Kitchens of Distinction - The Death of Cool (The Mock Remaster)

A thing of beauty... This is the lost classic of the shoegaze era. If any shoegaze album was, and is still, criminally ignored; this is the worst offender. There are several reasons for this, but I postulate that homophobia was chief among them. Take an already obscure genre and throw in an openly gay singer... They just weren't destined to be widely loved.

It's a shame, really. There is so much to love here. Julian Swales' guitar is the underrated gem of this masterpiece. Most shoegaze bands are unfairly compared to My Bloody Valentine, as though they were the standard for shoegaze. This is, of course, completely untrue. The Simpsons didn't write every joke, The Beatles didn't write every song, and MBV didn't influence every shoegaze band.

If you talk to Patrick Fitzgerald, he insists that 'The Death of Cool' was a step in the wrong direction for the band. He insists that it is too similar to their previous album 'Strange Free World' and that they should have gone with a different producer.

That, honestly, breaks my heart, as I don't know where I'd be without this record. I have had to buy the CD several times over as it has been dragged around from player to car to friend's house; lost, found, scratched, rebought... It is almost surely wherever I am, also.

The lyrics are fantastic. KOD's game was operating on a higher plane to their contemporaries. While MBV and Ride were concentrating on their music and forgoing actual lyrics (Rumour has it, MBV actually spent considerable time on lyrics. They remain less than stellar, so I'm not sure if that was time well spent.), KOD spent their time and energy perfecting both. You wouldn't hear such poetically brilliant lines with real world consequences in other albums like "You're breathing this fear just once a year; we suffocate everyday.", "Animal nuzzles up to my shoulder sweats and grunts and pushes me over with its musty mane in my eyes. I'm closed off and protected." or the genius comparisons of burning an old love's belongings with exclamations of "Burn, burn it all!", "Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!" and declaring the effigy in honour of "John of Arc". These are the words of a band that worked harder on every aspect of it's craft.

It deserves better recognition.

So, here it is... The mock remaster.

I gave this release a little bump along with its associated b-sides. I just opened it up a bit to bring out the sparkliness of the guitars and showcase the busy vocal production. I do hope you enjoy.

Please leave comments and suggestions about what you would fix about this recording.

01 What Happens Now? (Remastered)
02 4 Men (Remastered)
03 On Tooting Broadway Station (Remastered)
04 Breathing Fear (Remastered)
05 Gone World Gone (Remastered)
06 When In Heaven (Remastered)
07 Mad As Snow (Remastered)
08 Smiling (Remastered)
09 Blue Pedal (Remastered)
10 Can't Trust The Waves (Remastered)
11 Skin (Remastered)
12 Air Shifting (Remastered)
13 Goodbye Voyager (Remastered)
14 Don't Come Back (Remastered)
15 Glittery Dust (Remastered)
16 Spacedolphins (Remastered)

Levitation - Need For Not (The Mock Remaster)

This album is quite a doozy. Far ahead of its time. It took elements of shoegaze, psychedelic, and any other genre it saw fit for the groove (goth, metal, the yet to be solidified post-rock) and crammed them into a swirling cloud of fury and beauty that could caress you gently with one hand while gut punching you with the other. In short; it's brilliant.

Welcome back to A-Sides, B-Sides and Seasides.

I pulled this album out during a time when I was learning to master my own tracks. I made the mistake of listening to it through Beats Audio headphones. The headphones are intentionally bass heavy. It was a disastrous and muddy listen. This is in no way commentary on the production or mix of this genius work. When it was released in May of 1992, I doubt that anyone could have known that the loudness war was about to begin; arguably, only a month later with Faith No More's 'Angeldust', another great album that had some unfortunate unintentional consequences. Faith No More couldn't have predicted it would result in bands like Linkin Park and a whole slew of what became the sub-par version of Faith No More's sound that became known as Nu-Metal.

Another byproduct of the release was the subsequent "Loudness War". If you'd like to know more about this, go to the Googles and read until you're blue. I'm not going to write a dissertation here. Let's just skip all of the preaching and going through the five steps of mourning and arrive at the acceptance... It's how we listen to music, now.

Back to the problem, at hand...

About four songs in, I had had enough of listening to the album on my Beats Audios. As a comparison, I plunked on my open back Shure SRH1840's, a nice and incredibly clean set of studio monitoring headphones. I noticed that there was still too much bass. Not having the source tapes, I simply adjusted some levels. I reduced the bass and ran several of the lower bands through some parallel compression. I rolled off the low end at about 38hz. I boosted the mid and widened the stereo a bit. I also brought up the high end and killed some of the highest signal. It resulted in pulling out some of the guitar nuances. Here is a quick video showing a side by side of the first song, 'Against Nature'. I really love the Bickers' guitar and Francolini's drums, especially on the high end. Franco's tom, snare, and intricate cymbal work get a great boost, and the harmonics and intricacies of the guitar really come to the fore.

