Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx John Foxx The Virgin Years 1980-1985

The Virgin Years box set was never intended to be an exhaustive collection of absolutely everything - instead it was a way of pulling together the material which had previously been contained within the double disc editions of Metamatic, The Garden, The Golden Section and In Mysterious Ways - and that's exactly what it's done save for a few tracks which couldn't be included mainly due to timing issues.

Rob

Oh, are there a couple of tracks from the double CD editions that *aren't* on this boxset? /more confused than ever/

what are these that are missing then?

As far as I can tell :

Miles Away (alternative version)
Running Across Thin Ice With Tigers (extended version)
Endlessly (extended mix)

The following are missing:

Miles Away(alternative version)from The Garden deluxe 2 cd edition.

Running Across Thin Ice With Tigers(extended mix)and Endlessly(extended mix) from The Golden Section 2 cd edition.

Martin beat me to it.

Incidentally I always wondered why Running Across Thin Ice With Tigers(extended mix)was called so.It's not really any longer than the album version. Just a completely different mix. Shouldn't it have been called alternative mix instead?

Quite right, Rob! Yes indeed, Dallas has clearly left the two sides of the album exactly as they are, as this remaster is now the most accurate release to date. It's only taken six days to make it all the way to the arse end of the world, so I'm very pleased to now have this very nice collection in my possession. I also like the continuity in the artwork between the 2007-2008 2CD releases and this special box set, while still making the box set itself something different again (and, yes, I did notice the update to the back cover images of Metamatic).

I'm not bothered about the few tracks that haven't been included from the four 2CD sets, as we're very fortunate to have so much of John's archived material made available at all. The Fusion/Fission CD is a nice addition to the set and a good way to separate most of the early/alternative versions.

As far as the quality of the Metamatic CD is concerned ... I'm far from an expert and just go by what my ears hear, but this does sound good to me, although obviously varying treatments can be used to gain varying results, so it's quite true that it can be a matter of individual preference as to which sound quality is preferred. I did notice that 20th Century has a small 'ring' sound right at the very beginning, which isn't present in the 2007 release, so presumably this indicates a different source tape? Anyway, it's not really an issue.

So, big thanks to all involved in this release.

I also got B-Movie (Ballardian Video Neuronica), so I've got plenty of Foxx to listen to for a good while!

Cheers ...

Yeah I can hear the noise you mean, it's like a faint high little note trailing behind the initial drum machine beats.
Certainly doesn't spoil anything, but it's intriguing as to why it is not audible on tape used for the 2007 master, but is there on the tape for the 2014 master...

The two tapes are both from the *same* mixdown off the 1" 8-track multitrack, so how can there be different things on them?

My best guess would that it is due to "print through" or "pre-echo". This is a phenomenon you can get with analogue tapes: when the tape is wound for years on a spool, a loud signal on an adjacent bit of the tape can sometimes actually manages to magnetise itself onto the a bit of silence in the tape laying underneath/on top of itself. So maybe a really loud bit of high strings from the end of 'Burning Car' is printing through onto the start of 20th Century on the 2014 tape?

Alternatively, maybe that noise *is* on the 2007 tape too, but that time Dallas Simpson applied a really narrow notch filter to get rid of it. It's hard to do that without leaving tiny artefacts though, which I don't hear, so I'd guess that's less likely.

I am only guessing though!

Just spotted IMW revised track-listing.

You're assuming that Burning Car is followed by 20th Century on the Original Master tape - and that the gap between these two tracks is only a few seconds long. It's far more likely that the gap between them would be a lot longer - as they were never originally intended to be played consecutively - being consigned instead to different sides of the same piece of vinyl. While this "print through" phenomenon is something that can affect (some) analogue tapes - it's far more prevalent on domestic tapes than studio tapes which are significantly thicker.

Rob

Well sure - it needn't be print through from Burning Car - indeed it could be print through from 20th Century itself...

Here's another guess: it could be that, for the 2014 master, Dallas Simpson hooked up some analogue processor(s) to his console, one of which added that tiny bit of background noise by accident (i.e. it's not actually on the tape used for the 2014 edition itself).
I've no idea whether Dallas does his mastering "in the box" (i.e. all digital on the computer) or uses analogue outboard gear.