Songs of faith and devotion: Hilsinger & Beatty

It may not have yet received a proper review yet anywhere, but Doug Hilsinger and Caroleen Beatty play Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy can't help but astound you in terms of its ambition and loving treatment of the original. It's as tiny a record as I've purchased in the past year, but it's artwork is gorgeous, and the liner notes narrate the album's development, beginning as just two covers to the command decision to record the album in its entirety.

In the recent past, one might have dismissed this record as a Halloween prank pulled only by Phish and their ilk in a demonstration of taste that spits in the faces of their fawning faithful. Hilsinger and Beatty treat this material so reverantly that having lifted technology's distorting veil, one hears not only the album's compositional genius, but can better understand the once obscured lyrics with new clarity, revealing the complex and beautiful imagery contained therein. This record is singularly unique in its devotion without bowing too deeply to genuflect, or trading on novelty alone.

If you can't find it at your local record store, independent or otherwise, it's widely available through online retailers here, here and here.