Code for XO∆E: DVD-A? SACD?

An interesting press release crossed my desk (read: popped into my e-mail Inbox) on Friday:

"John Mellencamp's Life, Death, Love, and Freedom, from Hear Music, July 15."

Buried down in the fourth paragraph is this:

"The album will be the first-ever release in the XO∆E (CODE) format. T Bone Burnett [who produced Mellencamp's new album] and his team of engineers developed CODE, a proprietary technology that creates high-definition audio files that are virtually indistinguishable from the original master tapes. The resonance, warmth, and presence that has been realized with CODE is unprecedented in the digital era."

"Unprecedented"? Doesn't that sound, um, familiar? Read on . . .

Get Thee to a Shoppery!

What's a "record store"? If you've never been to one, it's time for you to paddle away from your computer keyboard's virtual Amazon and enter the real world of bricks and mortar. And if you're, ahem, an older buyer who hasn't been to one in a while, it's time for you to remember the future. (Band? Nationality? Year? Famous guy who joined them later? Answers below.)

SXSW Keynote: Reed on Sound

"I have a B.A. in dope, but a Ph.D. in soul."

That, of course, is the line extracted for today’s front page of The Austin Chronicle, reporting on yesterday’s SXSW keynote interview of Lou Reed, conducted by producer and friend Hal Willner.

And sure, it’s a great quote, but it’s even better when you get the full context that preceded it, which the Chronicle never gives:

After reciting lyrics from "Rock Minuet," Reed said the following: "People say, 'Is this stuff real?' Dance to a rock minuet — when you dance hard, slow-dancing, repetitive, when you dance to a rock minuet. People say, 'How would you know that? You’re joking, right? You're supposed to give qualifications for lyrics. You gotta be joking.' "

And then came the answer: "I have a B.A. in dope, but a Ph.D. in soul."

Reed is indeed a man of many things. He and Willner were ostensibly at the Austin Convention Center yesterday morning to promote Julian Schnabel’s film of Lou Reed’s Berlin. But the musician aired out many of his passions in his talk with Willner. Most intriguing for readers of Sound & Vision, he spent more time discussing sound quality than anything else.

Neil Young Votes for . . . Blu-ray!

Seven years ago, when we launched our coverage of DVD-Audio in the February/March 2001 double issue, we ran an exclusive interview with Neil Young, where the "legendary rocker and CD-hater" sang the praises of the new format.

"There's absolutely no comparison with CD," he said. "DVD-Audio is the best way you can listen to music that you can buy en masse. The mid-level quality of a DVD-Audio disc is where the CD should have been when we went digital. For the last 20 years, I've been forced to put my whole art form through something that's inferior to what I listen to in the studio. DVD-Audio is simply the best format that exists today."

Well, today, Neil has moved further forward. According to Billboard.com, he said the following at the recent Sundance Film Festival, explaining the latest delay in launching his Archives series: "I know it's in technical production now, but it's only coming out on Blu-ray and DVD. There won't be CDs. Technology has caught up to what the concept was in the first place [and] how we're able to present it."

Neil actually gave up on DVD-Audio some time ago, after using it to release Road Rock Vol. 1 and reissue Harvest in surround and a few other titles in stereo. But thankfully, he remains dedicated to the concept of music in high resolution. After all, as he told me in 2001: "Napster sounds bad. MP3 sounds bad. All of that stuff sounds bad. It's a joke that they're worrying about charging for it; no one should ever sell it, it's so bad." —Ken Richardson

PTree in action, Crimson in surround!

I just got word from Porcupine Tree's manager, Andy Leff, that the band has the following release dates scheduled for 2008:

March: acoustic album
May: Lightbulb Sun (shown above left) in surround
September: live album
November: Steven Wilson's "sprawling" first solo album

Busy, busy, busy! The customary proviso: Whereas those dates are pretty solid, they're not locked-in 100%.

Meanwhile, as if that weren't news enough, Leff also tells me that he's now handling King Crimson and "working on getting the entire catalog reissued in 5.1," hopefully with mixes done by . . . Steven Wilson! Currently, Leff and Wilson are "waiting on Robert Fripp [who guested on PT's Fear of a Blank Planet and Nil Recurring] to hear Steven's work on some of the older KC stuff before he gives us the green light to proceed."

Just imagine the likes of Larks' Tongues in Aspic (above right), Red, and Discipline in surround. Oh, baby. —Ken Richardson

More Gabriel, more surround

For those of you who enjoyed my piece on Peter Gabriel (and other folks at the AES Convention) in the January 2008 issue (Random Play, page 16), the quotes had to be severely trimmed for the print edition. (What else is new?)

Want more? Here ya go!

First up: Gabriel.

On surround in general: "I like 5.1. From back in the old quad era to today, the idea of being able to immerse people in sound is still an attractive thing for me. In stereo, it really does feel that, sometimes, you haven't quite got the space in which to place everything — especially if you're working on a texture-rich piece. Suddenly, in 5.1, you've got this much wider, bigger space."

Beck's "Odelay" in surround. NOT!

Yes, my friends, the Surround-Sound NOTwatch continues!

Next up: Beck's 1996 album, Odelay. Seems that Geffen is releasing a Deluxe Edition on January 29. CD+DVD-A? No. CD+DVD-V? Sorry. SACD? Nope. DualDisc? Ha! MVI? That's only from Warner, brother.

The answer is: 2 regular ol' CDs. To be sure, there will be 3 bonus tracks on the first disc and a whopping 16 extras on the second disc — with more than a dozen of these recordings making their U.S. debut. But nothing in surround. This despite the fact that Beck has been a genuine fan of multichannel mixes in the past, releasing Sea Change on both DVD-A and SACD and Guero in a Deluxe Edition that did include surround, on DVD-A. Yet another missed opportunity . . .

The Surround-Sound NOTwatch so far:

Beck: Odelay
Michael Jackson: Thriller (see my post below)
Pink Floyd: Oh by the Way (complete boxed set)
U2: The Joshua Tree
Radiohead: Radiohead (boxed set of Capitol albums)
     (for info on those three, see my post below)

Keep the Faith, Multichannel-Music Mavens! —Ken Richardson

Back to . . . Open-Reel?!

You say you've (re)discovered vinyl? Fuhgeddaboudit! The LP simply isn't old-fangled enough. To really go reelin' in the years, it seems, you must go all the way back to open-reel tape!

The Tape Project, a label for reissuing recordings on reel-to-reel, has apparently been around for much of 2007, but I only just discovered it now — via, ironically enough, surroundablog.com.

The label's "two requirements: (1) that the master exist on analog, and (2) that the music be great."

All I can think of saying right now is to paraphrase Monty Python for what must be the Tape Project motto: We are the geeks who say, "Niche!"

But I realize that there are many geeks — er, dedicated sound enthusiasts — out there in S&V Land (hey, Stereo Review used to review open-reel tapes!), so by all means, check out the fascinating site at tapeproject.com. —Ken Richardson

Weekend Update: Fagen, Gilmour, Zep, Radiohead

Can't find some prominent music releases on MVI, Blu-ray, HD DVD, and CD that we previewed recently? The dates, they keep a-changin':

Floyd, U2, Radiohead in surround. NOT!

It's getting tougher and tougher these days to cheerlead the cause of music in surround sound. No, we at S&V aren't giving up. But, coming so soon after hearing that we're getting the best of Led Zeppelin on stereo CD (again) as opposed to any of the studio albums in 5.1, we can only give a huge sigh at some recent announcements from titans of three different music generations.