Let me know what you think. I know there is a bit of white noise here and there. A curse of some of the boosts without the masters. I chucked on a huge chunk of related b-sides with some tweaking, as well.

Here you are; Levitation's 'Need For Not'. The Mock Remaster.

Against Nature (Remastered)

World Around (Remastered)

Hangnail (Remastered)

Resist (Remastered)

Arcs of Light and Dew (Remastered)

Pieces of Mary (Remastered)

Smile (Remastered)

Embedded (Remastered)

Coterie (Remastered)

Nadine (Remastered)

Smile (Coppelia Version Remastered)

Paid In Kind (Remastered)

Rosemary Jones (Remastered)

Firefly (Remastered)

Attached (Remastered)

Bedlam (Remastered)

It's Time (Remastered)

Squirrel (Remastered)

Jay (Remastered)

Usher (Remastered)

Cloud Shine (Remastered)

Mantra (Remastered)

Link available in comments High Quality VBR mp3

On Returning 2017...

Hullo, former fans (or former strangers) of my former blog, also called A-Sides, B-Sides and Seasides.

The last round of this blog was a place to share out music the way that I listened to it. Since I would collect bands to the most intricate of releases, this often meant that when I would bring my music into this wonderful digital world that I would find myself compiling any given band's b-sides into compilations that would read more like full length albums. After about 90 such compilations of nearly complete b-side compilations from bands like Top, Flowered Up, Kitchens of Distinction, Curve, James, The New Fast Automatic Daffodils, Soup Dragons, Trashcan Sinatras, Adorable, The Wendys, The Happy Mondays, and, well, about 80 others... I finally called it a day with a final purge of incomplete collections I had been working on. It was cathartic and great fun. I had a lot of great readers and contributors along the way. An all around great experience.

What does this have to do with this new incarnation?... Simple. I'd like to continue sharing music in the way that I listen to it.  I wanted to do something truly unique this time around instead of just going back to my old default of b-side compilations. So, here's what you will be getting...

Lately, as I work on my own music (shameless plug: a horde of rand) I have been going through some crash courses in music production, especially in finalising mixes and training my ear for mastering. It made me re-evaluate a lot of my own album collections. Given the examples from a few paragraphs up, one could understand that a lot of my old favourites have not been given the remastering treatments some of them so desperately need. This isn't to say that the mixes are bad. They could just do with an update. Some level tweaking, a little compression here and there... They just need some remastering.

As I started using some of these older recordings to practice my mastering skills, I knew it was time to re-open A-Sides, B-Sides and Seasides. I finally have something to share, again.

Considering the fact that I don't have the original reels or masters for any of the releases, none of these are mastered from the source. There are limitations to what I could achieve. I also don't have much interest in the ongoing loudness war where producers keep trying to push the limits of noise within the constraints of digital dynamic range. I only mean to clean up some things that I hear that bring me the kind of listening experience I'd like to get out of the albums I've gotten used to hearing. It has been a new type of catharsis, as I've managed to pick up on sounds I hadn't heard in songs I've heard a million times, bringing my love back for them.

So, here we are... ABCSides is back, and upping its game. I do hope you enjoy these mock remasters. Often, I will try and include b-sides that I have high quality recordings of (FLAC or WAV when possible), I have tried to clean up some vinyl tracks and mp3, but the original recordings often have flaws that I would need the master recordings for to properly fix. If you, the reader, see any notable tracks missing; feel free to send them my way and I'll try to update former posts with appended material. Also, feel free to let me know if there are dynamic mistakes that you pick up on, as this is a learning tool for me.

As the files that I'm working on often break the 1gb mark, I am unable to provide the 32 bit WAV or 24 bit FLAC over the interwebnets (I've even got a few albums that I've mastered in 5.1 that break around 4gb). My apologies that I'm unable to currently provide these far superior files. Perhaps, at a later juncture. HOWEVER! I WILL be providing very high quality mp3 variable bit rate files which will still provide a grand time with good headphones from your mobile device.

THIS IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES!!! Most say it, but I can surely claim it. I'm hoping that people who are already familiar with these albums can give me feedback so I can truly hone this craft. I welcome criticism (though, not abuse). I do not own these recordings, and will gladly remove any posts at the artist's request.

Always remember, these are not professional masters. I am using these albums to practice a craft. DO NOT expect perfection. DO expect some joy.

If you were a fan of my former blog; I'm glad to have you back. If you are new; I do hope you'll stay awhile.