About

It’s safe to assume no one in the audience at Carnegie Hall on March 30, 1974 anticipated what Miles Davis would play at the concert documented on Dark Magus. Recorded near the tail end of his electric period, the double album remains the darkest, most ferocious statement of Davis’ career — a visionary effort that foresaw developments in jungle, noise-rock, funk, and drum ‘n’ bass. Initially issued in Japan in 1977, Dark Magus waited two decades for U.S. release. Now, more than 50 years after Davis and his ensemble blew minds at the famous New York venue, it's finally available on a definitive-sounding pressing.

Mastered at Mobile Fidelity's California studio, housed in a Stoughton gatefold jacket, and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, Mobile Fidelity’s numbered-edition 180g 33RPM 2LP set of Dark Magus invites you to pull up a seat and wrap your head around an exhilarating performance that simultaneously functions as an audition, experiment, release, and magnificent explosion of jazz-rock fusion. We hope your turntable and speakers are up to the challenge. The story behind Dark Magus is nearly as unbelievable as the spur-of-the-moment compositions that resulted when Davis brought drummer Al Foster, bassist Michael Henderson, percussionist James Mtume, horn virtuoso Dave Liebman, and guitarists Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas together, and, in a new twist for the concert’s second half, added guitarist Dominique Gaumont and tenor saxophonist Azar Lawrence to mix. That the latter two instrumentalists had never seen each other until that night adds to Davis’ legend — and penchant for bold, unorthodox moves.

Ditto Davis’ own actions that spring evening, which reportedly included showing up to the show an hour late and taking the stage with his back facing the crowd. The strategy worked. Davis inspired the group to play in a bold manner that few, if any, had heard before. Dark Magus is a rhythmic bonanza. Rooted in Afro-centrist techniques, avante-garde sensibilities, and exploratory moods, the songs eschew set arrangements and solos, and, for the most part, melodic devices. For Davis, Dark Magus represented a personal triumph amid a period marked by health issues, addictions, and critical decline. Of course, the free-form patterns, unpredictable passages, dense structures, and distorted blues that course through the songs — titled after Swahili numerals — are not for everyone. And certainly not for the fainthearted. Though Dark Magus contains majestic moments marked by quiet restraint and something on the level of balladry, its rich and radical concoction of tormented thwacks, thumps, cracks, clatters, wails, bleeps, burbles, stomps, and enigmatic beats remains its adventurous heart and soul. Primal and enigmatic, fierce and jagged, forceful and revolutionary, jolting and terrifying, Dark Magus seemingly attacks from any and all directions. Turn it up loud and let the prophetic brilliance of this inimitable and relentlessly funky album wash over you. — via Label
—
1/4” / 15 IPS analog copy to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe

↓
Label: Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Columbia
Format: 2 x Vinyl, LP, Album, Numbered, Reissue, Remastered, Special Edition, Stereo, 180g
Reissued: 2025 / Original Release: 1977
Genre: Jazz, Rock
Style: Fusion

File under: Audiophile Jazz
⦿