If Japanese-produced SHM-SACDs are your thing despite their high cost, then this piece of news should thrill the Tangerine Dream fan somewhat. (I say somewhat because I myself am not fully convinced of the sound quality. For me, these tracks being transferred to SACD need a special kind of love.)
On February 25, Japan will reissue four classic Tangerine Dream titles from the beginning of their Virgin Years that include Phaedra (1974), Rubycon (1975), Ricochet (Live) (1975), and my favorite, Stratosfear (1976). These reissues are SHM-SACDs and are currently available for pre-order. They will be issued in mini-LP cardboard, and will most assuredly be in Stereo only.
These titles were released just after the Pink Years (so-called because of the label’s pink logo), which included Electronic Mediation, Alpha Centauri, Zeit, and Atem. The Virgin Years led Tangerine Dream to their widest level of peak acceptance.
While I’m not a full-blown SHM-SACD fan because I feel they miss the mark without the love for the music needed to remaster, I’m still going to opt for the Stratosfear reissue just in case the engineer loved the music and wanted to make it shine.
I hope this makes a happy Friday note for many of you.
Links to the CDJapan website for pre-order is at each album name: Phaedra, Rubycon, Ricochet, and Stratosfear.
Non-hybrid discs and cardboard sleeves is something of a bummer but I’ll still consider since these are my favorites by TD. The original UK analog master can’t be that bad. Look what else I found there:
“Eight masterpieces from Roxy Music will be released as SHM-SACD reissues on January 28, 2015.”
What they normally do for these SACD reissues is flat transfer the master tapes or Japanese copy tapes. No remastering in loved. To some that is a a good thing. I have a number of these SHM-SACD packages and the majority do sound particularly fine indeed. Though as regards Tangerine Dream’s Virgin albums, I found Simon Heyworths SBM remasters were pretty good.
I refer to these flat transfers as ‘factory productions’. The ones I have lack love!
If only they would consider some of Klaus Schulze’s 1970’s work.