Chalkhills: The XTC Resource

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July 26, 2025:

The 2025 Drums and Wires CD/Blu-ray presents the album and a number of additional tracks in Dolby Atmos, mixed and produced by Steven Wilson as he approached an album he first mixed in 2014 and again brings a fresh aural perspective to one of 1979’s most memorable albums – a line ascribed to the 2014 mixes that’s even more accurate now.

Steven Wilson comments that “during the remix process it became apparent that the masters of “Officer Blue” and “That is the Way” were both slowed down significantly for the original release. It’s not uncommon for tracks to be slightly speeded up during mastering to make them sound sprightlier, but no one could remember why, in this case, the tracks were slowed down. For the 2025 mixes, in consultation with Colin Moulding - songwriter of both titles - the decision was made to include B-side “Officer Blue” as the band recorded it, at the correct speed for the first time.

In the case of “That is the Way” - it being a key album track - the new mix has been slowed down to match the familiar album version but additionally, a bonus version is included which has no adjustment to the pitch and is exactly as the band recorded it”.

Joining the new Dolby Atmos mix is all of the audio material first presented on the (now long-unavailable) 2014 edition when Steven Wilson remixed the album in new stereo and 5.1 editions alongside a number of additional tracks all presented on Blu-ray here with minor revisions and a set of stereo instrumentals of the album.

August 3, 2024: Skylarking: XTC’s most commercially successful album was, for many years, also its most mythical with tales of “lost” multi-track tapes (sadly true of other XTC albums but not this one), a song originally dropped from the album only to be replaced when it inadvertently became a hit single in the USA, a perfect match, on paper, between the ideal Britpop band a decade before the term was invented and an Anglophile super-producer that turned rather imperfect in personality terms but still resulted in a classic album. The second of XTC’s albums to be mixed in Dolby Atmos by Steven Wilson, 1986's Skylarking - sequenced and produced by the legendary Todd Rundgren - is perhaps the most acclaimed of all the band's releases. Mixed from the original multi-track studio master tapes and fully approved by XTC. To be released on September 27, 2024. Order yours today!

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Recent Site Updates

March 1, 2025: Discography - Chris Braide & Andy Partridge: Queen of the Planet Wow! – The Songs of Andy Partridge + Chris Braide, Musical Phrases Chapter Two – October 1984
December 31, 1969: December -

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