Listened to the new double CD edition of Ned Lagin's Seastones album today. Lagin is a composer/musician/photographer who spent time around th eGrateful Dead during the first half of the 70's. Seastones is a compostion he created during that time, parts of which were performed by him and Phil Lesh in concert during the Dead's show sin 1974, as well as a small gaggle of performances that featured the two of them, and sometimes also Jerry Garcia and MIckey Hart, circa 73-75.
In 1975 , the orignal Seastones album was released, a sort of semi-ambient avant garde piece featuring Lagin on keyboards, synths and computers, with contributions from Lesh, Garcia, Hart, Grace Slick, David Freiberg, Spencer Dryden, and David Crosby. I know what that looks like on paper, sounds like some sort of San Fran rock summit, but it's anything but. This is a very "out there" record, closer to the experimental contemporary music that Lesh was ensconced in, before Jerry Garcia talked him into joining The Warlocks. Unfortunately, the album went out of print when Round Records, the label the Dead established for their extracurricular recording activities outside the band, vanished, along with hit's parent company, Grateful Dead Records, in in 1976. I twas reissued on Rykodisc in the early 90's, with a 30 minute bonus track, but that too went out of print relatively quick, and fetches big bucks on the used market now.
The new double CD release isn't quite a reissue. It features 110 minutes worth of music, presenting (apparently) most of the musical fragments that make up the full piece, most of which didn't appear on either the Round or Ryko releases. I've been waiting for this for well over 20 years now, and I have ot say, it's pretty awesome to finally have this. And it's awesome that Ned finally got to release it with the indvidual "moments" indexed separately (he apparently took exception to Ryko indexing their release as two long tracks, as he intended the listener to choose which combination of moments he/she listened to, in any given order, during a listening session). What can I say? If you've ever heard the original album or the Ryko relase, you know what ot expect. If not, go over to Youtube and have a listen. The album is avialable at spiritcats.com
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