Customer Reviews

Solid Air

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you're not familiar with the term "loudness compression", go to Wikipedia and search "loudness wars". In that article, there is also a link to an excellent You Tube audio/video demonstration of this reprehensible practice, which is being propagated by bean-counter record company executives.

The technical explanation of loudness compression is the application of an increasingly high ratio of compression to the dynamic range of a particular recording, and then increasing the gain of the recording, until the peaks have reached maximum. In layman's terms, what this means is there are no longer any quiet or loud passages in the recording, EVERYTHING is at the same volume.

Basically, the iPod is responsible for the proliferation of this practice. When music is played back thru iPod earbuds in any environment where there is ambient noise present, by having the volume artificially jacked across the entire music spectrum, you can hear the content more clearly. However, when you listen to the same recording thru a home audio system, it sounds like the music is emanating from a megaphone.

Nowhere is this odious practice more in stark contempt for the original work than Island's "remaster" of this classic album. The sad result of this is Martyn's voice is not only buried, but has to compete with, rather than be complemented by, the accompanying instrumentation. The dynamic range of the original recording is totally gone.

The best way to describe what you will hear is this: Imagine Martyn sharing a stage with a bass player, a drummer, keyboards, etc. Every instrument, including his guitar, is electrically amplified thru the house speaker system... except his voice. THAT'S what this CD sounds like.

It is unclear if Island will continue to manufacture the older CD, which, while not remastered, is of perfectly acceptable audio quality, and is a far better listening experience than this travesty.

Link to the original version of Solid Air.

At a little more than 34 minutes, the original SOLID AIR is a pretty short CD. It's worth spending the couple of extra dollars for this version, not particularly because of the extra track, but for the remastering and the sleevenotes, which are substantial.

John Martyn should be much better known in the States than he is, and this album, along with the currently unavailable ONE WORLD, are his masterpieces. Just listen to the title track, the defining piece on this album, for double-bassist Danny Thompson's long sliding notes, for Martyn's slurred vocals wandering in and out of the mix, and for the occasional vibraphone in the background. It's not quite jazz, folk or rock, but it is a wonderful tribute to Martyn's friend Nick Drake, who died 18 months after this LP was originally released. 'Don't Want to Know' should also be mandatory chill-out listening!

John Martyn was originally signed to Island Records in 1967--at the tender age of 18--as the label's first solo white artist (Steve Winwood had been signed first as a member of the Spencer Davis Group, then as the leader of Traffic), and made his debut with the understated London Conversation album that year, followed by 1968's The Tumbler (which Al Stewart, another young up-and-coming artist of the time, produced), 2 long players with his now-ex-wife Beverley, and his definitive career-beginner, Bless the Weather. Solid Air, then, is his sixth overall release, and if Bless the Weather was where Martyn truly began to map out his stylistic plan, then Solid Air was its first true realisation.

What an album--others have stated that the original is too short, and the addition of the live version of "I'd Rather Be the Devil" to this Y2K remaster helps to flesh it out a bit. I'd certainly agree, but even the original 9-track set, however short it might be, is pretty damned amazing. Martyn's primary effect on this album is Echoplex, as it would be throughout his career, and it is used to greatest effect on his searing version of "I'd Rather Be the Devil." Elsewhere are the jazzy textures of the title cut, "Man in the Station" and "Don't Want to Know."

But it is his solo acoustic take of "May You Never" that was (at least for me) the biggest selling-point of this CD; it was the first John Martyn track I remember hearing, on the third of Island's 40th Anniversary comps, Acoustic Waves 1968-1975, and the simple message of unconditional love and eternal goodwill struck me right to the heart. According to producer John Wood's liner notes, JM had already cut a band version of this track when they were getting ready to deliver the finished master tapes to Island for transferral to acetate, but was uncertain up to the 11th hour as to whether it should be included. Wood was so annoyed by this that he finally told Martyn to just go back into the studio and record the song with just his acoustic guitar and voice and see if that satisfied him. JM laid this track down in one take, and it's absolutely perfect, proving once again that sometimes, simplicity is the best approach. And the original is the best, too--Eric Clapton would cover this song on 461 Ocean Boulevard, but it is John Martyn's version which wins the race. May you never fail to appreciate Solid Air!

This is a true top 10 record for me, a desert island disc for the voyage to Saturn I was planning. I disagree with the reviewer saying that the remastering was all jacked up to maximum Noise Wars levels... I looked at the waveforms in Sound Forge (basic mastering software) and it's not as if they eliminated any semblance of headroom here. John Wood (original producer) supervised the remastering process for this one, and he recorded Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" (one of the greatest sounding records of all time IMO) as well as being namechecked in the Fairport autobiographical song "Angel Delight," so you know it was in the right hands the whole way.

If you're reading this getting all steamed because you've never heard John Martyn or this record and you wanna know what the music's like and I'm prattling on about nothing that makes any sense to you, just be advised that for many, many people, this is among the greatest (if not THE greatest) album ever made, by anyone. There's just a point where "masterpiece" doesn't even get into the zip code where records like this live, so anything I might say would just resemble mindless chattering hyperbole to someone to whom JM was a mystery they were only just on the cusp of discovering.

He's gone now but he left us countless songs that will last long after anyone reading this's grandkids are long gone themselves and beyond, and this record is as close to perfection, beginning to end, as any I can think of and I'm not the only one who thinks so. So if you are wondering if it's a good investment to pull the trigger and purchase this album you've never heard called "Solid Air" that everyone's on about, well I am here to verify that all the rumors and hype are more than true in this case, it's amazing to the power of incredible, I'm afraid.

There's really no better endorsement you could give something than that, is there?

If getting down and relaxing with some excellent alternative rithym and blues is your bag(man) then Solid Air by John Martyn is a great way to relax and forget your troubles and sink into a world of feeling good and remembering a time when life was made up of highs and even greater highs