Reissue roundup.(A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night)(Sound recording review)

This has been a comparatively slow music-buying year for me, and many of my additions were hard-to-find, collectible, CDs that have been out of print for years. I will be grouping some of these into a column at a later time under my renamed sub-column, Kollector's Kiosk. This edition of Reissue Roundup will concentrate on just two hits and misses that I found noteworthy.

Foremost among the misses this year was the reissue of Harry Nilsson's A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. This being one of my favorite albums of all time, I have investigated nearly every digital version that I have been able to find. Several years ago I awarded the British reissue CD of this album by citing it as one of my top recommendations for that year. My hope here was to determine whether this new domestic release could top it.

I'll dispense with a review of the album here, as it is unlikely that anyone interested in Nilsson's music doesn't know that this is a modern but conventional interpretation of vintage popular tunes. What I had failed to mention about the recording in my prior review is, though, that the order in which the songs appear do so in a manner that suggests a chronological presentation of a love relationship from its beginning to a time significantly past its end. Nilsson must have had a sense that the tune, "As Time Goes By," carried a useful message to those suffering through a lost love.

The newly remastered domestic version is a considerable step backwards compared to the British release, both in terms of its sound and its packaging. While the tonal qualities of the sound on this new release are excellent, it does not approach the overall presentation that I have found on the British copy. As with most current domestic releases, there is a notable increase in compression that has an effect on the micro-dynamics that one finds throughout the album. An example of this would be in the relationship of orchestral sounds to the singer's voice. This newest version changes the perspective of these components in a negative way: brass instruments protrude enough to mask some of the transparency of Harry's voice. These brass instruments (and the violins, too) seem to have been equalized to reduce any potential sonic glare as well. This impedes on the open, airy sense of the album unnecessarily. In short, the older British release still sounds closer to the ideal of listening to live music, whereas the new USA release leaves no doubt that one is listening to a recording.

Adding insult to injury, the USA release merely tacks the five "bonus" tracks onto the end. My guess is that the British (and Australian, too) engineers and producers had an appreciation of the importance to both Harry Nilsson and Gordon Jenkins, the orchestra director and arranger, that "As Time Goes By" remains as the last song that's presented to the listener. In these versions, the additional tracks follow the original LP release except that the additional songs are placed before the ending tune. Not only does this arrangement seem more practical, it strengthens the concept of the album. It is evident that these extra songs did not appear on the original album so that the recording could be limited to one LP; these time constraints, of course, need not be a consideration for the CD.

As for the packaging concerns, these will be of some importance to avid collectors too. The earlier British release provides an almost exact replica of the original album gatefold jacket in full color; the new USA release provides all of the same features that appear on the British, but it uses no color at all, and it shows that some editing in Photoshop was used to move segments of the artwork to different pages in the booklet. This gives it a disjointed look. Admittedly, these decisions will not be important to anyone who does not need the authentic look of the other release, but the artwork as it was originally displayed is more tasteful. The bottom line is that my hopes for ...