Immersive?
Week from Monday 2nd February 2026 - I've been exploring some of the lesser known backwaters of BRAND X history, especially around the time of the lost album "MANIFEST DESTINY" (1997) and when Gong drum-meister PIERRE MOERLEN joined them for a tour at very short notice. Needless to say, I've been doing this through the medium of some pretty dodgy b***legs, but the music shines through ne'ertheless. On the last show of the European tour they even played cracking versions of a couple of MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA toons!
I've also been digging (into) some of PERCY JONES's solo material from the nineties. I liked what I heard, but it's very much 'OF ITS TIME' (quite a lot of electric drums - there was one bit that even reminded me of SQUAREPUSHER!). There's also a few weedy vocal tracks that are best left on the shelf!
I've dug out my quarter-of-a-century-old copy of COREL-DRAW to see if will run on m'LINUX lappy, via the magic of W.I.N.E.. No longer having any 'professional' need for it, I really only require that it can accomplish one task and one task only... to generate cover artworks for my 'MUSIC PROJECTS', in a form that I can take to the PRINT SHOP that DOESN'T get shrunken in size by the quirks of POSTSCRIPT conversion/output. Which is what happened the last time I paid a visit... So far it seems to be working just fine, without too much struggle, but it's been such a long time since I used Corel-Draw on a regular basis that I needed a bit of a refresher course!
Week from Monday 9th February 2026 - Gawd! this miserable weather! I'm itching for some DAZE OUT, but it's not particularly inviting at the moment. You know you're an introverted retiree when going to the hozzy for a blood test, or popping to the shops to stock up on supplies, counts as an ADVENTURE these days! It's particularly annoying when the sun does come out late in the afternoon, but only after a continuous downpour which has put me off for the earlier part of the day. Ah well! I did manage to sneak out to the bank and the chemist on Friday...
I suppose I should be grateful that I can still get out at all. This very month, #OnThisDay #TwoYearsAgo I was living in a hospital ward...
Week from Monday 16th February 2026 - That STEVEN WILSON fellah has got a new "HEADPHONE DUST" website, where he's making some of his stuff available to buy (as high-quality downloads) in the various newfangled "IMMERSIVE" formats. The star attraction at the moment is "IMPOSSIBLE TIGHTROPE", a complete and exclusive LIVE RECORDING of one of last year's shows. Nearly NINETEEN QUID is more than I've ever paid for a DOWNLOAD in my life, but I'm curious enough to dive in... While I don't have any sort of multi-speaker SURROUND-SOUND set-up at my disposal, I do still have two ears and a DOLBY ATMOS-capable Android tablet.
If you think about it, it's actually good value for what would probably be a DOUBLE-CD set, and in a new supposedly 'audiophile' format too! Full ARTWORK is also provided, albeit in a PDF that might need to be picked apart.
Now I'll be honest, I greeted his last couple of studio albums with indifference. They were not really in my musical wheelhouse at the time. I bought "THE HARMONY CODEX" much later than everyone else, an IMPULSE BUY when it showed up in an HMV sale. I haven't listened to it very much since I first bought it. I streamed his last ('critically-acclaimed masterpiece') "THE OVERVIEW" almost out of a sense of duty when it first came out, but it never tickled me enough to want to rush out and buy it (Maybe that one will also turn up in the cheap bins eventually?). But stripped of all the 'conceptual' tosh, and with no visual distractions, the music really comes alive when you hear it played 'LIVE', filtered through a pair of AKG's finest.
It all sounds pretty nice, although the technical differences between "BINAURAL" and plain old-fashioned "STEREO" are probably lost on me. Of course, as someone whose hearing was compromised through having fought in the NWOBHM wars, who frequently suffers from sinus-related BUNGED-UP-NESS (technically known as "HAVING FUNNY EARS") and who habitually watches telly with the SUBTITLES turned on, I'm not sure I can the best judge when it comes to all things "AUDIOPHILE".
When all's said and done, I still liked the "old" songs the best, but the "new" stuff IS finally starting to grow on me...
