[ Hypnos Forum ]

I once got the Historic Edition, but I quickly ripped it and sold it. Only a few tracks are really worth it, like "Schwanensee I".
Seems to me the philosophy behind those massive releases is to just release anything that was recorded by KS no matter how weak the content.
While I still hold KS in very high esteem for his timeless classics from the 70s and the occasional good album in later decades, I've become more critical towards him recently.
When I take a look at some more recent videos of live performances on youtube, I feel that he is a bit of a one trick pony and his music hasn't evolved at all... doing the same thing over and over again, the endless synth noodling, playing the same chords he has used for decades and randomly improvising a bit with his limited keyboard abilities. Sometimes it has its moments, but after a while it just gets dull.
It's nice for him that he still enjoys what he does and that there are still fans, but I have to say that - just like Tangerine Dream - KS' prime was in the 70s and he never really moved beyond that time.

SSDs are great for installing your operating system, which makes the whole machine snappier and more responsive, because lots of files are read/written constantly while you work. Saving a few milliseconds in file retrieval time adds up, when you're talking system files. Shutdown/restart will be MUCH faster.

Tomas (your music is great btw), I think their music is such that it doesn't matter to a huge degree how they look when they play it live.  It's a little different IMO from guys about to turn 70 who are still playing the same rock 'n roll hits from 50 years ago and bouncing around on stage. 

They've both made a lot of relevant music since the 80's and 90's in their respective solo albums, collaborations and so on, so it's hard for me to begrudge them a reunion disc and tour, as this is most likely just that.  You're probably right they're doing this for the same reason every other band from previous decades with previous fame reunites. 

I don't think it'll hurt their cult status though, the fact that they're gonna sell a ton of music and concerts without essentially changing themselves or their sound tells me that.  They'd have to become skinhead nazis (Lisa Gerrard- highly suspect  ) and sing only Britney Spears covers in order to ruin the nostalgia.

 Listening to a few of their new songs on youtube, I'm impressed that the quality is still good- Brendan's range has narrowed a tad but he can still croon, baby, and Lisa Gerrard can basically phone in those angelic notes without much problem.  The songwriting is pretty solid.  I'm not sure how relevant an album it is, in terms of their legacy, but at least they reunited with an actual album of quality music.  It's not bad music, regardless of whether I'd prefer a different direction. 

Tomas I'd agree that if they that just tour and keep singing their old classics indefinitely until there are no more crowds, it would hurt their rep... I just don't see that happening though.  There is one great song so far I've heard which is Children of the Sun.  This could have easily been the last song on the album (it was the first), a fitting and gracious goodbye, I mean that in the best sense.

Dead Can Dance - Children Of The Sun.wmv

I have wabvelab for PC but hate the way it works and unfortunately there is nothing about Peak I ever liked either, its look, the way it functions, I always go back to soundforge even when that meant transferring files to and from the pc for editing.

Paul

My 2 cents on cdbaby and and the distribution clearing houses:

Rather than keep feeding the iTunes (etc) of the world. I think its great to have a place for downloads like Bandcamp, It's well organized, very functional, and has good rates (last I looked). No setup costs. And it's a personal site ... for the artist or for a label. You can edit it. It's a home base. You can link to a blog from it, and so on.

People naturally think they must have exposure, so they go for getting their music up on loads of sites ... which does not equate with exposure, just possible availability. And you don't necessarily need it available in lots of places. One will do.  Exposure is more about people liking your music and spreading the word, which they can only do of course if you promote yourself to begin with, and you might as well promote your single Bandcamp site as a central place for people to checkout your music, buy it, get news, and to come back to.

But maybe I'm just crazy.