I also seriously hope Wilson will allow someone else to properly master his music. His mixes are great but when it comes to mastering he seems to lose his spark (Fear of a Blank Planet), and if I'm not mistaken all of his studio albums past Grace for Drowning are literally not mastered, and in Hand Cannot Erase you can definitely hear that. I also find his remasters to be somewhat poor from time to time, despite them being almost always more dynamic than the original discs, to the point that for Blackfield I prefer the original, compressed CDs (mastered by Chris Blair if I'm not mistaken, on the loud side of things but better than the SW remasters),.
I agree with this in general which is why I never listen to anything from an automatic buy album until I have the album.It just takes willpower!
I've proposed to (re)master some of his work, but he hasn't taken the opportunity yet. Might happen someday for some of the more obscure stuff.
I strongly disagree, I love the sound of Hand Cannot Erase and didn't like the sound of To The Bone, although it was properly mastered by Tim Young. His King Crimson remixes was also mastered by other people, and I prefer the flat transfer of his mix. On a side note, I think he should self-produce his records again, without the help of other producers, but it looks like he's working with another one, who worked with Keane, for his forthcoming one.
That's what I admire about SW - he keeps throwing curveballs. I've never really been interested in Keane, or any band from that era, but clearly Steven hears something in their music that has inspired him to work with this producer. And a different pair of ears, and different points of view can't do any harm when it comes to producing the best result they can. [Someone should have suggested that to George Lucas during the Star Wars prequels...] But, yeah, as soon as the Prog-Illuminati get a whiff of the Keane association.....(I'll be hunkering in the bunker while it all explodes overhead...)
Funny because when writing my comment I thought in my head "To The Bone's CD does sound quite good though" and now I know why .
I went to SW's website to find any teasers about the new album underway, and the bigger surprise (to me) is that he just got married. It's hard to imagine that not influencing his new music in some way. Also, we've been spoiled in the past by how often he puts out new projects, but that may slow down a bit in the future to make room for family life.
More than him being married, I'm very surprised that he chose start a family, considering his stance in the past over the matter. I'm very happy for him though, and yeah it will be interesting to see how this will affect his songwriting.
It seems the marriage included a daughter from a previous relationship of his new wife, but I hadn't heard that they were going to have children of their own together.
I just want to him to get that 4 disc deluxe version of IA out that has been promised as "coming soon" for months...
I really don't get what some people have against depressing music. Thank God we got beautiful music by people who are/were not happy-go-lucky most of the day.
Tim blogged about the new album a couple weeks ago, all done....announcement ought to be the release date info, maybe pre-orders etc.
I definitely agree, but in the case of SW, it would be a welcome change, not because his sad music is bad, not at all, but because it would be an interesting shake of things for him.
He definitely has the talent for making very fine heart wrenching music. Oddly, the more meloncholy, the more I like it.
I’m with you on that. And some of the videos that go with the singles, like Routine, are heart wrenching, too. Generally, I like happy, upbeat music. But there is some beauty in his darker pieces, whether it’s the melody or the instrumentation. Plus, the bonus with certain editions of recent SW albums is that he includes instrumental versions of the songs which I’m equally happy to listen to if I’m not in the mood for the lyrics. (I wish more bands would do that!)