Brian Eno 1973-1986: Definitive CD Comparisons & Advice Thread

Anyone else think the remaster of Music For Films is a lot hissier than the original EG CD?

 

I really like the 2004 digipac DSD CDs with the plastic sliding covers. But I remember that I had them all replaced for free by Astralwerks because the first batch had copy protection which caused clicking sounds when playing.

After reading this thread I'm inspired to play both copies of my Bush of Ghosts CDs and my original vinyl of the Catherine Wheel, which I haven't heard in at least 30 years. Heck! I used to be a young man!

 

I don't know without checking, but the original EG CD is fit only for trash, as it has appalling distortion on the (beautiful) track Sparrowfall, which has been fixed on the remaster

 

Been digging through some old discs. This from me was rather harsh and primitive. I still don't hugely like Day of Radiance, but check out Laraaji's other stuff. There's a lot of it, but maybe start with his archival stuff on Leaving Records, it's great. I think I was too dazzled / entranced / whatever by Brian Eno, Harold Budd etc when young in the mid 80s to appreciate the Laraaji album or investigate him further.

 

This falls right in line with the way I see Day Of Radiance. In my brain, it is a Laraaji album and, as such, I nearly dismissed it entirely when i was first introduced to yhe album. Not because it was bad, but because it wasn't what I wanted from the music; I, too, was searching for that late 70s to mid 80s Eno/Budd vibe. However, since picking up some of his recent tapes from Leaving the past couple of years, I have revisited this album as well and enjoyed it quite a bit more. Not as an Eno Ambient record, per se, but as a a great piece of Laraaji music produced by Eno.

 

Do any of the US editions of the above CDs (that you own) have Copy Control on them? Or was this a Euro release thing?

This question is not just directed at BlueSpeedway. If anyone else knows, please chime in.

 

Hopefully someone will know, or maybe the Discogs site will have the info ? My only US Eno CDs are old editions of Manzanera's Diamond Head and Eno-Byrne My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

 

I have some EU 2004 remasters (represses, I guess) in jewel case and they're not protected as far as I know. Nothing on the cover or booklet anyway.
I don't remember if I ever ripped them though.

 

I'm pretty sure no EU versions had it. I have a mixture of 2004 digipak originals and later jewel case versions and they're all fine and went into my computer with no problems.

 

OK, I think I misread CrystalCore's post then

 

I had Brian Eno - Discreet Music 2004 remastered Europe Virgin cd 7243 8 66494 2 3 with Copy Prot Brian Eno - Discreet Music
and I also had clicks, pops during playback in every cd player until I got rid of the cd and bought a cd version without the copy prot.

The Discreet music Remastered cd versions without the copy prot: the US 2004 cd , the UK /US , Europe 2004 cd 7243 8 66493 2 4, ENOCD5 Virgin, Virgin,Astralwerks,Astralwerks . The 2009 cd version also does not have the copy prot ( the same 2004 mastering)

Links to those cds without the Evil copy prot

Brian Eno - Discreet Music

Brian Eno - Discreet Music

Brian Eno - Discreet Music

 

The remastered Life in the Bush of Ghosts is absolute drek

Mastered too hot, tonally shrill

The odd sweeping noises that start America is Waiting will pull your head off

A very mediocre song Very Very Hungry rips apart the lovely sequencing with Qu'ran a song on the original release and quickly pulled for religious reasons.

The unreleased tracks are unfinished at best
There is a reason they were not released

Seek out the original cds and lps.

 

You might want to check out Flow Goes The Universe. Amazing album IMO.

 

So that essentially means that the US and UK 2004 and onwards non-Virgin editions of other early Eno albums will not have Copy Control, either?

For example:

Here Come the Warm Jets
Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
Another Green World

 

-------------------------------------------------
For these titles ( 2004) :
If you see a cd with 2 labels : virgin and another label , there is no copy prot, if you see virgin label alone then it's with the copy prot.

There is one exception: Strangely the Japan cds 2004 Virgin (the Virgin label alone) doesn't have the Copy prot for these titles.

– Here Come The Warm Jets
The only cd with copy prot
Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets (UK)

Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)
The only cd with copy prot
Eno* - Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) ( UK)

Another Green World
The only cd with copy prot ( Europe)
Eno* - Another Green World

 

That bolded sentence is really strange. Why would Virgin copy protect their own and also not the ones that are dual label? Anyway, thanks for clarifying that. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's wondered about the non copy protected versions.

 

I guess because protection was a very bad idea and not well received by consumers, so they got rid of it in later represses. Nothing related to Virgin's mergings history.

 

Can anyone let me know which Sparrowfall has the distortion on the original CD? I've got 0777 7 87189 2 5. Lots of reviews stated that remaster had a dodgy version of Quartz so I may just stick with the one I have.

 

That’s interesting, I never noticed a Quartz problem, will have to check it out. The Sparrowfall distirtion is on the EEGCD catalogue number one. Mine is a UK one from the early 1990s. I think yours is a later (possibly Holland) repress of that same mastering. I’ll do some checking later and get back to you if nobody else does first.

 

I don’t hear anything dodgy with Quartz on my remaster. I have a 1978 UK Music For Films LP I’ll compare it with at some point to be sure.

 

Apparently Quartz is 'truncated' on the reissue? Sorry to be an anorak but which of the Sparrowfall's has the distortion on the original EG CD?

 

Number 3.

I’ll check Quartz again soon, I forgot.

 

Thanks, I did. Nice!

_______

I was thinking of going through all the post-1986 Brian Eno (and friends) stuff as I listen to it. Not sure there’s much point though, as although much of it is fantastic, as I wrote at the start, for most people here I guess the importance of version comparisons is gonna be 1973-86, after that the variations in format and / or sound are limited.

 

So it seems the 2004 original masters are preferred over the originals? Is this true of all albums? I have a mixture of 2004 and original CDs but I’m missing some of his early - mid 80’s albums, notably Thursday Afternoon, which was released on CD before it was released on vinyl.