The Church - any of the congregation here? (Part Two)

That is a strong album. Don't ignore it!

I played Further/Deeper yesterday for first time in ages.

 

Only about 22 or so albums to go.

How did you like MOV version of GAF? Noticeable upgrade to the RSD version?

 

How is this dual disc? Is there a high resolution stereo mix? Decent mastering, or should I just go with the CD?

 

I figured I'd share this info here. The early catalog of The Church is a confused rights issue. Some territories, the albums are covered by Sony, other (most) territories it's EMI/Universal. Last year I figured I'd give a try with Universal and put in license requests for the 81-85 catalog. A few months ago I received denials for Skins and Blurred, which didn't surprise me because on iTunes U.S. it still shows them as Sony/ATV. But Seance through Heyday show EMI Australia/Universal, so I had hoped perhaps those might have a chance. But this week, I got denials for the rest I had requested. Of course, I never know the details behind the denials. My hope was to go back to the original masters and eclipse those godawful Don Bartley brickwalled nightmares. The long term plan would have been to start with expanded CD reissues and then move on to colored vinyl reissues, but I guess it's just not meant to be. But I did put forth the effort.

 

The DualDisc DVD side features both stereo and surround. I listened to the surround version yesterday evening and it cranked nicely. The surround mix wasn't particularly revelatory but the overall sound was nice.

I don't pay a lot of attention to dynamic range numbers. For the first time ever, I went in search of the DR for this album and note that the CD version is measured at an average of 6 while the DualDisc comes in with an average of 9. Now that I see that, I remember thinking when I bought the CD upon release that Forget Yourself had really rotten production for a Church album which is likely the reason I spent very little time listening to it. Perhaps it was the mastering that led to my conclusion. Regardless, I didn't have that impression in the least bit with the DualDisc so I would therefore highly recommend searching for that version. Seems an eBay seller has been moving these for $39 shipped, new & sealed which appears to be the best bet out there.

 

Have you considered doing some of the post-Arista albums? I would think the rights would be a lot easier to obtain on those.

 

I’m gutted to hear this news, but thanks for trying Scott.

I guess Shane/IR is our last hope to get audiophile versions.

 

Yeah, Shane was lucky enough to get a foot in the door with Sony before they blocked off third-party licensing to labels that aren't their own subsidiaries. Which is asinine IMO, why would you not license out stuff you're doing nothing but sitting on when the other person is doing all the hard work? But it's Sony's choice and we just have to hope that Starfish finally comes out on vinyl and does well, and that Shane won't be so put off by the whole experience that he'll consider more titles.

I would dearly love for Church on Rubellan, that would be amazing, but I don't really think the later stuff would fit within Rubellan's roster. I'd love to be wrong, of course.

 

I don’t see anyplace where Shane has stated this.

 

Did Shane explicitly state this? Maybe not. But Starfish is owned by Arista, which is a subsidiary of Sony, who licensed it to Shane, and they have not licensed titles to anybody else. These are facts, and Shanr does not need to make a public post stating as such in order to make it true.

Now, will Sony allow him to license more titles in the future? That is unknown. And I didn't mean to imply in my post that he had the green light. I just suggested that he has a leg up on anybody else, since they allowed him to release this title during the licensing blackout (which I truly hope is temporary).

 

I guess my point is that we really don’t know much about the situation. Most labels play their cards pretty close to the vest, and I get it. There is a lot of competition for titles.

 

From what I understood, he had a request cleared for Starfish quite a while ago, before the licensing cutoff, but halted it when other editions became available on vinyl elsewhere. At the time when Sony sent out notices cutting third parties, they said something about titles already cleared would be allowed to proceed. So I think when he revisited the release, it fell in line with Sony's statement. Now, whether or not he could get any further titles is anyone's guess.

 

My main interest in The Church is 80-85 but does carry through to Priest. I've tried later albums but it's a bit too dreamy for me.

 

Yes, that's right. That's what I meant about "foot in the door". Whether they'll allow anything else is anybody's guess.

Honestly, part of me wonders if your requests got denied because Universal realized they had no idea who owned the rights. I mean, those albums were originally released on Parlophone, which is under the Warner umbrella now. The pre-Starfish stuff was only licensed to Arista, so they wouldn't be Sony – unless Sony bought them after EMI went under. How would Universal have ended up with them? Did the EMI Australia branch get sold off to Warner? The last time this stuff got reissued, EMI was still around. Now (or at least, last time I checked), streaming services credited a company from Israel which was affiliated with the Kilbey/Kennedy vinyl reissues (I think their digital division was called Third Eye?). Either way – it's a nightmare.

I would have loved for those early albums to have been done on Rubellan. I might very well have had you ship an entire purchase order of them to me. Such things are, unfortunately, not to be. On the plus side, most of the early Church CDs sound good – it's only half of Sing-Songs, "Busdriver", and a handful of other early cuts that don't exist digitally in good (or at least decent) quality.

