Curt Boettcher

The Millennium - The Millennium At Last (2012) [8CD Mini LP Blu-spec BoxSet] {Sony Music Japan}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC(image)+CUE+LOG -> 2,67 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 908 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 989 Mb | DSD Mastering
© 2012 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICP-20401~8
Rock / Psychedelic / Pop Rock

Japanese original release. Box set release from The Millennium consisting 8 CDs featuring unreleased tracks of the band, each member's solo works (Curt Boettcher, Sandy Salisbury, Lee Mallory), the first album "Begin," and a rare album "Pieces." This edition features cardboard sleeve jacket, the latest remastering, and the high-fidelity Blu-spec CD format (compatible with standard CD players). Comes with a Japanese edition booklet and lyrics. Influenced by psychedelia and California rock, pop/rock producer Curt Boettcher (the Association) decided to assemble a studio supergroup who would explore progressive sounds in 1968. Millennium's resultant album would find no commercial success and only half-baked artistic success, but nonetheless retains some period charm.

An awe-inspiring three CD set! Sundazed emptied the Columbia vaults of material by these late-‘60s Curt Boettcher-led groups, whose dazzling soundscapes and choral arrangements created a perfect hybrid of sunshine pop and psychedelia. Produced with the bands’ full participation, Magic Time is the definitive compendium of Millennium/Ballroom material, including the entire Begin and Ballroom albums and an additional wealth of unheard songs and alternate versions, plus interviews and rare photos! Magic Time is an extensive three-disc compilation album containing music from the sunshine pop bands The Millennium, The Ballroom, Sagittarius and also the artist Curt Boettcher. It isn't completely accurate to call it a reissue of The Millennium album Begin, though it does contain the entire album plus all of the single versions of songs from that album…

Japanese original release. Box set release from The Millennium consisting 8CDs featuring unreleased tracks of the band, each member's solo works (Curt Boettcher, Sandy Salisbury, Lee Mallory), the first album "Begin," and a rare album "Pieces."
Influenced by psychedelia and California rock, pop/rock producer Curt Boettcher (the Association) decided to assemble a studio supergroup who would explore progressive sounds in 1968. Millennium's resultant album would find no commercial success and only half-baked artistic success, but nonetheless retains some period charm. Influenced in roughly equal measures by the Association, the Mamas and the Papas, the Smile-era Beach Boys, Nilsson, the Left Banke, and the Fifth Dimension, Boettcher and his friends came up with a hybrid that was at once too unabashedly commercial for underground FM radio…

Japanese original release. Box set release from The Millennium consisting 8CDs featuring unreleased tracks of the band, each member's solo works (Curt Boettcher, Sandy Salisbury, Lee Mallory), the first album "Begin," and a rare album "Pieces."
Influenced by psychedelia and California rock, pop/rock producer Curt Boettcher (the Association) decided to assemble a studio supergroup who would explore progressive sounds in 1968. Millennium's resultant album would find no commercial success and only half-baked artistic success, but nonetheless retains some period charm. Influenced in roughly equal measures by the Association, the Mamas and the Papas, the Smile-era Beach Boys, Nilsson, the Left Banke, and the Fifth Dimension, Boettcher and his friends came up with a hybrid that was at once too unabashedly commercial for underground FM radio…

All 11 tracks from the 1967 LP, with the addition of seven previously unreleased items and a couple cuts from non-LP singles. Although the production is beautiful and the songwriting melodic, the material is really too cloying to qualify this as a lost classic. When there's even a bit of a serious or melancholic edge — as on the graceful opening track "Another Time," or Gary Usher's strange and stunning slice of psych-pop, "The Truth Is Not Real" — it's much more memorable. Otherwise, this is kind of like the lesser fairy-tale, sing-songy British psychedelia of the time, but with state-of-the-art L.A. '60s production. The bonus cuts are similar to the album, highlighted by the gorgeous instrumental "Sister Marie," although the non-LP single "Hotel Indiscreet" is silly fluff.