Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson has been one of the most prominent proponents of surround sound in recent memory. The singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer has spearheaded deluxe editions of classic albums from Hawkwind, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Emerson Lake and Palmer with stunning new 5.1 mixes, and made his own acclaimed 2013 solo album The Raven That Refused to Sing available in high-resolution surround formats, as well. Over the weekend, Wilson confirmed on his official Facebook page that more exciting projects are on the way from the catalogues of two more iconic bands: Yes and XTC.
Panegyric, the label releasing DGM’s definitive series of King Crimson reissues, will release “archive CD/DVD-A and CD/Blu-ray editions” by both groups, beginning this September with XTC’s Nonsuch (1992) and continuing in October with Yes’ Close to the Edge (1972). The Yes release will be joined by a new King Crimson title, The Road to Red, focusing on the band’s final North American tour of 1974.
Panegyric’s XTC reissues launch with September’s Nonsuch. The band’s twelfth album and a Grammy nominee for Best Alternative Music Album, Nonsuch reached No. 97 on the Billboard 200, and reached a perch of No. 1 on the Rolling Stone College Album Chart. It fared even better in the U.K., becoming a Top 30 album and yielding two hit singles, “The Disappointed” and “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead.” Gus Dudgeon, famous for his string of albums with Elton John, produced the album. It would be XTC’s last studio album until 1999. The new Nonsuch will include the high resolution original stereo mix, new stereo and 5.1 mixes created by Wilson, plus audio bonus tracks and (on Blu-ray) video footage.
Close to the Edge was the fifth studio album from the progressive rock heroes. Jon Anderson (vocals), Steve Howe (guitar/vocals), Chris Squire (bass/vocals), Rick Wakeman (keyboards) and Bill Bruford (drums/percussion) crafted this epic album around the nearly 19-minute title track which was featured on the original album’s Side One. That four-part suite was followed on Side Two by another four-part ten-minute opus, “And You and I,” and the nine-minute “Siberian Khatru.” The last Yes album to feature Bill Bruford before his return to the fold in 1992 reached impressive berths of No. 3 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and No. 4 on the U.K. albums chart. In 2003, Rhino expanded Close to the Edge in an edition with four bonus tracks; earlier this year, Audio Fidelity released a stereo Hybrid SACD edition with the original album sequence only. Panegyric states its upcoming October reissue will be the first in a series of Yes releases, and will include the high resolution original stereo mix, new stereo and 5.1 mixes created by Wilson, and audio bonus tracks.
Close to the Edge will be joined in October by a new King Crimson title, The Road to Red. The title refers to Red, the band’s 1974 LP which became its final studio album of the seventies and its last album before Robert Fripp temporarily disbanded the group. (King Crimson returned – with Fripp and Bill Bruford – for 1981’s Discipline.) The Road to Red will be issued as a limited-edition, multi-CD/DVD-A/Blu-ray boxed set in the style of last year’s amazing reissue of Larks’ Tongues in Aspic. Edited portions of Crimson’s 1974 North American tour were issued on 1992’s The Great Deceiver, but The Road to Red will be a vast improvement on that title, with the bulk of its material new to CD. Though contents are still being finalized, DGM anticipates “about 20 CDs, 1 DVD-A & 2 Blu-rays” to contain the following:
On CD:
•Central park concert of July 1, 1974 from audio-restored bootleg, previously only available as a KC mail order Collectors’ Club release;
•A number of concerts drawn from the band’s own stereo soundboard cassettes, with four of these previously unreleased in any format: June 5th & 8th from Texas, June 16th from Colorado, June 23rd from Michigan;
•A further group of concerts issued on CD for the first time , having been previously available from DGM Live as downloads only;
•The complete concerts from this tour previously issued on CD only in edited form on The Great Deceiver and/or as downloads from DGM Live, including Pittsburgh, Toronto, Penn State University & Providence, plus the Chris Murphy mix of the Asbury Park concert. These CDs were all mixed from multi-tracks and appear as they did on the CDs as released; and
•The new stereo mix of the Red album by Robert Fripp and Steven Wilson.
On DVD-A:
•The new stereo mix of Red; and
•“The stereo mixes of USA in high-resolution stereo.”
On Blu-ray:
•The stereo mixes from the DVD-A plus the previously released 5.1 mix of Red, and “those complete concerts, Ontario, Penn. State University et al, that were professionally recorded and mixed from multi-track recordings, newly transferred from the original Dolby SR half inch stereo master tapes in high resolution stereo.”
includes new, high-resolution transfers from original analogue mixes of complete and unedited concerts. Also included in the set will be a new stereo mix of Red by Fripp and Wilson. (2009’s 30th anniversary CD/DVD-A of Red included a 5.1 mix and high resolution stereo mix, as well.)
XTC, Nonsuch (Geffen (U.S.) GEFD-24474, 1992)
1.The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead
2.My Bird Performs
3.Dear Madam Barnum
4.Humble Daisy
5.The Smartest Monkeys
6.The Disappointed
7.Holly Up on Poppy
8.Crocodile
9.Rook
10.Omnibus
11.That Wave
12.Then She Appeared
13.War Dance
14.Wrapped in Grey
15.The Ugly Underneath
16.Bungalow
17.Books are Burning
Yes, Close to the Edge (Atlantic LP SD 7244, 1972)
1.Close to the Edge (The Solid Time of Change/Total Mass Retain/I Get Up I Get Down/Seasons of Man)
2.And You and I (Cord of Life/Eclipse/The Preacher The Teacher/The Apocalypse)
3.Siberian Khatru
Quelle: SecondDisc
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