Ahbez, Eden
Eden's Island (2cd)
Ultimate reissue of one of the world's most important albums in the field of exotica, jazz, and even proto-psychedelic music from the 1960s. Incliudes 20 bonus tracks from different sessions that were previously unreleased to this day. The artist Eden Ahbez was not only a skilled composer and performer who wrote the hit tune 'Nature Boy' for the classic 1940s crooner Nat King Cole but was also a forefather and probably the sole inventor of the hippie lifestyle that became a worldwide movement by the mid-1960s. Co-produced by movie maker Brian Chidester who after nearly 20 years of research completed a full-time movie on the life of Eden Ahbez with every aspect of his life illuminated. The album has been carefully restored and newly mastered from the original master tapes. All other previous reissues that were mostly non-legal ventures were transcriptions from old and beaten records. Grammy-nominated sound engineer Jessica Thompson, an icon in the field of restoring and remastering old and often obscure yet cult recordings from jazz to punk to Afro beat and a great fan of Eden Ahbez, has done another marvelous job and probably this could become her most prolific and important venture. The other two-thirds of the music on this reissue, which comes as a wicked double LP in gatefold sleeve, is made up of those tunes that Eden never properly put on albums, that remained in obscurity unbeknownst by man until today. Jessica Thompson also did the mastering here and Brian Chidester co-produced this treasure trove of musical jewelry, which expands Eden Ahbez' epic concept album style and also showcases his skills in writing accessible, yet unique proto-psychedelic pop tunes that lead your mind into a different world. The CD version comes as a double CD with 2 booklets.