But Beatles fans are in for a tremendous surprise. PLEASE PLEASE ME A couple of weeks ago Giles Martin stopped in New York on his way to London, and invited me to hear his Love mixes on a five-channel surround system at Magno Studios. I was knocked out by some, but I was absolutely floored by the pristine quality and fine definition of the sound. With the compression of the original 1960 s productions stripped away, voices and instruments seem real, as if they were in the room. The new mixes wrap you in the group’s arrangements and let you hear long-buried interplay that illuminates the Beatles’ brilliance. This is a level of detail that simply hasn’t been heard outside the Abbey Road studios until now. On “Yesterday” you can hear Paul McCartney’s pick hitting the strings of his guitar and the strings snapping against the neck. The guitar solo and the orchestral strings on “Something” had similar clarity and presence, and in the surround version of “I Am the Walrus” the whole kaleidoscope of textures — including an extraordinarily crisp drum sound — made the song quirkier than ever.
The mixes of “Revolution” and “Come Together” are incomparably more powerful than the familiar versions. Starr’s childlike “Octopus’ Garden” gets a fantastic restructuring that begins with the string introduction to “Good Night” and then places Starr’s vocal, unaccompanied, in a foggy ambience (using effects from “Yellow Submarine” and drums from “Lovely Rita” ) before the full band kicks into the more familiar arrangement.
And a juxtaposition of the drum figure from “Tomorrow Never Knows” and the vocal line from “Within You, Without You” creates a link between those mystical songs, recorded nearly nine months apart.
The new recordings were made under the close watch of Apple. McCartney, Starr, Ono and Olivia Harrison occasionally dropped in on the Martins to hear the mixes. “It was a little terrifying,” said the younger Martin, who is 36, born a few months before the Beatles broke up. (His father is 80. )
“When Ringo came in, the first thing he said was, ‘Have you done “ Octopus’ Garden” yet ? ’ Paul said he liked what he heard, but that we could go even farther out than we have, and we’ve gone pretty far. And we were very concerned that Yoko and Olivia feel we were treating John’s and George’s songs well, but they were both very pleased. ”