 

I just don’t think it’s good form to be discussing another label’s business.

 

Do you mean Sony's licensing blackout? Or we shouldn't discuss Rubellan since they can't get the license?

 

I thought and was shocked that the MOV sounded off in the mix. Maybe flat sounding, which is usually not the case with those guys. I prefer the RSD issue the best.It was clear and detailed sounding on my setup. My original Arista pressing had some distortion near the end of the sides. Thus preferring the original CD release (plus the bonus track was nice) at the time. So far, for vinyl,my go to would be the RSD pressing for the win.

 

Thanks. seance deserves better than the Bartley masters and the flawed Inglot CD release.

 

Boy, I'd love you to take a swing at "Seance" and Midnight Oil's "Place Without A Postcard". Each are murky messes.

 

I'm thinking it was more manufacturing problems rather than Inglot's mastering.
Some of the issues on the US are not present on the Canadian Disque Americ.
Actually a nice sounding disc.

 

Yeah I have both. I created a composite without the flaw. They are a bit bright though. Curiously the insert is different on the as well. Minor difference.

 

The mastering itself is different on both. Different tape transfers (possibly transfers of different tapes altogether) and different EQ. The common one has glitches on "Fly", "It's No Reason", and "Electric Lash". The latter two are easy to fix, the former is not. The Disque Americ CD has a glitch (possibly a tape glitch) on "One Day" which is very hard to fix. For that reason I actually prefer the common CD, since "One Day" is my favourite Church song – an odd choice, I realize, since it's not very representative of their sound and skill with melody, but it's still number one for me.

The Bartley remasters all had some extra step in the compression process, because I have methods of matching the EQ directly between two sources, and it's all but indistinguishable 99% of the time – but here, it somehow sounds even less alike after matching the EQ exactly. I don't know if he's got a simultaneous multi-band compressor/EQ/bizarre filtering thing, but whatever he did, it ruined those albums IMO. All of the bonus tracks for the pre-Starfish albums are on the very-good-sounding Hindsight compilation, and the handful of exclusive bonus tracks on the later albums (and the Deep In The Shallows comp) are needledrops.

Now that the Intervention Starfish SACD exists, the only tape-sourced bonus track that's hard to find on CD now is the acoustic version of "Spark" from the Sum Of The Parts promo CD. (I only have a rip plagued with the distortion of Discovery Systems CD rot – somebody once offered to send me a clean lossless file of that one track... but only if I first sent them a CD worth about $30-$50 in the mail. Um, what?) There's also "Busdriver", a song Steve Kilbey apparently wants buried – the only two places it's ever been released (as far as I know anyway) are the original Australian "Unguarded Moment" single and the Second Motion Of Skins And Heart reissue CD (where it's a brickwalled needledrop of the aforementioned Australian single).

Incidentally, while we're on the subject of needledrops, the original official CD release of "Warm Spell" – on this European "Milky Way" CD single – is a needledrop. The first release was a Bucketfull Of Brains (?) flexi-disc, which I actually own, but it being a flexi-disc, it's hard to tell the source. Part of me wonders if they sent the actual tape of the song to BOB (or whichever magazine it was) to have the flexi pressed. That would explain why the official Arista release only a year or two later would come from a needledrop. (And the only CD release of Kilbey's solo debut single B-side, "Never Come Back", from the 2004 Slow Crack reissue, is also a needledrop.)

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on that tangent. From Seance to the Bartley remasters to bonus tracks to potentially lost tape sources to random needledrop notes. Heh. Well, hope it was useful information to someone anyway.

 

Always good to have a reminder. The Church discography is a mess but not as bad as some others.

 

Scott,

Thanks for the updates and for all your hard work on releases so far and any/all future licensing projects!

 

Yeah, try collecting the Who or the Kinks. The only problem with the Church is that most of the discs are rare and expensive. In terms of mastering, it's simple:

First, start with the Intervention Starfish. If you don't own a copy, buy one, you won't regret it. Everything pre-Magician Among The Spirits is available with decent-to-great mastering depending on the song, with the exception of "Busdriver" and Sing-Songs (which has three songs better than the remaster, though I've not heard "I Am A Rock" from Already Yesterday, apparently that has a ton of NR, so that's a pick-yer-poison case). There should be only one mastering for the post-'95 stuff. Almost all of it is ridiculously loud. "Welcome", "Comedown", and the single version of "Louisiana" were remastered (louder) for Deep In The Shallows. (I haven't tested, but I think the remaining tracks on that comp have the same mastering as the original CDs.)

I have not experimented with the various different CDs of the pre-Starfish albums. I only have the Arista CDs. I don't agree with the consensus that the Arista CDs are bright; I think they're fine, although I do like how the Carrere Conception CD softens the midrange a bit (perhaps this is the brightness being spoken of?). I'll happily accept donations of any Church CDs if you want me to do comparisons.