Patricia Barber Higher 180g 45rpm 2LP

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One of jazz music's most celebrated and literate artists gets the deluxe Impex Treatment on her 2019 collection Higher, available on 2-LP 45-rpm HQ-180 vinyl pressed at RTI. This thoughtfully curated set features Barber's celebrated art song cycle "Higher" and four bonus tracks available on vinyl for the first time. Stereophile's Robert Baird describes Higher as an album that "continues Barber's logical artistic path toward becoming an artist whose only boundaries exist in the limits of her own prodigious imagination. Rather than just the completion of a long-held desire to create art songs, Higher, as its title suggest, is the answer to a calling, one Patricia Barber is gloriously answering."

After the success of the song-cycle EU tour version of Higher, Impex Records is proud to announce this exclusive complete version, featuring the original's ten songs, plus an alternate version of "The Opera Song", featuring lyric soprano Katherine Werbiansky, and three gorgeous new standards ("Early Autumn", "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "Secret Love"). Legendary recording and mix engineer Jim Anderson's meticulous production provides masterly rendering of every detail, harmonic, and hushed background, while the delicate touch of mastering engineer Scott Hull helps to pull you into the wide-ranging space of this incredible work.

Impex's hushed surfaces and incredibly rendered soundstage are brilliantly served by these expressive tracks, bringing out both the core of Barber's hushed delivery and the dynamic interplay of her crack backing band. The package includes an expanded large-format booklet (featuring a new write up from Patricia Barber herself!) and deluxe finishing for a luxurious tactile experience that matches the audio. As with every record we make, our goal is to enhance the enveloping sound and emotional pull of singular works by one of our greatest talents. Higher is the amazing next chapter in our odyssey and a superb listening experience for fans and audiophiles alike.

This LP release is a revelation. It might just be the most harmonically accurate and natural-sounding LP pressing to hit my turntable in the last couple of years.