Northern Lights,Southern Cross

The Band’s Northern Lights—Southern Cross is, in nearly every respect, the group’s studio swan song. The group’s fifth album is also one of its finest works, a finely textured collection that at the time of its 1975 release marked the quintet’s first album of new material in four years. And what songs they are. Anchored by the standards “Acadian Driftwood,” “Ophelia,” and “It Makes No Difference,” the set finds the collective in peak form.
For the recording, The Band overdubbed its vocals for unrivaled smoothness and embraced the then-new technology afforded by a 24-channel console, allowing for multiple layering of keyboards and overlapped harmonies.
Mastered from the original master tapes, Mobile Fidelity’s limited edition hybrid SACD brings the beauty, intellect, and contours of Northern Lights—Southern Cross to life as never before. You can now hear the oddly tuned fiddling of bluegrass virtuoso Byron Berline seamlessly mesh with Garth Hudson’s bagpipe and Richard Manuel’s piccolo with unparalleled transparency. Bliss.