More Gentle Giant in 5.1 coming - Free Hand, Interview and The Missing Piece

[ctoelle]

From an interview posted yesterday, Pete Pardo (of Sea of Tranquility) with Derek Shulman. At 6:15, Derek spills the news that Steven Wilson is doing remixes of the 3 more albums: Free Hand, Interview and The Missing Piece.
Sounds like they will be released sometime next year. I am personally excited for this, as Free Hand is one of my favorite Gentle Giant albums.


Derek Shulman interview

 

[ssully]

The complete multis have surfaced for them?

 

[Albert Dagger]

In the interview, Deker states SW has currently remixed two of them, and not all three!

 

[The Rang]

Good news but mere months after I finally bought the DVD versions of Free Hand and Interview, LOL.

 

[SHB]

That would be tremendous if they release all 3 next year. I have the dvds of free hand and interview. I wouldn’t mind a new remix of them in 5.1 by Mr Wilson. Wasn’t too fond of Missing Piece. Maybe I will like it better in glorious 5.1.

 

[sjcorne]

Excellent news! I can’t wait to see what Steven will do with “On Reflection”. Here’s hoping they’ll include better masterings of the old quad mixes as well.

 

[Ninecats]

And please not only available in a mega box, but rather stand alone releases like The Power and the Glory.

 

[jkelman.aaj]

Excellent news! I can’t wait to see what Steven will do with “On Reflection”. Here’s hoping they’ll include better masterings of the old quad mixes as well.

Don't get your hopes up. While usually provided in higher res (so there'll likely be some improvement), previous mixes (stereo and otherwise) that Steven includes are usually flat-transfers of the original masters.

But this is terrific news...even for a stereo-only Luddite like myself, as Steven's stereo remixes are also very revealing.

 

[jkelman.aaj]

And please not only available in a mega box, but rather stand alone releases like The Power and the Glory.

I"m sure they will be, just like PatG, Three Piece Suite and Octopus. I think the high res surround of the first album was included in the box as another carrot.
but, based on what they included in the mega-box, I don't think GG has enough material to do another major box...that was, after all, a massive career spanning box.

There's little reason for a second one, so I expect you'll see individual CD/Blu Ray releases like PatG, Octopus, etc,

 

[rtbluray]

The complete multis have surfaced for them?

I could be wrong, but I don't think the multitrack tapes were ever missing for those 3 albums ("Free Hand", "Interview", and "The Missing Piece".)

 

[rtbluray]

This is very good news indeed, although I always had a feeling that remixes of these albums (or at least specifically "Free Hand" and "Interview") would happen at some point. Steven Wilson has a great 'quid pro quo' relationship with Gentle Giant bass player (and now DVD/Blu-Ray authoring engineer) Ray Shulman plus the band own the recording rights for basically all of their material so I thought it was only a matter of time before remixes of these albums materialized. Plus I'm sure the COVID-19 lockdown has given SW extra time to work on remixes like these!

I still hope that maybe later this year (or next year) we will get a CD/Blu-Ray edition of the first album ("Gentle Giant") released so that way everyone can enjoy this fantastic mix outside of the ultra-gigantic and expensive "Unburied Treasure" box set.

 

[jkelman.aaj]

I could be wrong, but I don't think the multitrack tapes were ever missing for those 3 albums ("Free Hand", "Interview", and "The Missing Piece".)

And I could be wrong, too, but I am quite certain the multis weren't available, as it's been three years since Three Piece Suite was released, and nothing until last year's mega box. They released PatG in 2014, Octopus in 2015, then nothing (as I believe they were looking for other multis) until the incomplete compilation, Three Piece Suite In 2017. My understanding is that compilation happened because original multis for the first three albums were unavailable.

So, and again I could be wrong, I believe that the multis have surfaced since then...either way, its GREAT news!

 

[DuncanS]

I had the Missing Piece on LP, I must have lent to somebody because I don't have it anymore. So a few years ago I got the CD, its a great album, although quite a lot of people didn't rate it at the time. It would be brilliant to have it in surround.

I bought the box set (2nd limited issue) as I wanted all the stuff, but I hope they release the 1st on BDA for all the people who aren't quite as fanatical on GG as me

 

[jefe1]

Somebody find the multis for Glass House please.

 

[Marplot]

Great news! I hope that they also unleash the 5.1 from that big 'ole box they just released.

 

[ctoelle]

Somebody find the multis for Glass House please.

Derek talks about this in the interview. He asks if anyone knows anything about them to please contact the band. They have hunted high and low for those tapes. No trace of them anywhere

 

[skherbeck]

Three more Steven Wilson mixes coming!!! (Plus his solo album)... good times ahead

 

[Sal1950]

All in 5.1 or better please.
Atmos?

 

[Werno]

While we're making preemptive requests, I vaguely recall reading that the Quad mix of Free Hand available on DVD had rear channels swapped or some other channel assignment issue- does this ring a bell with others? If so maybe it can be corrected if included with the 5.1 remixes. I want to speak to the manager.

 

[5.1 4 Life]

From an interview posted yesterday, Pete Pardo (of Sea of Tranquility) with Derek Shulman. At 6:15, Derek spills the news that Steven Wilson is doing remixes of the 3 more albums: Free Hand, Interview and The Missing Piece.
Sounds like they will be released sometime next year. I am personally excited for this, as Free Hand is one of my favorite Gentle Giant albums.


Derek Shulman interview

I heard the interview that GG's Derek Shulman did with Pete Pardo and I'm also excited to hear that Free Hand, Interview & The Missing Piece are getting the Steve Wilson treatment. I also hope they do a 'stand-alone' release for the first album in 5.1.