PEARLS BEFORE SWINE

“Balaklava (50th anniversary edition)”

DRAG CITY

December 14. Released in late 1968, the second Pearls Before Swine record continued to deliver music with a preternatural sense of what the youth of America wanted to hear. The music of Balaklava strips away the manic, post-garage band diversity of the first album, instead grounding the production around Tom Rapp’s guitar and singing, with the touches of instrumental color. Producer Richard Alderson utilized breathy sweeps of reverb, sound effects, tape manipulation and spoken word recordings along with an array of instrumental overdubs including banjo, marimba, organ, clavinet, flute, English horn and strings. Alderson has remastered the album, restoring the precision of the original mix - and in the process, revealing fantastically dynamic performances and dispersing the haze of the years that had gathered over latter-day editions of Balaklava.