Lou Reed Berlin

Numbered, Limited Edition 180g Vinyl LP!
Pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing!
An Intense Journey into Toxic Relationships Balanced with Gorgeous Arrangements and Dark Humor: Lou Reed's Conceptual Berlin Features A-List Cast and Bob Ezrin Production!
Sourced from the Original Master Tapes: Mobile Fidelity's 180g 33RPM Vinyl 2LP Presents the Singer-Songwriter's Landmark 1973 Album in Audiophile Quality for the First Time!
1/4"/15 IPS/Dolby A Analog Master to DSD 256 to Analog Console to Lathe!
As with the recordings with his first band, Lou Reed is decades ahead of his time with "Berlin". Although the former Velvet Underground member's third solo album was rejected when it was first released in 1973, it eventually landed on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 greatest albums of all time and remains one of his most acclaimed works.
This rock opera, which deals with mature themes in a drastic way, combines autobiographical reality, poetic freedom and ambitious arrangements to tell the story of a couple's toxic relationship and its consequences. Produced by Bob Ezrin and featuring a cast of outstanding musicians, "Berlin" is an emotionally stirring and sonically eclectic journey through many of the worst tendencies of human existence.
Mobile Fidelity's numbered 180g LP presents this groundbreaking recording for the first time in audiophile quality and with a faithful reproduction of the full-size eight-page booklet. The scope, balance and breadth of Ezrin's explosive production come to the fore. As well as the generous spatiality and separation, which leave the songs room to breathe even when the music soars to orchestral heights.
Like the records he made with his first band, Berlin finds Lou Reed decades ahead of the times. Though dismissed upon its original release in 1973, the former Velvet Underground member's third solo effort remains one of his most lauded works.
Addressing mature issues in stark fashion, the rock opera blends autobiographical reality, poetic license, and ambitious arrangements to tell the story of a couple's toxic relationship and its fallout. Produced by Bob Ezrin and featuring an array of ace musicians, Berlin is an emotionally harrowing and sonically eclectic journey into the many of the worst tendencies of the human condition.
Sourced from the original master tapes, housed in a Stoughton jacket, and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g LP of Berlin presents the landmark recording in audiophile quality for the first time. The scope, balance, and reach of Ezrin's explosive production comes to the fore. As does the ample spaciousness and separation that help give the songs breathing room even when the music builds to an orchestral pitch.
Reed's distinctive voice — central to every track — sounds direct, immediate, centered. The realism and clarity of his tone make it appear as if he's entered the room. You can trace his breath control, reserved coolness, and commanding phrasing. And sense the implied violence, delusion, and sorrow in the questions and statements he issues in the persona of the protagonist Jim — as well as the empathy, fatigue, confusion, and frustration he projects in his guise as Caroline.
Mobile Fidelity's reissue also puts into a new, improved light the brilliant contributions of the standout session players. Steve Winwood (Hammond organ), Michael Brecker (tenor saxophone), Randy Brecker (trumpet), and Procol Harum drummer B.J. Wilson play key roles. The core band assisting Reed and Ezrin on a majority of Berlin — Alice Cooper guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, drum maven Aynsley Dunbar, Cream bassist Jack Bruce — turn in a collective performance for the ages. None more so than Bruce, whose bass lines resonate on this LP with a roundedness, fatness, tautness, and control that give songs added depth and foundation. Ezrin's restrained piano, full of body and decay, performs a similar function.
Expanding on the gritty themes he explored with the Velvet Underground, and arranging them into a conceptual tale, Reed transforms Berlin into a candid report of what was happening behind closed doors everywhere. Deemed by the Chicago Tribune as "a spare, understated song cycle of nearly suicidal intensity about a crumbling marriage," it deals head-on with heavyweight topics such as domestic abuse, drug addiction, mental illness, custodial rights, prostitution, and depression. Reed's purple narratives detail issues that would attract mainstream attention many years later — and which continue to spur vital conversations.
Akin to a classic film noir or hardboiled novel, Berlin skirts any attempt to varnish its rough interiors. Functioning as both a contrast and counterweight, the record's beautiful, symphonic-leaning exteriors somehow both heighten and lessen the severity of the vignettes. The theatrical swells of woodwinds, strings, and brass feature the same streaks of black humor that inform Reed's writing. That edginess and eccentricity, and Reed's investment in the album's three characters and situations, function as magnets that draw us in even when the sadness, meanness, and darkness prompt us to look away.
Save for the opening romance of the title track and false hope of the damning (and downright nasty) "Sad Song," Berlin largely trades in doom and depression. A record that starts off with a muted celebration and fond recollection ends with motherless children, slashed-wrists suicide, and a callous partner who feels no remorse for his brutal actions but professes gratitude for what becomes an unmitigated disaster.
"Life is meant to be more than this," Reed sings in combination protest and resignation on the ironically gorgeous "Caroline Says II." Before the next song finishes — a bleak chronicle of behaviors and decisions relayed with intentional misogyny, hatred, and shaming, and whose subdued tenor gets fractured by the sounds of wailing children crying for their mother — that life has gotten far worse. Minutes later, when Reed and company shape the swirling fever dream called "The Bed," that life is snuffed out. Oh, oh, what a feeling, indeed.

Features:

• Numbered, Limited Edition
• 180g Vinyl
• Mastered from the 1/4" / 15 IPS / Dolby A Analog Master to DSD 256 to Analog Console to Lathe
• Mastered by Krieg Wunderlich, Assisted by Shawn R. Britton at Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Sebastopol, CA on GAIN 2
• Pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing
• Stoughton Jacket

Musicians:

• Lou Reed, vocals, acoustic guitar
• Jack Bruce, bass (A1, A3 to B1, B3, B4)
• Jon Pierson, bass trombone
• Bob Ezrin, Dennis Ferrante, Dick Wagner, Elizabeth March, Lou Reed, Steve Hyden, choir
• Aynsley Dunbar, drums (A1, A3 to B1, B3, B4)
• Dick Wagner, electric guitar
• Steve Hunter, electric guitar
• Steve Winwood, electric organ, harmonium
• Bob Ezrin, piano, mellotron
• Michael Brecker, tenor saxophone
• Randy Brecker, trumpet

Selections:

Side A
1. Berlin
2. Lady Day
3. Men of Good Fortune
4. Caroline Says I
5. How Do You Think It Feels
6. Oh, Jim
Side B
1. Caroline Says II
2. The Kids
3. The Bed
4. Sad Song