Tony Banks' entire solo catalogue to be remixed and reissued in surround!

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http://www.genesis-news.com/news-Tony-Banks-Solo-albums-in-51-surround-sound-n453.html

Last friday, Genesis-News.com conducted an in depth interview with Tony Banks, focussing on the release of his new 4CD-boxset, "A Chord Too Far". Tony revealed that the boxset is just the start for a complete back catalogue re-release campaign. All his solo albums will be released in 5.1 Surround Sound. While the early albums have been remixed already, work on the later albums is in progress. The mixes are done by Nick Davis. "A Curious Feeling", which had been made available in Surround Sound a few years ago but is currently out of print, will come out first, together with "The Fugitive", followed by "Soundtracks" and "Bankstatement". The actual release schedule is not yet confirmed (no dates have been set yet). Tony also mentioned that there is close to nothing audio bonus material available to be considered for the re-releases.
We will publish the complete interview with Tony Banks within the next few days.

Meanwhile, his new boxset, A Chord Too Far, can be ordered from amazon and CherryRed.

Now if only CherryRed could commission Nick Davis to remix "Smallcreep's Day" by Mike Rutherford in surround too! :) :banana: :cool: (y) :music
 
DVD-A (authored by Neil Wilkes) would be fantastic, but either way, I'm in for these releases, especially since I never got "A Curious Feeling" that first time around.

Also, "A Chord Too Far" should have all new stereo mixes too according to the press release, so it's a great preview of things to come! :)
 
Tony Banks had a solo career???

Yep. His solo career definitely had the lowest commercial profile out of all five classic members of Genesis.
I would rank the commerciality of the Genesis members' solo careers like so:

1) Phil Collins
2) Peter Gabriel
3) Mike Rutherford (including Mike & the Mechanics)
4) Steve Hackett
5) Tony Banks

Tony has three pop/rock solo albums ("A Curious Feeling", "The Fugitive", and "Still"), two collaboration albums ("Bankstatement" and "Strictly, Inc."), two soundtrack albums ("The Wicked Lady" and "Soundtracks"), and two classical albums ("Seven" and "Six")

The ironic thing is that even though Hackett's solo career is slightly more of a higher profile than Banks' is, the Genesis documentary mentioned at least "A Curious Feeling" and Tony's classical work without ever mentioning anything from Hackett's solo career at all. For shame!
 
Really wish I were into his material , but alas...maybe I'll get a few...I did get ACF when it came out on DVD-V..intersting..
Maybe I'm biased cause i REALLY don't like the guy...he looks and acts like a real pr*ck...but that's just me probably...
 
Psyched that these are coming. Tony's solo catalog can be wildly inconsistent but there are some real gems in there.

So at this point, the only Genesis member not to mix any of his solo output into 5.1 is Mike Rutherford which is pretty surprising. Say what you will about the Mike + the Mechanics albums, they would be excellent candidates for surround. Layers and layers of instruments that could easily be spread around. There was a reissue of The Living Years earlier this year but the only added content was a bonus disc of lo-fi live recordings.
 
Psyched that these are coming. Tony's solo catalog can be wildly inconsistent but there are some real gems in there.

So at this point, the only Genesis member not to mix any of his solo output into 5.1 is Mike Rutherford which is pretty surprising. Say what you will about the Mike + the Mechanics albums, they would be excellent candidates for surround. Layers and layers of instruments that could easily be spread around. There was a reissue of The Living Years earlier this year but the only added content was a bonus disc of lo-fi live recordings.

Yeah, Mike & The Mechanics in surround would be fantastic, or at least if we got "Smallcreep's Day" remixed in surround and released by Esoteric, that would make me happy!
Plus, Warner Music needs to find a way to get those Phil Collins surround mixes out for us to enjoy! :)
 
Genesis-News.com posted their entire interview with Tony Banks here: http://www.genesis-news.com/c-Tony-Banks-Interview-A-Chord-Too-Far-2015-s593.html

Some highlights:
it: Some of the tracks have been remixed. Who did this and have the tracks been altered?
Tony: I did the remixes with Nick Davis. We’ve already done A Curious Feeling, so that was improved quite a bit when we did that. We then did mainly work on The Fugitive and Bankstatement. There is also a plan to rerelease the stuff in 5.1 Surround sound, so the surround mixes were the reason to re-do them. Some tracks we did were great to do, since we could get something more out of them, but other tracks were not remixed at all. The remixes did not change the songs, they just make them sound better. It’s a bit like when we did all the Genesis albums. Tracks like The Border or Big Man really improved. And By You also sounds a lot better. It was worth doing it.

it: The stuff has been remixed in 5.1 as you said. Will the individual albums be available in Surround Sound?

