Gah... why did Ape House announce plans for the Apple Venus surround without being absolutely certain that all of the tapes/elements were in place? Considering the very problematic history of XTC’s master tapes, I would’ve thought they’d be more careful about getting people’s hopes up.
In any case, I’m just going to proceed under the assumption that we’ve seen the last of the XTC surrounds, and be pleasantly surprised if things turn out any different.
(One thing I’m curious about — are the masters for English Settlement/Mummer/The Big Express *completely* missing? Or are there various individual songs for which the masters are intact? In other words, could they do a compilation a la Gentle Giant’s Three Piece Suite? If so, I wish they’d go ahead and do it.)
I wish the episode had delved more into the Elton John topic, ‘cause that seems to make little sense. Why not just release the missing Greg Penny mixes, rather than pay Steven for new ones? Unless he’s talking about potentailly doing mixes of the albums *after* Blue Moves?
I also wish he’d elaborated on his talks with Prince (and/or his estate). The fact that none of the box sets of the past few years (1999/Purple Rain/Sign O’ The Times) have included surround mixes wouldn’t seem to bode well as far as the Prince estate’s interest in such things.