Phideaux new album "Infernal", latest news

It's nice that there's so much music coming  Keep on proggin'!

Hi there Phideaux, kind of you to be here to answer all our questions. 

Maybe I haven't read this thread thoroughly enough, but I can't find a release date for Infernal. I'm not much for downloading, so I'm looking forward to the CD.

Is there a German death metal band?  When did they start?  Certainly not when I googled the name a couple years ago...   We would love to put the albums out in vinyl, but we haven't really sold many vinyl and I don't really want to have 482 copies of all my albums lying around!!!  Except that vinyl sounds so great.  I was amazed to hear the difference between Snowtorch vinyl vs. cd.  Some of the CD was punchier and the LP wasn't as good close to the center, but the first part of each side was sublime!

Infernal has no real release date because we're only just beginning to record it in July/August and things take a long time to complete here in the land of Phideaux...

Phideaux wrote: Infernal has no real release date because we're only just beginning to record it in July/August and things take a long time to complete here in the land of Phideaux...

 

Ok.
Just keep us informed when it's time to place an order, please.

well, since we mastered both the vinyl and the CD ourselves (we didn't cut the vinyl, but we provided the compressed, etc. files) I can say there was nothing added to the CD in mastering (in terms of loudness and compression).  Our goal was to keep it as natural as possible.   And the vinyl cutter only applied whatever EQ curve is necessary for vinyl, so it was the same source for both.  So, in that sense it was fascinating to hear the difference in sound.

Good Friday evening Phideax and fellow proggers.  With the talk about the vinyl releases, have you kicked around the idea of releasing anything in your back catalog in 5.1 surround sound?  The discs that are done well with this separation are tremendous.  The Phideaux soundscapes would be tailor made for the surround experience!

Liquid, when N7 came out I was very alarmed at its sound.  I thought it sounded brittle and somewhat like "tin foil".  I didn't understand how so many beautiful ingredients could go into a stew that tasted sour.  We did some research into analog mixing boards because I was convinced the digital domain was adding errors into the sound.  However, the boards that we wanted exceeded our budget.  We got some new (and costly) tube compressors and outboard gear for mastering and thenGabe, my producer, did some digging about mix thresholds in pro tools and we discovered that even though digidesign says that 0 = 0, when you add 78 tracks of real time mixing, the program makes approximations in its calculations and so degrades the final signal.  The solution, postulated some on the forum, was to mix at a very low level so that nothing would be worked too much to capacity and then bring up the final 2 track mix to 0. 

From this process we went back and remixed N7.  It solved the problem for me of the sour sound.  It was a very subtle difference, but an important one in achieving the sound we wanted.  If you send me a self addressed envelope I will slip a new disc in it and send it to you, liquid.  Then, you can hear it.

As for Mogon, I hope there isn't an issue, but to be honest I think we operate at such different spectrums that I don't anticipate many problems. 

As for Friction---  I'm starting to get very nostalgic for that album.  I'd like to "recreate" and "reinvent" that album using much of what's there in remixed form and by cutting one or two songs that I am not so into, plus re doing a few completely.

Supermorpher was a collaboration with my friend R. Weis, who is a sound designer and works with his own home made samples.  We sampled some sounds on an acoustic guitar (with a butter knife, inspired by Daevid Allen and Hillage) and then created this song together in sections.  I contributed a riff and then R. did the same and we orchestrated each other's parts.  It is a fun track, I really love the end because it's so transcendent. 

I was fortunate to produce an album of R. Weis called "Mystery Of The Egg" and supermorpher was on that album.  My intention when / if I release vinyl copies of my albums, is to get supermorpher onto side 4 of Ghost Story because it dates from that period.  It will also be possible for me to release it on a compilation of Phideaux in the future.

thanks for hunting that down.  I realized I didn't have a copy of it in L.A. a couple months ago and I was able to download it from Amazon.  That was so cool to realize that I could access my own work from a commercial site~!  Pretty humbling and cool.  Enjoy the night.

I don't suggest getting the "upgrade".  I only express that I felt the sound needed upgrading (and I'd sold out the first run and was ready to do the second).  But, remember, at the time we offered anyone a free swap out and we had the opportunity to keep the original and download a lossless version of the original.  I'll still send the link for that download to anyone who wants to burn their own copy of the new version.  I plan to do the same thing when we re-release Doomsday this summer.  We have been out of print on Fiendish and Doomsday for some time.  Ghost Story is about to go out of print as well.  All of these albums will be remixed/remastered for the new releases (which heretofore will come in mini LP sleeves like Snowtorch (with the original booklets).  So, I can't say that you'll have a different experience with N7.v2, but it's worth a S.A.S.E. to find out if you're in the US

Yeah, in terms of Friction, I'm glad you see the "pearls amidst the spoils".  I wouldn't say there was filler, per se, because there were plenty of things left off that album.  But, there is a "side three" quality to the latter mid section.  That has a bit of "enough already" to it before the album comes in for the conclusion.  I would cut some of that.  However, I also do enjoy some of the weird noise bits and might keep those...  We'll see...  I just "listened" to the live Chupacabras today and it brought tears to my eyes.  I really hadn't HEARD it before I was so busy making it, and commenting on the mix and asking Gabe to bring out this instrument (or bury that one if it made a blunder...).  So, to sit down and finally enjoy it was fun.  I got to listen to the parts that I don't normally concentrate on.  Fun.

That was sort of what I meant, not so much filler I guess, but just that it seemed to drag in parts.  The latter mid section does sport my favorite song on the album though ("Claw the Land"), so don't remove that one if you do a reboot.

Phideaux wrote: We would love to put the albums out in vinyl, but we haven't really sold many vinyl and I don't really want to have 482 copies of all my albums lying around!!!  Except that vinyl sounds so great.

You haven't sold many vinyl because of their released date, don't you think? Snowtorch have been released in CD around april 2011 and the vinyl came few month later. Maybe people didn't want to wait for it (or didn't know), and many bought the cd. I have wait for the vinyl because i love how it sounds, but i don't know if i will have bought it, if i'd already had Snowtorch in cd. (i don't know if it's enough clear, sorry for my english...)
So, I think if the cd and the vinyl are released in same time, you'll sell many more (it's just my opinion ).
Anyway I really hope that you can print more albums in vinyl!

I've just downloaded Supermorpher from CDBaby and i'm very surprised! It sounds very different from your own music, very electronic and experimental. But it's not bad at all!