For those adding this to a Plex server or an Audirvāna library, ensure your metadata matches the following:
For the gearheads, understanding why this album sounds so good in FLAC requires looking at the 1972 production.
When transferred correctly to 24/96 FLAC, you are hearing the flutter of the tape, the hiss of the analog master (which adds to the texture, not detracts), and the natural compression of the microphones. It is a historical document as much as a musical one.
The album opens with Ralph Towner’s crystalline 12-string guitar. In FLAC, the decay of each note is palpable. The silence between the notes is as important as the notes themselves. Paul McCandless enters on English horn—an instrument that sounds reedy and dark in low bitrates but, in FLAC, reveals the texture of the reed against the mouthpiece. This piece is a premonition of the ECM sound (though Oregon predated Towner’s later ECM solo work).
When you download the 1972 FLAC rip (preferably from a pristine, NM- vinyl source or the rare Japanese Vanguard CD reissue), listen for these critical moments: