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Powerful, poignant, important, and beautiful are all words that describe Imagine – both the title song and the LP that was John Lennon’s second solo album release, in the autumn of 1971. One song does not make a great album, even when it is as seminal and defining as Imagine… and, make no mistake, this is a great album, full of brilliant songs, with great hooks. With John’s acerbic wit ever-present, though, the album never approaches the kind of music that John found irrelevant and meaningless. John began work on the album that was to become Imagine a little over three months after finishing John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Recording his new album was done in three separate stages, the first between February 11 and 16, followed by another from May 24 to 28, before some final overdubs and mixing in New York over the 4th of July weekend. The earlier sessions were at Abbey Road and the May sessions were at the Lennon’s home studio at Tittenhurst Park, the New York sessions in July were at the Record Plant. The Evolution Documentary recordings present the story of each song on a journey from demo to master via instructions, rehearsals, recordings, multitrack exploration and studio chat. "Each montage chronicles how a song developed from its embryonic form and then evolved as it was recorded in the studio. In our search for bonus material, we listened to demos, all the takes from the one-inch multitrack tapes, and quarter-inch reels recorded in May 1971 by the film crew documenting the sessions at the studio in Ascot. We discovered many moments that, although not long enough to be bonus tracks by themselves, when blended together would help tell the story of each song [...] These Evolution mixes do not have the same sound as the final version released in 1971. With minimal audio processing applied, the sound is sparse and raw. Any echo or effects that are heard were recorded onto spare tracks on the multitrack tapes during the sessions and so are exactly what the musicians would have heard in their headphones on the day of recording." - Sam Gannon (Engineer)