Finally got my disc! Superbly packaged by CDJapan as always, and the album release is as stunning as always.
I've only given it one spin yet, but this one is great. It's always been a rather cacophonous album, but the quad mix really opens it up and reveals a lot of detail that was lost. It's still a rather intense and somewhat over-the-top affair, but opening the mix up allows some more delicacy and subtlety to show through. I have to give it a few more spins before I give it the full review, but it will be positive. Just two little quirks; as with several of the other Santana quads (Abraxas and III) there is occasionally the odd echo/delay effect on certain parts. I noticed it on a couple of guitar parts and also a few vocal/chant parts. It's odd because I can't hear it in the stereo mix, but it's very obvious in quad and sometimes makes that particular part sound distant and not as distinct. Could be that it just is not as evident in the stereo mix, but it's to the point that I sometimes wonder if it's a malfunction in the tapes or transfer, like we're only getting the echo of that part. It's not very frequent and not as obvious here as it was on III, where several guitar solos were only heard as an echo.
The other oddity is on the track The Life Divine, which is my favorite on the album, due in no small part to McLaughlin's scorching solo. In the quad mix, there are actually *two* solos playing simultaneously, in the front L and R speakers respectively. It makes for a very unusual and unsettling listening experience. Perhaps it was intended as a way to make an over-the-top track go even further over the top, and it sort of succeeds, but I also find myself wanting to hear just that solo in all its glory. So I went back to the stereo mix, and sure enough there you get just the one solo that I have loved all these years. That did however also reveal to me just how much the quad mix opens up this rather dense album.
Incidentally, on the early 2000s CD remaster there was an alternate take of The Life Divine with an alternate McLaughlin solo. I have to check whether that is the solo that's playing in the front L speaker in the quad mix, or if that is yet a different, third solo.
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