Tony: That’s the plan! Esoteric is keen to do the 5.1 versions, they are funding the whole thing so we do the individual albums. A Curious Feeling has been done already but that will come out again, together with The Fugitive at the same time. And then we will do Soundtracks and Bankstatement. The later ones will take some time. We haven’t done any remixes on those so far. Nick Davis is up for it and we give it a go. They will be all out there. It’s nice to have them out there again. Nevertheless, I question how many people want to hear the whole thing. I see the compilation as the main thing, they [Esoteric] see it as a starter for the people to trigger interest in the individual albums. Maybe they are right. Some of the albums have been deleted for 20 years, so it’s nice to make them available again.

it: You mentioned that Poppet was from the Still sessions. Can we assume that there is more to come for bonus material on the individual album releases?
Tony: Not really, I don’t think there’s anything actually. I’ve really been through anything, and there is not much there apart from demos and stuff. There are bits and pieces, some ideas over the years that were not used for anything but whether they are usable I don’t know now.

it: And the possible format will be CD and DVD?
Tony: Whatever they suggest, I don’t know. I think SACD has gone pretty much out of the window now. We will release in in the best format we can, maybe Blu-ray? But I really don’t know. The Surround versions sound so great. I remember that the Genesis SACD versions sounded so much better than the versions on DVD so I hope we have a good solution. It’s such a shame that the SACD format is gone.

it: Blu-ray audio is a good format for high resolution audio.
Tony: Yes you’re right, that could be the perfect format. And also, as you have seen on A Curious Feeling, we also do have the video extras. But as I said, I am not sure about the format, right now I am concentrating on the A Chord Too Far thing.


it: Three Sides Live came out on Blu-ray. Can we expect other releases on Blu-ray such as When In Rome or archive material?
Tony: I’m sure everything comes out at some point - you know how these things are really. I think the Blu-ray thing is now the environment for this stuff so there’s no reason not to do it. I think it should all be available in the standard format.
 
Message to Tony...the SACD format is ALIVE AND WELL

Jeez - no doubt. LOL!

This is a illustration of how far removed some of the artists are from the existing technology employed for home useage...I'm sure Tony isn't alone...these guys just live in another world..they probably spend most of their time on actual music...

You are right in how far Banks is removed from music and technology, with quotes like these:

I am totally unaware of what sounds like anything anyway. I never listened to a lot pop music to know what the current sound was. I do what I do.
But I suppose I don’t really go and see a lot of rock shows from anybody anyway. I went to see Led Zeppelin a while ago at the O2. And that’s probably the last thing I saw.

I never listened extensively to music or pop music since 1969. I liked 10CC, Crowded House or whatever, but I don’t really seek it out any more. Only occasionally I listen to the radio and think "oh what’s that, I like that". I do like a really good pop song. It’s the appeal of the writer. With the current groups … I always liked Coldplay, although they have a limited pallet. I would love to see them a little more ambitious. It’s always four chords … that’s really nice, but can you not do a bit more? I do not really listen to the modern progressive goups, I have no idea what they are up to really. When I listen to music, it’s either classical or I switch on the radio. With Pop music, it has to be The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel etc. I also do listen more to talk radio.

But then again, how many people off of this board do you think are really aware of what reissue labels like Audio Fidelity and Analogue Productions are doing with multichannel SACD?
The fact is apart from Audio Fidelity (and an occasional release from Analogue Productions), multichannel SACD will most likely never be in use again for popular genres of music.
And in this particular instance (Tony Banks re-releasing his catalogue through Esoteric), it doesn't even matter anyway as these reissues will most likely be released on DVD-V or DVD-A. (Maybe Blu-Ray if Tony feels strongly enough about it)
 
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