I know this is probably going to be greeted mostly with a collective "meh" here, after all the good stuff that's been announced lately, but I just discovered this when I was browsing one of the Japanese CD vendors.
Hiromi Iwasaki's 1978 LP 'Pandora's Box' apparently was just reissued in Japan as a hybrid SACD (NCS-80014) - this album was (obviously) a Japan-only CD-4 originally, Victor CD4B-5106. The music is actually better than I was expecting, pop-tinged disco/funk sort of in the ABBA mould. A bit of a surprise to me that the album was from as late as 1978 - I thought Tomita was the only RCA/Victor artist doing quad by that point.
It sounds like a pretty lush production too - lots of horns, strings, layered background vocals, and at times two drum kits, which would certainly lend itself well to an aggressive quad mix.
You can preview the LP on YouTube if you're curious:
Some of the verbiage associated with the listings is interesting too:
Multichannel (4.0ch) from The CD-4 (Compatible Discrete 4 channel) mixing original master
Alternative 2ch stereo mix from The CD-4 (Compatible Discrete 4 channel) mixing original master
Sale on Tower Records Japan Only
Limited 700
2020 New DSD Re-Mastering
Only 700 copies, and the stereo layer is a fold down of the quad mix - it appears this album was previously released as a stereo-only SACD (NCS-80003) so they're trying to give the double-dipper an incentive to buy this version.
There's a discogs entry for this SACD here - I originally found it listed at the 'Stereo Sound Store' website, but it looks like it's also available from the Tower Records Japan website as well.
Like I said, maybe not the most exciting thing that's happened lately, but an interesting development that Sony Japan is digging into their domestic quad back catalog as well - there were hundreds of these releases in Japan on both the Victor and CBS/Sony labels and some of them are quite good, especially some of the jazz/fusion stuff. I wonder how much more of this they'll do.
Hiromi Iwasaki's 1978 LP 'Pandora's Box' apparently was just reissued in Japan as a hybrid SACD (NCS-80014) - this album was (obviously) a Japan-only CD-4 originally, Victor CD4B-5106. The music is actually better than I was expecting, pop-tinged disco/funk sort of in the ABBA mould. A bit of a surprise to me that the album was from as late as 1978 - I thought Tomita was the only RCA/Victor artist doing quad by that point.
It sounds like a pretty lush production too - lots of horns, strings, layered background vocals, and at times two drum kits, which would certainly lend itself well to an aggressive quad mix.
You can preview the LP on YouTube if you're curious:
Some of the verbiage associated with the listings is interesting too:
Multichannel (4.0ch) from The CD-4 (Compatible Discrete 4 channel) mixing original master
Alternative 2ch stereo mix from The CD-4 (Compatible Discrete 4 channel) mixing original master
Sale on Tower Records Japan Only
Limited 700
2020 New DSD Re-Mastering
Only 700 copies, and the stereo layer is a fold down of the quad mix - it appears this album was previously released as a stereo-only SACD (NCS-80003) so they're trying to give the double-dipper an incentive to buy this version.
There's a discogs entry for this SACD here - I originally found it listed at the 'Stereo Sound Store' website, but it looks like it's also available from the Tower Records Japan website as well.
Like I said, maybe not the most exciting thing that's happened lately, but an interesting development that Sony Japan is digging into their domestic quad back catalog as well - there were hundreds of these releases in Japan on both the Victor and CBS/Sony labels and some of them are quite good, especially some of the jazz/fusion stuff. I wonder how much more of this they'll do.
