Santana "Borboletta" 7-inch Sony Japan MultiCh SACD coming November 6th, 2024

[jhw59]

Mine's in New York waiting on customs clearance so on the right coast.

 

[Rhinojack]

I checked today and would you believe it went back to Anchorage, and now has arrived in Tennessee.

 

[MikeMonaco]

Mine arrived today via DHL. Will listen later this evening.

I listened to this several times on Tuesday night, and it was a perfect distraction to everything else going on in the world. This is a favorite of mine from way back (stereo LP), and this surround release is excellent. Each speaker has drums, bells, all sorts of bongo percussions everywhere, along with Carlo's otherworldly guitar, fantastic horns and bass. This is definitely a release I'll play again and again.

Note: IMO if you miss going to church on Sunday, playing this album is a pretty good replacement. Very uplifting.

 

[shakti]

Note: IMO if you miss going to church on Sunday, playing this album is a pretty good replacement. Very uplifting.

Very true! All of the Santana albums from 72-74 exhibit some kind of spiritual yearning, but this is the one with the most "Christian" sound if that makes sense. It's probably the gospel tinge to a few of the songs. Singer Leon Patillo was probably at least part of the inspiration behind that, AFAIK he was a devout Christian. But also the inspiration from Earth, Wind & Fire which was creeping into Santana's music (and would be even more evident in 1975-76).

I had a good session with this new release yesterday. It is another bloody fantastic surround release from Sony Japan. I only had one digital version of this, which is the original 80s?90s? European CD release. I don't think there's ever been another CD release, when the Santana remasters came out in the early 2000s they stopped at Welcome. This one absolutely shatters the earlier CD into pieces. Mind you, I am talking about the surround mix. I had high hopes for it, seeing as it was recorded and mixed by Glen Kolotkin and done in 1974, but this exceeded even my high expectations by some margin.
Give and Take was just stunning; it's a pretty dense track with lots of percussion, keyboards, vocals, guitar and saxophone. The immersiveness was off the scale on that one, and the BASS!! Oh my, it's not that it was overpowering, it was just so present and authoritative. I hardly even heard the bass in the stereo mix, but here it thumps with massive authority and really lifted this track.
The only tiny quibble I have is with the track Flor de Canela, which was noticeably weaker in every way...it still had some discrete elements, but it sounded tiny by comparison. The reason is probably that it has a lot of flanging effects and these were retained exactly as on the stereo mix. So most likely they used the stereo mix as a basis for this track, but added some elements in the surrounds. It's not a "fake" surround mix, just noticeably different from the other tracks. Fortunately it is a fairly brief track, so it doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment. Fantastic fidelity, fantastic mix of a great, great album.