As I recall, the very first Kohntarkosz CD had a bonus track too, I believe in both cases, it was an alternate version of teh title suite. So whatever happened to those bonus tracks? I've always been curious to hear them.Originally Posted by unclemeat
I've got the original Kohntarkosz CD, the bonus track is the whole Kohntarkosz piece but not split in two. It's the same performance as on the album but the piano theme that ends part one goes directly into the fender rhodes entrance of part two like they do live, otherwise I don't hear a difference.
A vie, a mort, et apres...
Interesting. I own both the 1988 and the studio versions of mdk. I will check out one of these new remastered versions, although one could argue that only a complete remix could save the bass and drum department from complete oblivion.
The bonus Köhntarkösz is only available on the 1988 CD.
The bonus MDK is included in the Archïw rarities double CD in Studio Zünd.
If I recall correctly, Chris Cutler said that the Henry Cow album In praise of learning was recorded over the original tape for MDK. That's how Virgin used to do it back then.
bassist in Papangu, a zeuhl metal band from Brazil https://papangu.bandcamp.com
Well, there's a couple things at hand here.
1. Multi-track tape was, I believe, owned by the studios. If you wanted the tapes preserved, you had to buy the tape from them, which was not an inconsiderable expense.
2. Record labels, just like the television industry, didn't spend much time thinking about the future. They didn't know about the possibility that, e.g. this guy named Steven Wilson was gonna come around, and everyone was going to crazy over the remixes he was doing of 40-50 year old records. They didn't know that anyone was gonna give a damn about anything, even 10 years down the road, never mind 30-50 years (and when you think about someone like Louis Armstrong or Robert Johnson it's now been closer to a century).
So the idea of preserving outtakes, alternate takes, studio banter, etc happened more as a case of happenstance than actual deliberate intention, e.g. nobody at Columbia sat down, back in 1967, and said "OK, this recording we've got of David Crosby and Michael Clarke arguing during a Byrds recording session, we should save that, because 30 years from now, we're gonna put out some kind of deluxe reissue of The Notorious Byrd Brothers and this is gonna make a fantastic hidden track". Probably their producer or an engineer or someone else who witnessed made a copy, while no one else was looking, of the tape for his own amusement or to play for friends or whatever
In the booklet that came with the John Coltrane Classic Quartet Studio Sessions boxset that came out back in the late 90's, there's a log of all the recording sessions they did during that period. There's quite a few where there's apparently no surviving tape. Presumably, they'd go into the studio, play for whatever duration one did for a recording session. One assumes that they must have played some complete takes during those sessions, it's not just nothing but breakdowns and false starts, but using whatever logic they used, Trane and/or Bob Thiele decided "Nope, we can't use any of this stuff", and so the tapes were shelved away, and some of them got erased along the way.
As I recall, some of the "previously unreleased" material on that set came from mono tapes that were supplied by Ravi Coltrane, Trane's son, and were apparently made for the purposes of Trane taking them home and listening, which is presumably where some of that decision making came into play. Thankfully, some of those tapes survived over the years (as demonstrated by the copious number of "I'm dead, but I'm still releasing new albums" that came out under Trane's name in subsequent decades).
And there's also been circumstances where the masters weren't taken very good care of (because it was "old music, nobody cares about that stuff"), and there's been various "Acts Of God", including the now much discussed Universal fire back in 2008, that come into play also.
And even if a tape avoids being recycled or being lost in a flood or a fire or whatever, some tapes have been known to decompose over time. You've heard talk of tapes being baked so that they could be used for reissues and archival projects, right? Well, that's because the tapes sometimes start shedding or become sticky. First time I heard about this phenomenon was in the liner notes of Boston's Third Stage, where Tom Scholz details brushing a "suspicious smelling, silicone based compound" onto the tapes to alleviate the stickiness.
And that brings to a point that was brought up in a video I saw on Youtube last week. It was Scott Thompson basically explaining how he and Michael Barbierro were forced, under duress, to give us the much discussed mix of ...And Justice For All that we all know and hate. Basically, he says the whole thing was done was under Lars' orders, but the interesting comment viz-a-viz to the present situation is what he says about the multi-track tape itself. He comments that he wished that he had done an alternate mix at the time, and kept that, just for his own satisfaction or whatever, because the tape had "a million edits in it" and is "probably a pile of dust now" as a result. I dunno if too many edits on a tape can affect it in that fashion, but that's another thing that could have happened to something like MDK, unless you're gonna tell me the band went into the studio and did at least a basic track of the entire band playing the entire piece, in one single take. Actually, that sounds like something Vander would insist on doing, even Gomelsky and/or whoever else was there might theoretically, "But you know, Christian, we can comp multiple takes together, you dont' have to do the whole thing in one take".
