This post is mirrored here which is my in progress rym list of all the surround releases I've heard (still around 100 to go but I'll get there!).
This is maybe my favorite quad mix out there (maybe tomita's stuff is better, but eh). I think it's unique in the sense that it
perfectly balances the "maturity" of modern surround mixes and discreteness of good ol' 70s quad mixes. Don't get me wrong, I love extremely discrete and daring mixes (my favorite 5.1 albums are all of the flaming lips' stuff after all), but sometimes with quad when you do things like have drums in the front right and rear left, it's super discrete but it sounds really awkward. That's a bit of an extreme example, but I think y'all know what I mean. It's understandable why some mixing engineers back in the day had some confusing mixing choices like this, the technology was completely new and nobody really knew what exactly to do with it. There wasn't really much like it before.
Anyways, what separates Abraxas from other quad and 5.1 mixes? Well, Abraxas is daring and highly discrete, but also not unbalanced or confusing mixing wise. Whoever mixed this certainly wasn't afraid to put main parts and instruments in the rears such as guitar solo's, but they also weren't afraid to be a bit conservative at times by simply putting the drums and main parts in the front with some extra's in the rear. They knew exactly what to do with the mix at the right time, which I feel like is the main thing that this disc succeeds at. It's that one golden medium for me where it's super discrete, yet immersive and balanced. Abraxas also lends itself extremely well to the multichannel format. With all of the extra percussion and parts, there's plenty of content to put into all of the speakers to span across the whole speaker array.
What about the music though? Well, it's excellent. The whole album is just ridiculously good Latin Rock played by musicians who are way too good at what they do. This album reminds me of Boris' Pink in the sense that multiple times throughout the album I found myself laughing just because of how damn good the music is here. It's got some insane Latin Rock bangers such as the classic "Black Magic Woman", but it's also got some great slow burners such as the almost equally classic "Samba Pa Ti". It's super consistent in quality and has great emotional dynamics. The flow from track to track is excellent too. All killer no filler on this one.
I feel like every time I try to write down my thoughts on something I end up writing way more than I intend haha.
Anyways my ratings:
Music: 9/10
Mix: 10/10
Overall: 9/10