Do you think that might be to add some balance over the compilations? The tracks are flown in from all over place and it might have been a bit disorientating to re-focus on each one? I haven't had that set for long and have been playing it to death in the car! The quality of the songs is staggering throughout except the bonus disc IMO.
No. It has nothing to do with that at all. I got the email on this. Having said that, I'd rather have an album of originals from Andy.
I have to say I’m a bit nervous about this Partridge release. I thought that the TC & I release was just barely passable. I listened to it twice and there was nothing there to keep me coming back. These little releases are hit and miss, and for the price, at least based off prior experience, not always worth it.
Any idea yet what the next 5.1 release will be? Have there been any hints or announcements that I've missed?
Listening to this release and watching the this is pop doc this weekend. Sure wish this series would continue. I’d love any record they have masters for and hope the series will be completed to include the first and last two albums as well.
Not sure if this is the right thread to mention it really but the new vinyl release sounds wonderful!
Somebody posted in a FB group today that Black Sea CD/Blu-ray is out of stock everywhere. Strange that this one is the first to become unavailable. Maybe they pressed fewer of these than the other titles? Anyway, if anyone has a spare they would part with could you let me know and I'll put you in touch with this guy? He's in the US
I see the Oranges & Lemons and Nonsuch Blu-Rays are starting to be out of stock on the official sites as well.
My (pure 100%) guess is that Black Sea was one of the more popular titles, all things considered. (I think it was one of the best-publicized and reviewed of them, too.) I’m not too surprised it has become scarce.
Fair enough If I'd had to guess I'd have gone for Skylarking as going first, even if only because it was released earlier. The only one released after it so far is The Dukes! But yeah, it is a fantastic album (but so are the rest!!!)!!
Just giving the bonus stuff a spin and i think the Andy Partridge swindon town hall demos maybe in the wrong order. Im no expert on all things xtc but my blu ray lists the order as being jumping the gap, spy in space and walking to work. When i play these, the first song has lyrics saying ‘spy in space’, the second track appears to be walking to work and the third one jumping the gap (with the riff to travels in nihilon). Thought this may be helpful for anyone who gets ‘easily confused’ like me
Great interview with Steven Wilson on the What Do You Call That Noise? Podcast: What Do You Call That Noise? The XTC Podcast - Steven Wilson remixing XTC on Stitcher Apparently they are missing a LOT of elements from Apple Venus. It's not like the old days when you have a master tape and that's everything needed to make a new mix. Computer hard drives, backup formats, ADATs... these are just some of the things Wilson mentioned. Hopefully they can locate everything, but I would assume some of that stuff were bytes that are long gone.
Just for sound effects and various various tape distortions. From a 2019 interview: How did it feel going back with Steven Wilson and re-examining all that stuff? Sir John Johns [aka Andy]: John Leckie feared we'd lose a lot of the sound effects we had, which were spun in live at the mix. But we did find that some were spun in during recording, so they were on tape. Those that were spun in live we had to go and hunt out similar sound effects – or, in a couple of cases, go and find exactly the same one because they were from standard BBC libraries. So it wasn't as difficult as John Leckie and I feared. So there's a little bit of faking going on… Sir John Johns: There is but you'd be hard pressed to discover it.
Yep, the analog vs digital argument will run forever, but one thing is certain, many digital formats have not stood the test of time. You certainly can't recover music from a hard drive by baking it.
Even with Pro Tools and other DAWs, files that are in the project may not be saved in the project directory. So when you backup the folder you aren’t backing up everything. I learned this the hard way with an album I recorded in the mid-2000s: on one song, the organ track is gone. While there are safeguards and workflow that will help solve that problem, accidents occur. It’s frustrating! I’m engineering an all analog project right now, and it’s so nice to look at that stack of tapes and know that the whole album is right there.
