Saturday 11 July 2015

Steve Hackett - Premonitions Box Set

 

It was well known for a long time of Steven Wilson's desire to remix Steve Hackett's early Charisma solo albums into 5.1 surround, especially his second Please Don't Touch. Well, that wish has come to pass. In October (hereby known as the month of boxes) there is to be a 14 disc set released of Hackett's solo albums he recorded for the Charisma label. Included are DVD's showcasing surround mixes of Please Don't Touch and Spectral Mornings. Wilson has also produced pseudo surround mixes of Voyage of the Acolyte and Defector from the stereo masters as the multitracks of those albums are missing. The other discs in the set are the remaining studio albums from those years and a number of live recordings.

Going by the early mock ups of the box it does look handsome indeed. Surprisingly, it has Roger Dean artwork adorning the front. More usually connected with Yes and Asia, it is slightly discomfiting to see his artwork related to Steve Hackett. It looks like there will be a nice book to go along with the set and the whole design looks similar to what Universal did for the John Martyn set, with the discs housed in slotted album sized sleeves. Good on Mark Powell for pushing Universal to produce this lavish set. The recent success of Hackett's Genesis Revisited tours will not have harmed their decision either.

So that is one box for October then. What else might be coming up I wonder?

 

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