Search - Bob Marley :: Young Mystic (Hybr)

The best CD for vintage Marley

citizenkeith | Columbus, OH USA | 03/09/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Before Bob Marley signed to Island Records, he recorded many great tracks with The Wailers and The Upsetters, and most of them were recorded by the legendary producer, Lee Perry.



If, like me, you are a fan of the early Wailers material, then you are probably frustrated by the sound quality of these recordings. pre-Island Marley has appeared in many forms over the years, often on budget CD compilations that sound atrocious. Well, you can finally enjoy some great-sounding Wailers tracks thanks to Audio Fidelity's latest SACD, Young Mystic. This is a "hybrid" disc, so you can play it in a regular CD player as well as high resolution SACD players.



The music on Young Mystic was mastered by Steve Hoffman, who along with Audio Fidelity's Marshall Blonstein, was a co-owner of the now-defunct DCC. It was a record label that released definitive versions of many classic records, from Nat King Cole to Metallica. Their 24 karat gold disc series discs are now highly collectable, some fetching over $200 for a mint used copy. Now Audio Fidelity is producing high resolution SACDs.



Young Mystic focuses on tracks produced by Lee Perry, except for the disc opener, "Soul Shakedown Party" which was produced by Leslie Kong. I was thrilled to hear that Steve went back to the original "2 track splits" to produce this release. These tapes are essentially the master tapes. They didn't have the resources to use tape machines with more than two tracks, so they would record the music on track one and all the vocals on track two. They are referred to as splits because, when played as a regular stereo tape, the music is all on one side and the vocals on the other.



When originally released, these songs were mixed down to a mono tape. Steve asked the members of his website forum whether they wanted the disc to be stereo or mono. In the end, he went with stereo, but with a twist: he put the music in one speaker, but centered the vocals (i.e. mono vocals in both speakers). At first I was disappointed to hear this... I would have preferred mono. However, the result is wonderful. You can hear the instruments well, and the vocals are perfectly balanced.



The fifteen tracks include classics like "African Herbsman," "Sun is Shining," "Soul Rebel," and "Kaya." I was disappointed that "Mr. Brown" was not included, but I'm not going to complain. Audio Fidelity has given the best collection of Wailers tracks ever released. I only wish they would release a "Volume 2," but accourding to Audio Fidelity this will not be happening.



I urge everybody who has an interest in early Marley or Lee Perry to check it out."