I'd be curious to hear how that was accomplished. Is that that instrumental reprise of the last vocal theme on side one (ya know what I mean, the acoustic piano thing that starts off side two) omitted? Do they just cross fade from the end of side one into side two or what?
And another thing that comes to mind when discussing this stuff is, I recall there were also 7" releases of some of these big pieces. I believe I read there was a single that had an edit of Kohntarkosz Part Two as a B-side, and there was also a 7" version of Retrovision. If I remember correctly, neither of these appears on the Simples, the compilation that came out back in the late 90's of the early 70's Magma singles.
Yeah, the reprise of that vocal theme on part 2 is gone and so is the fadeout bit from part 1. I'm guessing they recorded the whole thing in one take and then spliced in the fadeout and reprise so they could fit it on record. But I am also very interested in the single mixes of those longer pieces, although I can't imagine it's anything more than just going from the start of the piece and then fading when there's no more room.
A vie, a mort, et apres...
It could be something as simple as that. According to Discogs, the Kohntarkosz single is identified as Kohntarkosz Part Two, my guess it's probably like the first three or four minutes of the piece. I imagine Retrovision is something similar, probably eliminates that elongated intro, and gets right to the song proper, and probably fades out somewhere around the time where they go into the Dondai theme.
But a given single edit of something like that could be almost anything. Witness the Soon single, with edit from the final section of Gates Of Delirium, and the B-side which reduced Sound Chaser to being an extremely convoluted instrumental. With the vocal sections, it almost sounds like some sort of RIO thing.
I always find the idea of "single edits" interesting. I always thought it was interesting that someone that Kayleigh was gonna be more "radio friendly" if they cut 8 bars out of Steve Rothery's guitar solo, take it from like 4 minutes to like 3:45 or something like that. Then of course, there's the Lady Nina single, where they actually made it longer because someone thought "This could be a hit, if it were only longer than 2 minutes".
And there's been several different edits of Shine On You Crazy Diamond I've heard over the years, that were done for various compilations. One I remember hearing on the local classic rock station ages ago, as I recall, was the version from A Collection Of Great Dance Songs, where they basically snipped out some of the instrumental bits, but linked the two sections of the piece, so that instead of a saxophone solo, the second chorus instead leads into the Part VII.
Yes. I started doing audio production in the pre-digital era and splicing tape does dry up and undo the splices. I was tasked a couple of years ago with going back to find old production work from various radio programs and found that some of them had just fallen apart badly. There is a way to bake audio tape to help stick the magnetic substance to the cellulose acetate. I'm actually not sure if that helps the splice points get stronger but I'm assuming it does.I dunno if too many edits on a tape can affect it in that fashion
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bassist in Papangu, a zeuhl metal band from Brazil https://papangu.bandcamp.com
Gotcha. So the tape decays faster if there's a lot of edits. Would be interesting to know what kind of shape somethign like that ...And Justice For All master is in, then, if it is at all salvageable or if Scott Thompson assertion that it's "probably a pile of dust now", is true.
What happens is that the spicing tape used to connect the cuts in the tape comes apart. A lot of it has to do with the way these tapes are stored as well. As was the case with the aforementioned radio shows, they were stored poorly. Not only were the splices coming apart, some of the magnetic coating had stuck to the underside of the cellulose pressed against it. Just ruined.
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Last edited by unclemeat; 01-11-2021 at 04:41 AM.
Wow, super cool. Is this a recent development?
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
I'm one of the 212.
New for me too. Good opportunity to get the few studio releases that I do not have yet and the get a couple of live ones.
I only have magma live. Which of the live releases on the bc-page are most essential?
I'm no expert but would go with Theusz Hamtaahk Trilogy followed by Londres 74
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
I'm one of the 212.
Londres 74
Retrospektive 1+2
Inedits - lousy sound, but pure magic !
Trilogie Theusz Hamtaahk
Theatre du Taur (1975)
I'd go with Theusz Hamtaahk Trilogy and Triton Zünd Zëlekt 2005.
bassist in Papangu, a zeuhl metal band from Brazil https://papangu.bandcamp.com
The Alhambra concerts (which I attended) were exceptionnal.
Sweet! Would you believe there's still a few albums I don't have?
Hah! I have them all, in multiple formats, as well as over 200 live recordings, so there!
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
Magma 03.11.2019 Cosmopolite Oslo
^ their final concert before Stella decided to kick Bubu, Jérôme and Benoît out of the band.
bassist in Papangu, a zeuhl metal band from Brazil https://papangu.bandcamp.com
^ Oh shitter, yeah! I'll never forget that night.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
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