XTC – SKYLARKING LP

Description

Style: Art Rock, New Wave
A classic XTC album. Now available on a single vinyl LP with all tracks for the first time everPressed on superior 200gram vinyl. Song lyrics sheet included. Single LP reissue with all 15 songs. The first 1980s versions didn’t include “Dear God” & after it was a hit, “Mermaid Smiled” was dropped on some later versions to include “Dear God”. The full album has only been on vinyl in 2LP deluxe editions playing at 45RPM. When it came time to master the album on vinyl in 2010, Andy Partridge – still never entirely happy with the overall sound of the finished album – took it to award-winning mastering engineer John Dent, who noticed something that had never previously been spotted. Somewhere, possibly in the transfer from the multi-channel tape to the stereo master, a polarity had been reversed. This is not the same thing as a reversed left/right channel which puts a stereo picture out of phase & makes the sound unlistenable, but a much more difficult to pin down event that can be triggered by something as simple as a badly wired plug in the overall system which, nonetheless, removes some of the punch & presence from a finished recording. With the polarity corrected, the album complete with original artwork & “Dear God” was issued on vinyl as a double LP deluxe edition playing at 45rpm in the original rejected sleeve, then later reissued with the more familiar sleeve… Leaving some fans to wonder why they couldn’t have the 15 song LP on single vinyl playing at 33 & one third RPM. Well, now they can – beautifully mastered for single LP from the corrected polarity masters by Jason at Loud Mastering & pressed on superior 200gram vinyl.