Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Feb. 21 2014, 13:23 |
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| Quote (Airborne @ Feb. 21 2014, 14:41) | | I don't know why it is being released like this but there must be a reason. I've heard it is quite expensive too. |
I rather feel like I shouldn't comment too much here, because I've been somewhat present behind the scenes and wouldn't want to damage anyone's relationship with anyone else. I assume it won't hurt to say what Les said publicly in Reading, which was that he'd started sending the tracks to people just so they could hear it, and Perh then decided to release them and it was all a bit out of his hands.
I had been talking to Les about the material before this happened, and had started to veer towards feeling it would be best to approach an established record label about it, because there were various legal issues with the material which I felt would be difficult to resolve without the kind of support that a good label would provide. I can only hope that Magpie have resolved those issues, otherwise there's a danger someone could end up in very hot water, and I think that's the last thing Les needs (even if he doesn't stand directly in the firing line).
As I understand it from Les, these tracks are all from an old digital transfer, which isn't without its problems. He asked me if I could have a go at restoring the guitar on His Rest, as it had virtually faded to nothing. I managed to bring some clarity back to it, but it was difficult to do anything without impacting on the sound of the recorder (there's some distortion on there which can become quite obvious once the muffling effect of the hump in the upper bass is removed), and my feeling was that it would be sensible to do a new transfer, to rule out some of the problems being down to the alignment of the playback machine. I don't know what kind of restoration work has been done on the Magpie release (though I know the ~€60 cost was supposed to be to cover the costs of it), but the last I heard from Les last summer was that they were using his original transfer rather than a new one. I suppose we'll see what eventually comes out, but I think it would be nice to at least try to get the absolute best transfer possible to work from (though it has to be borne in mind that the tape may have deteriorated since, so it may end up being worse even though it'd be theoretically better...but it's hard to tell without actually doing it).
So...like you say, I think it's a shame it's a limited edition, highly expensive (like I said before, I've heard it's around €60 including postage) release when it's material which I can imagine a lot of Mike's fans would want a copy of if it was a more approachable price.
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