SACD Genesis – Wind & Wuthering

Wind & Wuthering as a hybrid stereo SACD from Analogue Productions’ Acoustic Sounds 40th Anniversary Series, mastered to DSD from the original analogue master tape. All nine tracks play in one sequence – from “Eleventh Earl Of Mar” to “Afterglow”.

Four musicians, room to unfold

Wind & Wuthering opens with “Eleventh Earl Of Mar” and “One For The Vine” – two extended pieces that set the album’s scale. By late 1976, Genesis were a four-piece: Phil Collins sang and played drums, Tony Banks handled keyboards, Mike Rutherford played bass and guitars, and Steve Hackett the other guitar parts. The band’s eighth studio album was also its last with Hackett.

Recording took place in September and October 1976 at Relight Studios in Hilvarenbeek in the Netherlands – the first Genesis album recorded outside Britain. The band produced with David Hentschel and mixed at Trident in London. That change of scene frames an album with wonderfully different lengths and instrumental colours.

Acoustic guitar in the picture

Hackett’s credited instruments range from electric guitars to classical and twelve-string guitar, kalimba and autoharp – and “Blood On The Rooftops”, co-written with Collins, is a perfect introduction to his contribution. A Genesis arrangement isn’t only about big keyboard textures and long solos; the character of a single instrument matters too.

Mike Rutherford’s “Your Own Special Way” is a more compact vocal piece next to the two long opening tracks, while “Wot Gorilla?” and the instrumental sections later on shift the focus again. There are many routes into the same band: a song, an instrumental colour, or the development of a longer form.

A literary thread near the end

Tony Banks wrote “One For The Vine”, “All In A Mouse’s Night” and “Afterglow”, and his palette includes grand piano, Hammond organ, Mellotron and synthesizer. Listen for the differences between these keyboard sounds instead of hearing them as one continuous backdrop – how does a passage change when another instrument takes the lead?

The linked titles “Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers…” and “…In That Quiet Earth” take their words from the final sentence of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, and “Afterglow” follows them. So the closing sequence is connected by more than its track names – a beautiful arc to let play through to the end.

The hybrid stereo SACD from Analogue Productions

CAPR 004 SA is a hybrid stereo SACD from Analogue Productions’ Acoustic Sounds 40th Anniversary Series. According to the publisher, it was mastered to DSD from the original analogue master tape. The publisher also quotes Tony Banks calling it “the most musically complex of all our albums”. The SACD layer plays on SACD-capable players, the CD layer on any conventional CD player. The disc contains the nine tracks of the original album.

You order from Michael 45 in Germany. We arrange the US import and ship from Hilden.

More from the series: Acoustic Sounds 40th Anniversary Series

Also in another edition: Wind & Wuthering

More SACDs by Genesis: Nursery Cryme · Foxtrot · Selling England By The Pound · The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway · A Trick Of The Tail · Abacab · Genesis

Artist page: All titles by Genesis and Phil Collins

Customer question: Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe

Musicians

Documented selection of participating musicians. Personnel may vary by track; this list does not claim to be complete.