The 'HEADPHONE LISTENING' FLAC files will reside on my AndroidPad for the foreseeable future, but I've also converted everything to WAVs so that I can remaster and assemble my own CD set. I'm also taking this opportunity to break the long tracks from "The Overview" into shorter indexed segments.
I've also been digging (into) some of PERCY JONES's solo material from the nineties. I liked what I heard, but it's very much 'OF ITS TIME' (quite a lot of electric drums - there was one bit that even reminded me of SQUAREPUSHER!). There's also a few weedy vocal tracks that are best left on the shelf!
I've dug out my quarter-of-a-century-old copy of COREL-DRAW to see if will run on m'LINUX lappy, via the magic of W.I.N.E.. No longer having any 'professional' need for it, I really only require that it can accomplish one task and one task only... to generate cover artworks for my 'MUSIC PROJECTS', in a form that I can take to the PRINT SHOP that DOESN'T get shrunken in size by the quirks of POSTSCRIPT conversion/output. Which is what happened the last time I paid a visit... So far it seems to be working just fine, without too much struggle, but it's been such a long time since I used Corel-Draw on a regular basis that I needed a bit of a refresher course!
Week from Monday 9th February 2026 - Gawd! this miserable weather! I'm itching for some DAZE OUT, but it's not particularly inviting at the moment. You know you're an introverted retiree when going to the hozzy for a blood test, or popping to the shops to stock up on supplies, counts as an ADVENTURE these days! It's particularly annoying when the sun does come out late in the afternoon, but only after a continuous downpour which has put me off for the earlier part of the day. Ah well! I did manage to sneak out to the bank and the chemist on Friday...
I suppose I should be grateful that I can still get out at all. This very month, #OnThisDay #TwoYearsAgo I was living in a hospital ward...
Week from Monday 16th February 2026 - That STEVEN WILSON fellah has got a new "HEADPHONE DUST" website, where he's making some of his stuff available to buy (as high-quality downloads) in the various newfangled "IMMERSIVE" formats. The star attraction at the moment is "IMPOSSIBLE TIGHTROPE", a complete and exclusive LIVE RECORDING of one of last year's shows. Nearly NINETEEN QUID is more than I've ever paid for a DOWNLOAD in my life, but I'm curious enough to dive in... While I don't have any sort of multi-speaker SURROUND-SOUND set-up at my disposal, I do still have two ears and a DOLBY ATMOS-capable Android tablet.
If you think about it, it's actually good value for what would probably be a DOUBLE-CD set, and in a new supposedly 'audiophile' format too! Full ARTWORK is also provided, albeit in a PDF that might need to be picked apart.
Now I'll be honest, I greeted his last couple of studio albums with indifference. They were not really in my musical wheelhouse at the time. I bought "THE HARMONY CODEX" much later than everyone else, an IMPULSE BUY when it showed up in an HMV sale. I haven't listened to it very much since I first bought it. I streamed his last ('critically-acclaimed masterpiece') "THE OVERVIEW" almost out of a sense of duty when it first came out, but it never tickled me enough to want to rush out and buy it (Maybe that one will also turn up in the cheap bins eventually?). But stripped of all the 'conceptual' tosh, and with no visual distractions, the music really comes alive when you hear it played 'LIVE', filtered through a pair of AKG's finest.
It all sounds pretty nice, although the technical differences between "BINAURAL" and plain old-fashioned "STEREO" are probably lost on me. Of course, as someone whose hearing was compromised through having fought in the NWOBHM wars, who frequently suffers from sinus-related BUNGED-UP-NESS (technically known as "HAVING FUNNY EARS") and who habitually watches telly with the SUBTITLES turned on, I'm not sure I can the best judge when it comes to all things "AUDIOPHILE".
When all's said and done, I still liked the "old" songs the best, but the "new" stuff IS finally starting to grow on me...
The 'HEADPHONE LISTENING' FLAC files will reside on my AndroidPad for the foreseeable future, but I've also converted everything to WAVs so that I can remaster and assemble my own CD set. I'm also taking this opportunity to break the long tracks from "The Overview" into shorter indexed segments.
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