(Psichedelic, Prog) Shimshon Miel - It's Me - 2007, FLAC (tracks), lossless

http://music.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,331474550-122425,00.html

Israeli acid-folk psyche - it's back!

Dorian Lynskey
Friday December 7, 2007

Guardian
A couple of years ago, Shimshon Miel fully expected that he would never get to sing in public again. It was, after all, almost 30 years since he had last had the pleasure. In 1977, as a 28-year-old Israeli hippy, he pressed 200 copies of a bizarre and beautiful fusion of jazz, folk, psychedelia and Judaism called Orchard of the Whispering Embers - and never made another record. That would have been the end of the story were it not for an improbable chain of events involving a charity shop, a DJ, the Guardian and the internet.

In April 2006 I wrote a feature for these pages on diggers, those obsessive record collectors who delight in unearthing long-forgotten vinyl. I met with Gareth Goddard, aka Cherrystones, a DJ and producer dedicated to finding the rarest of grooves. Standing in his east London flat, he leafed through some of his favourite finds, brandishing one with a proud grin. "This is one of my ultimate discoveries. Israeli acid-folk-psych. It's bananas. I saw it in a charity shop and thought, there's no way I'm leaving something like that."

We both examined the sleeve. All the writing was in Hebrew, so its provenance was a mystery, but the back of the sleeve featured an endearing picture of a bespectacled hippy laughing under a tree.

I mentioned the picture in the piece, which caught the eye of an Israeli internet forum dedicated to psychedelia. Head-scratching ensued until someone identified it as Orchard of the Whispering Embers. A small Israeli label tracked down Miel and another specialist imprint, ARS records, reissued the album on CD this year. In August, Shimshon Miel played his first show since 1978. "It is a great surprise," he says in heavily accented English down the line from Jerusalem. "I owe you a lot."

Miel remembers the day the sleeve photo was taken. After completing his national service, he travelled the word playing music. One day in 1974, the cruise liner he was performing on docked in Miami and a friend took the picture. "It was the best period of my life. I had a good, good time. I was kind of an acid freak. I hoped those hippie times would never end. It was like a garden of Eden."

He loved prog-rock bands such as Genesis, Gentle Giant and the Mahavishnu Orchestra. He was also becoming interested in Kabbalah, which inspired the album title. But having snatched studio time to record the album, he struggled to get heard. "His music is very esoteric," says ARS boss Ozi Ezrati. "People didn't like his attitude. He was not successful."

His last chance came at 1978's Nueiba Nueiba festival, a doomed attempt to mount "an Israeli Woodstock" on a piece of disputed land that just a year later was handed back to Egypt. Having again failed to make an impression, he turned his back on music and immersed himself in studying the Torah. "I gave everything away: all records, everything. I started to be a religious person and I kind of forgot about this record."

"He's a rather strange person and a very talented musician," says Ezrati. "I believe his life was not so easy financially. I think it's a waste that he didn't manage to develop himself musically."

Now, though, Miel has finally found an audience for a questing, uncategorisable album that sounds, to non-Israeli ears, something like a collaboration between John Martyn and Hawkwind. He has written songs on and off ever since - the reissue features bonus tracks recorded between 1979 and 2002 - and now intends to release another album, 30 years after his first.

If Miel sounds amazed by this turn of events, so too does Gareth Goddard. "How a copy ended up in a charity shop in Dalston I don't know," he marvels. "This is what it's all about - giving something back to people who have been overlooked. It's fucking brilliant."

01 - In The Shade Of The Giant John McLaughlin, Pt1.flac
02 - In The Shade Of The Giant John McLaughlin, Pt12.flac
03 - The First Show.flac
04 - America At War.flac
05 - In Memory Of 6 Million Souls.flac
06 - Back To The Ground.flac
07 - Again Up In Space...flac
08 - Od Yshama.flac
09 - A Look At Life.flac
10 - Leaving You With Taste Of More.flac
Artwork
It's Me.log
It's Me_Noncompliant.CUE
It's Me_Single Wav.CUE
Shimshon Miel - It's Me.m3u
tau.txt
Artwork\Back.png
Artwork\Booklet 1.png
Artwork\Booklet 2.png
Artwork\Booklet 3.png
Artwork\Booklet 4.png
Artwork\Disc.png

EAC extraction logfile from 25. June 2008, 13:33 for CD
Shimshon Miel / It's Me

Used drive : PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-112D Adapter: 0 ID: 0
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : C:\Program Files\FLAC\flac.exe (User Defined Encoder)
320 kBit/s
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMMENT=EAC FLAC -8" %s

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Installed external ASPI interface

Track 1
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\01 - In The Shade Of The Giant John McLaughlin, Pt1.wav

Pre-gap length 0:00:05.38

Peak level 97.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 964898E5
Copy CRC 964898E5
Copy OK

Track 2
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\02 - In The Shade Of The Giant John McLaughlin, Pt12.wav

Peak level 93.5 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC A4431A1D
Copy CRC A4431A1D
Copy OK

Track 3
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\03 - The First Show.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 0729E055
Copy CRC 0729E055
Copy OK

Track 4
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\04 - America At War.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 5481981E
Copy CRC 5481981E
Copy OK

Track 5
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\05 - In Memory Of 6 Million Souls.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC B5F43A24
Copy CRC B5F43A24
Copy OK

Track 6
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\06 - Back To The Ground.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC F6B8140C
Copy CRC F6B8140C
Copy OK

Track 7
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\07 - Again Up In Space...wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 9CD56234
Copy CRC 9CD56234
Copy OK

Track 8
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\08 - Od Yshama.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC ECA35D71
Copy CRC ECA35D71
Copy OK

Track 9
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\09 - A Look At Life.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC D6A75281
Copy CRC D6A75281
Copy OK

Track 10
Filename D:\music\3 rip\Shimshon Miel - It's Me\10 - Leaving You With Taste Of More.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC FCB1F606
Copy CRC FCB1F606
Copy OK

No errors occured

End of status report

4119935958 62132828 01 - In The Shade Of The Giant John McLaughlin, Pt1.wav
3277163069 111581276 02 - In The Shade Of The Giant John McLaughlin, Pt12.wav
4065560293 57682844 03 - The First Show.wav
2242319268 46800140 04 - America At War.wav
565173761 124380860 05 - In Memory Of 6 Million Souls.wav
1597218630 55935308 06 - Back To The Ground.wav
2320872674 57838076 07 - Again Up In Space...wav
1312370077 37044044 08 - Od Yshama.wav
3822409822 29567036 09 - A Look At Life.wav
2973363260 51494732 10 - Leaving You With Taste Of More.wav

auCDtect: CD records authenticity detector, version 0.8.2
Copyright (c) 2004 Oleg Berngardt. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2004 Alexander Djourik. All rights reserved.
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Processing file: [01 - In The Shade Of The Giant John McLaughlin, Pt1.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 100%

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Processing file: [02 - In The Shade Of The Giant John McLaughlin, Pt12.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 100%

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Processing file: [03 - The First Show.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 100%

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Processing file: [04 - America At War.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 99%

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Processing file: [05 - In Memory Of 6 Million Souls.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 100%

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Processing file: [06 - Back To The Ground.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 100%

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Processing file: [07 - Again Up In Space...wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 99%

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Processing file: [08 - Od Yshama.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 100%

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Processing file: [09 - A Look At Life.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 99%

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Processing file: [10 - Leaving You With Taste Of More.wav]

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This track looks like CDDA with probability 100%

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Final Conclusion:
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These tracks looks like CDDA with probability 100%