on numbers like "Life's Greatest Fool," but that such lavish settings are used so often. In stark contrast to the understatement and restraint Clark and Kaye utilized in their second collaboration three years later, Two Sides to Every Story (RSO, 1977), on this initial foray, the two would seem to have encouraged each others worst instincts, creatively (and quite possibly otherwise): the clutter of over-production, epitomized by the overuse of the chorale on the previously-referenced opener, had a corollary and equally adverse impact on the composer's use of alternately easy and forced rhymes in the song's lyrics. Still, what sounds like metaphysical mumbo-jumbo there and within the extravagance of arrangement on songs like "One True One" becomes more akin to the ruminations of a man with history to draw upon and learn from in a spare setting. "Some Misunderstanding" reaffirms an image of Gene Clark as a solitary soul, often forlorn but ultimately resolute when he sings "But doesn't it feel good to stay alive?" Such words, as well as the forthright vocal delivery, gain resonance in the context of the man's often troubled and ultimately tragic life and death, an effect echoed by the musicianship of a compact core ensemble of accompanists: tracks like "Strength of Strings" reinforce the mood of the song(s)' as players of great pedigree, including keyboardist Craig Doerge and guitarist Jesse Ed Davis (who produced Clark's intimate White Light (A&M, 1971), have a chance to improvise, at least to some extent. Such instrumental intervals, however, are too often submerged below the mammoth charts of, for instance, "Lady of the North" on the formal release, so it only makes sense the contrast presented in this alternative rendering, as with its earlier counterpart, would spark an equal measure of curiosity about and captivation with the album. Of course, the multiplicity of perspectives affords the benefit of the doubt to those making the case for the album as a profound work of art, not to mention the formulation of the multi-media Super Deluxe set including SACD's, a hardcover book and a DVD documentary . The two compact discs packaged within these smaller hard-bound covers, between twenty-eight pages of extensive prose and annotation plus a wide array of photos (some picturing Clark in decidedly suspect poses), might well suffice otherwise. This set clarifies through direct comparison instead of muddying the perceptions with an overload of content. While Byrds historian Johnny Rogan's essay depicts the sequence of events by which the album came to fruition, accurately placing the project in the context of the Gene Clark's career large—and correctly assigning the multiple times Clark came close to receiving the acclamation he deserved—the British scribe's language is uncharacteristically hyperbolic; intentionally or not, it's a reflection of the production values of No Other, not to mention much of the current grandiloquence attached to it. The writing by The Long Ryders' titular leader Sid Griffin, who co-supervised the collation of the music from various sessions here, is appropriately more pithy (which is, in itself, a distinct departure from his flowery prose he composed as the foreward of the 2003 issue). Still, if what seems like overblown attention to this title eventually engenders comparably expansive revisits of Gene Clark records more closely aligned with his eclectic roots—Roadmaster (Ariola, 1973) is a most apt candidate—then poetic justice would surely be served on behalf of a man who earned such recognition. allaboutjazz.com Tracklist: No Other, Abbey Road remastered version (SACD 1): SACD1-1 Life's Greatest Fool 4:46 SACD1-2 Silver Raven 4:54 SACD1-3 No Other 5:09 SACD1-4 Strength Of Strings 6:32 SACD1-5 From A Silver Phial 3:41 SACD1-6 Some Misunderstanding 8:10 SACD1-7 The True One 3:59 SACD1-8 Lady Of The North 6:07 No Other Sessions I (SACD 2): SACD2-1 From A Silver Phial (Version 4) 3:51 SACD2-2 Silver Raven (Version 2) 6:35 SACD2-3 Some Misunderstanding (Version 3) 5:20 SACD2-4 Life's Greatest Fool (Version 2) 4:27 SACD2-5 Train Leaves Here This Morning (Version 2) 5:03 SACD2-6 Lady Of The North (Version 2) 5:45 SACD2-7 The True One (Version 2) 4:18 SACD2-8 Strength Of Strings (Version 2) 6:29 SACD2-9 No Other (Version 2) 5:40 No Other Sessions II (SACD 3): SACD3-1 From A Silver Phial (Version 1) 4:08 SACD3-2 Life's Greatest Fool (Version 1) 4:10 SACD3-3 No Other (Version 1) 5:15 SACD3-4 Lady Of The North (Version 1) 5:54 SACD3-5 Some Misunderstanding (Version 1) 5:12 SACD3-6 Silver Raven (Version 1) 5:00 SACD3-7 Train Leaves Here This Morning (Version 1) 5:46 SACD3-8 The True One (Version 1) 4:42 SACD3-9 Strength Of Strings (Version 1) 6:23 SACD3-10 Life's Greatest Fool (Single Version) 3:10 SACD3-11 Silver Raven (Single Edit) 3:21 Discs freshly ripped, third party full artwork included. Checksums: SACD 1: MD5: 7363c172bf307aefa2243156d9db3772 *No Other - 2019 Remaster.iso SFV: No Other - 2019 Remaster.iso C855A741 SACD 2: MD5: 1359969703deb0669922c3fb2d6d387f *No Other Sessions (1).iso SFV: No Other Sessions (1).iso 9D635EBA SACD 3: MD5: e3fa72b34095a516ac57dc69bfb4d674 *No Other Sessions (2).iso SFV: No Other Sessions (2).iso C0A9C7DB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gXXkai9p-M&feature=youtu.be https://www.filefactory.com/folder/4d9226f304ed4396