It's now available for pre-sale on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Mercury-Living-Presence-Boxed-Set/dp/B005XBA9Y8/tomslinx
Decca Classics did a really nice job on this box set, in my opinion. The booklet is mostly comprised
of the first-person history written for the short-lived "You Are There" sampler set, including all
the archival photos. The CD's are re-pressings of the 1990's issues, many of which have been out of
print for several years. All CD's were mastered by the original producer from the original tapes
using an all-tube analog playback and 3-2 mix chain. This price point per-CD is vastly discounted
from the original single-CD issues. The packaging is similar to "The Decca Sound" box, which appears
to have sold out in less than a year of availability.
Given the current state of the music business, and on-going seemingly irreversable trends in
business and culture, this might be the last chance to buy a lot of this material on CD. In my
opinion, Decca Classics has done a good job picking titles to include in the box and re-using the
You Are There book (which wasn't sold widely in the US but was well-marketed and more widely known
in Europe and Asia). And, you pay less than 1/3 the original price per CD for exactly the same
musical/sonic product.
I'm very excited to see all of these titles back in print and hope they connect with a new
generation of Mercury Living Presence fans around the world. Hopefully, it will be successful enough
that the other 50+ Mercury Living Presence titles on CD get back into print.
-- Tom Fine
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