Kronos Quartet’s award-winning 1990 album Black Angels gets its first-ever vinyl release in celebration of the group’s 50th anniversary. The two-LP set includes George Crumb’s title piece, which inspired David Harrington to found the quartet, and works by Charles Ives, István Márta, Thomas Tallis, and Dmitri Shostakovich; the vinyl’s fourth side is an etching of an illustration Matt Mahurin—whose work is featured on the original album cover—created especially for this purpose.
Crumb’s title piece, called “an unusually elevated and searing Vietnam War protest” by the New York Times, sets a dark, powerful tone for the collection, which addresses the political/physical/spiritual consequences of war. The Evening Standard includes the album among its “100 Definitive Classical Albums of the 20th Century.”