Prog posting

[acroyear]

Gordon Tanner wrote:
> in article cf9tjs$n5v$3@reader1.panix.com, Steven Sullivan at
> ssully@panix.com wrote on 10/08/04 12:31 AM:
>
>
>>Actually, it's quite good. Maybe you don't deserve to realize that.
>
>
> *In your opinion*, it's quite good. I didn't like it. I'm sure that even
> you'll admit that it's no Thick as a Brick or Songs from the Wood. But, I'm
> willing to listen to it a few more times before I make a final decision.
>

Personally, I bought it for Slipstream (the DVD). The remaster really didn't do much to improve the sound of the album.

It really takes knowing the history of that Album and the band changes to understand why it sounds the way it did. [A] was not intended to be a Tull album, it was an Anderson solo album. However, like the later Walk into Light from 1983, it was his way of experimenting with keyboards and sounds and styles that he wouldn't normally have done with a Tull album, particularly given the folksy nature of the previous three albums (and the subsequent Broadsword).

[Anderson would wait 18 years before releasing the types of solo albums (Secret Language, Rupi's) that people had been expecting of him. [Insert Fripp quote about Expectation blinding us...]]

On the record label's suggestion (given Peggy and Barre's presense) he turned it into the Tull album (with all the wonderful politics of dropping 3 members of Tull without notifying them first, thanks to over-anxious press releases to Melody Maker).

So is it a good album? Yes. (To my ears). But it was poorly mixed, and the remaster couldn't improve that much. Black Sunday and Pine Martin's Jig are the best 2 tracks. But Black Sunday live (Slipstream) is better because the mix is better.

It also suffers from the general late-70s keyboard problem. Steve Howe discusses this in interviews about the Tormato album: Rick's keyboards have really nifty sounds to them, but they simply couldn't blend with the guitar properly at all. [A] has similar problems of not blending the keyboards cleanly with the more organic instruments.

When I do listen to it, I futz around with the EQ to try to brighten the sound up, which helps a little.

Slipstream is a fun show, though. Its Skating Away is fantastic, as is the sillyness of Locomotive Breath (if you can get past the keyboards replacing the guitar for the train sound of the beginning). Before you ask, Too Old's audio is the 1976 original, in spite of Jobson being in the video, and the audio for Sweet Dream was taken from Bursting Out. All other tracks featuring Jobson (so that doesn't count Dun Ringill) were recorded on A or on the A tour.