MOBILE FIDELITY SOUND LAB 180g AUDIOPHILE BLACK VINYL 2xLP. LTD EDITION, NUMBERED.
"Awash in controversy and loaded with revolutionary protest, Jefferson Airplane's Volunteers stands as the last album made by the group's classic lineup and brings insurgent closure to the peace-and-love era. The potent 1969 record confronts war, politics, greed, and environmental ruin in head-on fashion matched by few peers. Steeped in the belief people and music could transform the world, it steers the band in community-minded and county-rock directions, and features charged playing by guest luminaries such as Jerry Garcia, Stephen Stills, David Crosby, and Nicky Hopkins. Volunteers also benefits from being one of the first 16-track recordings. And now, the historic set can be heard in the fidelity the artists and producers intended.
Mastered from the original master tapes and pressed at RTI, Mobile Fidelity's 180g 45RPM 2LP set of Volunteers teems with soul-affirming energy, dynamics, immediacy, and standout textures. The wider and deeper grooves translate into finer pacing, enhanced information retrieval, and superior transparency. Soundstages stretch far and extend back, with instrumental separation giving all of the musicians their own place in the mix. As a result, subtle albeit important details – Hopkins' rollicking piano, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen's biting tones, Garcia's deft pedal-steel work – emerge in three-dimensional fashion amidst a musical canvas that manages to be both edgy and produced, raw and revealing. Jefferson Airplane has never sounded more vital.
Much had changed in America – and within Jefferson Airplane – in just the two short years since the release of the San Francisco collective's breakthrough smash Surrealistic Pillow. The countercultural movement had darkened, government involvement in Vietnam escalated, and regard for human rights fallen. Retreating from the excessive experimentalism that graced its prior two LPs, the Airplane responded to the social circumstances with defiant, assured, and cohesive songs shot through with driving psychedelia, crunchy acid-rock, and rustic country. From start to finish, it's the aural equivalent of a demonstration march."