If Beethoven is considered the main genius in classical music, then Esquivel would be the Beethoven of the 20th Century. Okay most of the songs weren't his own compositions, but his arrangements are completely unpredictable in terms of instrumentation, placement, and often zooming from one speaker to the other. I can't put it into words well, but this is instant good mood music, never fails.
On the record two orchestras were put in two different studios for complete stereo separation with all kinds of overdubs all over the place. There's even a live, 2 studio, piano delay, that sounds infinitely better than any delay pedal ever has.
I almost always prefer mono records, but not Esquivel. So many other groups don't know how to use stereo, hell listen to a lot of 60's pop/rock albums and you can't help but wonder what the hell the engineer was thinking. Esquivel is the master some sort of goofy art form of stereo mixing and arrangement. Too bad musicians these days take everything, especially themselves, so damn seriously, leaving music this fun to the past.
This is a masterpiece of wackiness.
http://www.mediafire.com/?lz3hb3a7necxjpw
this may be the zaniest of all the stereo action releases from rca, who went with the slogan "the sound your eyes can follow"!. it's simply ping-pong stereo, with no real use of a stereo picture, but like you said - what fun!!
ReplyDeletei don't think they made any overdubs with this recording - it's 1961, and they had to use two orchestras at two separate studios recording at the same time!!! otherwise it would've been way much easier, but the difficult thing probably pushed senor esquivel to go for this extreme...
my 2nd favorite from the stereo action series i dig is ray martin's "dynamica" - not nearly as known as esquivel or even the three suns... :)
thanks for putting this thing on the map!!
salut,
lucky :)
I also have the comp. "Stereo Action Unlimited," but it's nowhere near as good as this...maybe 5 good songs. Only $1 at a thrift store, so no loss there. I think there were overdubs because of all the single instruments zooming all over the place with no bleed-through. If it was all done live, it's even more genius. Either way, no complaints.
ReplyDelete