Simon & Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme

Simon & Garfunkel on numbered, limited edition 180-gram LP

1/4" / 15 ips analog copy to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe

Mobile Fidelity reissue pressed at RTI!

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list 202/500

Songs for all time: Simon & Garfunkel's kaleidoscopic Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme Includes "Scarborough Fair/Canticle," "Homeward Bound," and "The 59th Street Bridge Song"

The liner notes pioneering writer Ralph J. Gleason penned for the back cover of Simon and Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme ring as true now as they did upon the record's original release in 1966. He mused: "Today's popular music is in good shape indeed – at least the portion of it represented by this album. It has strength and it has beauty, it has lyricism, meaning and, above all, that quality of broad appeal which still retains form. And its music speaks for more than the moment. The songs in this album are songs for all time." Indeed, they are, and they can now be experienced in the highest fidelity they've ever enjoyed.

Mastered on Mobile Fidelity's world-renowned mastering system and pressed at RTI, this 180-gram vinyl LP presents the famed duo's landmark third record in superlative sound. Reflecting the perfectionist-minded nature of Bob Johnston's meticulous production and the group's painstaking arrangements, Mobile Fidelity's reissue brings to light textures, nuances, details, and microdynamics obscured on prior editions. The hyper-realistic results give you a seat at the recording studio.

The first Simon and Garfunkel set captured on an eight-track recorder, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme here bursts with colors crucial to the scope of the songs. Separation between vocals and guitars, images of individual players, and the dimensions of the wide-spanning soundstages all flourish. Harmonies crest and seemingly float on bypassing clouds. Acoustic passages blossom with lifelike structure and tone. The intent of deliberate euphonic variations – like those between the pair's singing and Charlie O'Donnell's spoken news report on the closing "7 O'Clock News/Silent Night," which function as both poetic and social commentary – is made clearer by way of the LP's reference-caliber transparency.

Such punctiliousness is exactly what the duo pursued during their four months in the studio, considered then by record-company executives to be borderline excessive. Yet there's no arguing with the end results of a benchmark work Rolling Stone named the 202nd Greatest Album of All Time. Again, it proves wise to refer again to Gleason, whose observations about Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme's character remain spot-on.

Simon and Garfunkel achieve the feat time and again via interwoven harmonies, folk devices, revealing contrasts, vocal blending, spiritual imagery, and soaring melodies. The material is at once beautiful and evocative, pristine and natural, serious and joyful, pertinent and accessible. And while the individual appeal of chestnuts like "Homeward Bound," "Scarborough Fair/Canticle," "The 59th Street Bridge Song," and "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" remain iconic, the sum of the whole makes this 1966 masterwork a paramount expression of unbridled creativity and communal vision.

1. Scarborough Fair/Canticle

2. Patterns

3. Cloudy

4. Homeward Bound

5. The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine

6. The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)

7. The Dangling Conversation

8. Flowers Never Bend in the Rainfall

9. A Simple Desultory Philippic

10. For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her

11. A Poem on the Underground Wall

12. 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night

Customer Reviews (3.00 Stars) 2 person(s) rated this product.

Sound level too high and Sibilant posted on 11/08/2019 3 Stars I had same experience as the last reviewer. The sound level was too much and caused lots of sibilance on high frequencies.

Clear and sharp, but...... posted on 08/08/2019 3 Stars Reviewer: VicN This version of an old classic is very clear, fast and sharp, but as I listened to it, it just didn't grab me. They've achieved this clarity by biasing the high frequency end at the expense of the mid range. The result is a noticeable amount of the "music" has been sucked out of the mids leaving them very lean. The high end is empathised to the point that some songs were sibilant in parts. I was wondering if it was just me, so I threw on the Sundazed version I've had for a while, which was also produced from the original master tapes. The Sundaze version didn't have quite the same amount of resolution as the MoFi release, but was fuller in the mids, sounded better balanced and had no sibilance. To me the Sundazed version better captured the warm 60s sound and was more involving. So if you're a clarity/resolution freak, then the new MoFi is it. If you prefer the original warmer fuller sound, then the MoFi mastering may leave you a little cold (pun intended).

Write a review and let people know what you think of this product OR just rate it.