Young

By 1976 Neil Young had already created a body of work that most songwriters would cut off both arms and legs to have composed. But Young had merely completed another phase of his career and was ready to start the next. This film tells the story and reviews the music of Neil from the release of his stunning Zuma album at the end of 1975 up to the release of the well received Prairie Wind in 2005 - a 30 year period during which this maverick musician covered just about every style in existence.

After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic.

Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, Op. 68, of 1848 appears to be a collection of simple teaching pieces for children. But its unassuming exterior hides a wealth of inter-connected references: to Bach and to William Blake (whose Songs of Innocence and Experience it shadows), and to the life of the Romantic artist as reflected in nature and the passage of the seasons. Anssi Karttunen’s transcription for string trio brings a textural subtlety that enhances the unsuspected layers of meaning in Schumann’s modest miniatures – revealed, over 170 years after their composition, as an essential Romantic manifesto. The Zebra Trio consists of the Austrian violinist Ernst Kovacic, Canadian violist Steven Dann and Finnish cellist Anssi Karttunen, each bringing a vast experience in chamber music, in different styles and in working with living composers to the world of the string trio. The Zebra Trio has always mixed familiar master-pieces with new works and transcriptions, combining all of these in creative ways in their concerts.

This box set continues the chronological re-releasing of Neil Young’s Official Releases, remastered where analog tapes exist. Volume 4, released as a 4 LP box and 4 CD box. The ORS Vol 4 collects an eclectic set of decade-spanning sounds. Hawks & Doves (1980) revisits his folk roots and explores some of his most country-leaning offerings; the blistering Re•ac•tor (1981) showcases a stomping set of heavy, overdriven rock with Crazy Horse; and This Note’s for You (1988) casts Young as a big band leader, belting out intricately arranged blues. The Eldorado EP (1989), a 5 track mini-album, previously only released on CD in Australia and Japan, is full of feral distortion and earthy crunch featuring Young backed by The Restless (Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas). It includes two thundering tracks — “Cocaine Eyes” and “Heavy Love”— not available on any other album, along with different versions of 3 tracks that appeared on Freedom later the same year.