Patricia Barber Mythologies Reimagines Ovid's "Metamorphoses": Mobile Fidelity's Numbered-Edition 180g 33RPM 2LP Set of 2006 Album Is Out of Print 

1/2" / 15 IPS / Dolby SR analog master to DSD 64 to analog console to lathe

A singular jazz work, Patricia Barber’s groundbreaking Mythologies is the result of the pianist becoming the only singer-songwriter to ever win a Guggenheim Fellowship. Allowed the time to craft a sophisticated album, the ambitious 2006 set is without peer in any genre. A cycle based on Greek mythology and Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” Mythologies brings each of the eleven characters from Ovid’s play to life in song.

Accompanied by guitarist Michael Alger, bassist Michael Arnapol, and drummer Eric Montzka, and assisted by a few special guest background vocalists--including a children's choir--Barber has turned in one of the first legitimate masterworks of the new century.

Lyrically addressing lovestruck emotions, insomnia, desires, risks, and more, Barber habitually turns conventions on their head. She matches her sonnets, double entendres, and fascinating narratives with music that’s at once seductive, sad, beautiful, and powerful. Intended to be listened to from start to finish, Mythologies comes off as a sonic cycle that traces life and death in an engrossingly imaginative fashion that’s on par with the classic Greek influences. 

Mastered from the original master tapes and out of print, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 2LP set of Mythologies boasts astounding sonics. The vocal delicacies and breathy aspects of Barber’s singing are fully audible, balanced, and gorgeously textured. Likewise, instrumental decay and acoustic details are suspended against a pitch-black background. 

“When Patricia Barber's Mythologies (Blue Note Records) appears in stores on Tuesday, listeners will hear a piece of music with no apparent model in jazz of the 20th Century (or the 21st). For though classically tinged jazz suites date back to at least Duke Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige (1943) and extend to epic works such as Charles Mingus' posthumously premiered Epitaph (1989) and Wynton Marsalis' Pulitzer Prize-winning Blood on the Fields (1997), Mythologies stands apart from such behemoths.”
–Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune