JOHNLENNON, LOST IN WEYBRIDGE, 1968, unreleased Kenwood sessions, A-, CRJOHNLENNON, THE DIRTY MAC SESSIONS, 12/11/68, Rock And Roll Circus, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, LOOK AT ME, 1968-1980, demos & alternates, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, GONE FROM THIS PLACE, 1969-1980, demos & outtakes, A, CRJOHN LENNON & PLASTIC ONO BAND, MOTHER, 1970, demos & outtakes, A, CRJOHN LENNON, PLASTIC ONO BAND SESSIONS, 1970, A, 5CRJOHNLENNON, HUSHED BELLS OVER, 1970, Plastic Ono Band demos & acetates, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE PLASTIC ONO BAND, 1970, alternate album, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, IT'S GONNA BE ALRIGHT, First album outtakes, A, 2CRJOHNLENNON, OUT OF THE BLUE, 1971-1980, acoustic & alternate demos, A-, CRJOHNLENNON & FRIENDS, LET'S HAVE A PARTY, 10/09/71, a house party, B+, CRJOHN LENNON, THE LOST LENNON TAPES VOL.1-6, A, 6CRJOHN LENNON, THE COMPLETE LOST LENNON TAPES VOL.1-11, A, 11CRJOHNLENNON, THE DREAM IS OVER, Demos + alternates, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, YOKO ONO & FRANK ZAPPA, FILLMORE EAST 1971, 06/05/71, New York, DVDJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE IMAGINE, 1971, alternate album, A, CRJOHN LENNON, IMAGINE SESSIONS, 1971, A, 6CRJOHN LENNON, SOMETIME IN NEW YORK CITY SESSIONS, 1971-72, Captain Acid, A, 3CRJOHN LENNON & PLASTIC ONO BAND, THE ALTERNATE SOMETIME IN NEW YORK CITY, 1972, alternate album, A, CRJOHN LENNON & ELEPHANT'S MEMORY, ONE TO ONE REHEARSALS, 08/22/72, New York, B+, 2CRJOHN LENNON & PLASTIC ONO BAND, LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY, 08/30/72, Japanese Laser Disc, DVDJOHN LENNON, MIND GAMES SESSIONS, 1973, studio sessions, Captain Acid, A, 4CRJOHN LENNON, ABSOLUTE ELSEWHERE, 1973, studio sessions, Captain Acid, A, 3CRJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE MIND GAMES, 1973, alternate album & demos, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE MIND GAMES, 1973, outtakes, alternates & demos, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE MIND GAMES AND SHAVED FISH, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE ROCK'N'ROLL, 1974, alternate album, A, CRJOHN LENNON, ROCK'N'ROLL DELUXE EDITION, 1974, sessions & mixes, A, 4CRJOHN LENNON, OLDIES BUT MOLDIES, unreleased Rock'n'Roll album, A, CRJOHN LENNON, WINSTON O'BOOGIE VINYL, outtakes and jams, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, WALLS AND BRIDGES SESSIONS, 1974, studio sessions, A, 2CRJOHN LENNON, WALLS AND BRIDGES SESSIONS, 1974, Misterclaudel/Captain Acid, studio sessions, A, 5CRJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE WALLS AND BRIDGES, 1974, alternate album, A, CRJOHN LENNON, LISTEN TO THIS: THE ULTIMATE WALLS AND BRIDGES ANTHOLOGY, Captain Acid, July 1974, A-, 3CRJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE SHAVED FISH, 1975, alternate album, A, CRJOHN LENNON, BETWEEN THE LINES: COMPLETE HOME RECORDINGS 1975-1980, A, 9CRJOHN LENNON, FREE AS A BIRD: THE DAKOTA BEATLE DEMOS, 1976-1980, home demos, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, BORROWED TIME, demos & alternates, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, GONE FROM THIS PLACE, demos & outtakes, A-, CRJOHN LENNON, WE'D LIKE TO CHANGE THE TEMPO NOW, 1977-1980, Double Fantasy & Milk And Honey demos, A-, 2CRJOHN LENNON, THE ALTERNATE DOUBLE FANTASY, 1980, outtakes, alternates & demos, A, CRJOHN LENNON, LIVING ON BORROWED TIME, 1979, Double Fantasy demos & Milk And Honey outtakes, A, 2CRJOHN LENNON, DOUBLE FANTASY RECORDING SESSIONS, 1980, A, 4CRJOHN LENNON, IT'S HARD TO BE BUTTERFLIES, 1979-1980, Double Fantasy& Milk And Honey demos, outtakes & alternates, A-, 2CRJOHN LENNON, MILK AND HONEY SESSIONS, 1980, A, 3CRJOHN LENNON, LIFE IS WHAT HAPPENS, 1979-1980, demos, A-, 2CRJOHN LENNON, ODDITIES, TMOQ Gazette, A, 2CR
The Beatles Revolver Studio Sessions Back To Basicsl
The Beatles recorded Revolver after taking a three-month break at the start of 1966, and during a period when London was feted as the era's cultural capital. Regarded by some commentators as the start of the group's psychedelic period, the songs reflect their interest in the drug LSD, Eastern philosophy and the avant-garde while addressing themes such as death and transcendence from material concerns. With no plans to reproduce their new material in concert, the band made liberal use of automatic double tracking, varispeed, reversed tapes, close audio miking, and instruments outside of their standard live set-up. Among its tracks are "Tomorrow Never Knows", incorporating heavy Indian drone and a collage of tape loops; "Eleanor Rigby", a song about loneliness featuring a string octet as its only musical backing; and "Love You To", a foray into Hindustani classical music. The sessions also produced a non-album single, "Paperback Writer" backed with "Rain".
Recording for the album instead began at EMI Studio 3 in London on 6 April, with George Martin again serving as producer.[43] The first track attempted was Lennon's "Tomorrow Never Knows",[44] the arrangement for which changed considerably between the initial take that day and the subsequent remake.[45] This first version of "Tomorrow Never Knows", along with several other outtakes from the album sessions,[46] was included on the 1996 compilation Anthology 2.[47] Also recorded during the Revolver sessions were "Paperback Writer" and "Rain", which were issued as the A- and B-side of a non-album single in late May.[48]
On 16 May,[62] Epstein responded to a request from Capitol Records, EMI's North American counterpart, to supply three new songs for an upcoming US release, titled Yesterday and Today.[63] Issued on 20 June, this album combined tracks that Capitol had omitted from the Beatles' previous US releases with songs that the band had originally issued on non-album singles.[62] From the six completed recordings for Revolver, Martin selected three Lennon-written songs, since the sessions had favoured his compositions thus far.[63] Keen to limit the interruption to recording that multiple television appearances would create,[64][65] the Beatles spent two days making promotional films for the "Paperback Writer" single.[58][66] The first set of clips was filmed at EMI Studio 1 on 19 May[67] by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, director of the popular TV show Ready Steady Go![68] The following day, the group shot further clips for the two songs in the grounds of Chiswick House, in west London.[58] In the face of fans' complaints of an aloofness in their new work, however, the band conceded to making a live appearance on Top of the Pops on 16 June.[69]
The sessions for Revolver furthered the spirit of studio experimentation evident on Rubber Soul.[79][80] With the Beatles increasingly involved in the production of their music, Martin's role as producer had changed to one of a facilitator and collaborator, whereby the band now relied on him to make their ideas a reality.[71][81][nb 7] According to Rodriguez, Revolver marked the first time the Beatles integrated studio technology into the "conception of the recordings they made".[83] He views this approach as reflective of the group's waning interest in live performance before crowds of screaming fans, "in favor of creating soundscapes without limitation" in a studio environment.[84] For the first time at EMI Studios, the company's four-track tape machines were placed in the studio's control room, alongside the producer and balance engineer, rather than in a dedicated machine room.[85] The Beatles' new recording engineer on the project was nineteen-year-old Geoff Emerick,[86] whom author and critic Ian MacDonald describes as an "English audio experimentalist" in the tradition of Joe Meek.[87][nb 8] Emerick recalled that no preproduction or rehearsal process took place for Revolver; instead, the band used the studio to create each song from what was often just an outline of a composition.[90] Speaking shortly before the start of the sessions, Lennon said that they had considered making the album a continuous flow of tracks, without gaps to differentiate between each song.[13][nb 9]
The band's most experimental work during the sessions was channelled into the first song they attempted, "Tomorrow Never Knows".[95] Lennon sang his vocal for the song through the twin revolving speakers inside a Leslie cabinet, which was designed for use with a Hammond organ.[47][110] The effect was employed throughout the initial take of the song but only during the second half of the remake.[47][111] According to author Andy Babiuk, "Tomorrow Never Knows" marked the first time that a vocal was recorded using a microphone wired into the input of a Leslie speaker.[112] Much of the backing track for the song consists of a series of prepared tape loops,[106] an idea that originated from McCartney, who, influenced by the work of avant-garde artists such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, regularly experimented with magnetic tape and musique concrète techniques.[113][114] The Beatles each prepared loops at home,[115] and a selection of these sounds were then added to the musical backing of "Tomorrow Never Knows".[116][nb 10] The process was carried out live, with multiple tape recorders running simultaneously, and some of the longer loops extending out of the control room and down the corridor.[120]
The inclusion of reversed tape sounds on "Rain" (specifically, a portion of Lennon's vocal part) marked the first pop release to use this technique, although the Beatles had first used it, in some of the tape loops and the overdubbed guitar solo, on "Tomorrow Never Knows".[121] The backwards (or backmasked) guitar solo on "I'm Only Sleeping" was similarly unprecedented in pop music,[24][122] in that Harrison deliberately composed and recorded his guitar parts with a view to how the notes would sound when the tape direction was corrected.[123][124] Experimentation with backwards sounds was a key aspect of the Revolver sessions,[125] as was the use of the Leslie speaker effect.[126] The band's interest in the tones that resulted from varying tape speed (or varispeeding) extended to recording a basic track at a faster tempo than they intended the song to sound on disc.[127][128] 2ff7e9595c
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