VARIOUS ARTISTS - INTO THE SIXTIES - TOWARDS A COSMIC MUSIC

Three CDs. In the 1960's the monumental success of The Beatles re-wrote the language of pop, drove a revolution in social mobility and prompted a new creative confidence in the arts. They re-defined what it was to be British. By 1966 The Beatles were untouchable and in expansive mood - 'Revolver' found them drawing on an eclectic, wholly unprecedented palette of musical colours. George Martin's passion for the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel and his knowledge of the inner workings of the orchestra facilitated the group's ambitions which culminated in 'Sgt. Pepper'; a stunning synthesis of Modern and Indian classical music, electronic and avant-garde procedures, progressive jazz and surrealist poetry. In Britain, The Beatles' fearless pioneering prepared an enlightened audience for such indelible cultural landmarks as Lindsay Anderson's highly subversive if and Patrick McGoohan's dark fairytale, The Prisoner; radical productions which, like The Beatles in their pomp, struck at the very heart of the Establishment. 'Into the Sixties' is a panorama of the visionary musical forces that inspired The Beatles and such contemporaries as The Pink Floyd and The Mothers of Invention in their explosion of the decade. From Ornette Coleman to Coltrane to Cage, from Sun Ra to Stockhausen, from Berio to Varese; musical prophets, spiritual adventurers. What jazz critic John Fordham wrote of Coltrane might apply to each: "He always sounded as if he was striving for what still lay out of reach. It wasn't just the search for more music, or a different music. It sounded like the search for another world, and another life"

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