The Easybeats - Land Of Make Believe
Italian United Artists Stereo Single, UA 3145
First released August 1968
1. Land Of Make Believe
2. We All Live Happily Together
==About the single==
From the original press release...
"The EASYBEATS were responsible for the first single release put out by United Artists Records when they became 'independent' on March 1st this year [1968]. "Hello How Are You" shot up the charts and settled in the top 20 within weeks. The record was a distinguished beginning for this thriving new record company.
"Now the EASYBEATS come in the "Land Of Make Believe" UP-2219 and look like getting higher. This song comes once again from the pens of George Young, Harry Vanda, who are only two of this very talented group of five. Like the title, the song has a pure 'dreamland' fantasy feel. Asked to describe it in recording studio language the one word to sum it all up would be 'mix'. The perfect mix of harmony, melody and performance. EASYBEATS are past masters at presentation and this song demonstrated their talent and commercial appeal.
"EASYBEATS manager Mike Vaughan is confident that "Land Of Make Believe" UP-2219 will confirm all the good things said about "Hello How Are You". Things like, 'the Easybeats represent the best in the business'. 'The Easybeats are total professionals in a pretty unprofessional business'. 'The Easybeats should never be out of the charts'.
"And talking of chart successes is no new experience for the Easybeats. They have already in their short career taken the coveted No.1 spot in Australia nine times and have had two LPs at the Top of the Australian LP charts - - - no mean feat for any group.
...
""Land Of Make Believe" UP-2219 is the perfect follow-up [to "Hello How Are You"] and already is promised a mass of plays and promotion in every media."
This single configuration was issued in the UK, Netherlands, Italy and Lebanon. For some reason though, Italy received unique stereo mixes of both tracks, making the Italian market the only place where one could, until now, readily hear these unique mixes.
Land Of Make Believe - practically everything recorded by the band between late 1967 and early 1968 was subjected to lush orchestration and "Land Of Make Believe" was no exception. In this mix, the Mellotron was removed and a string section plus vibes were added. The vocal was single-tracked for the first verse and double-tracked thereafter. Vocals at the bridge and codas were left "dry", unlike some other mixes where the vocals were laden with reverb. The effect here is baroque and sophisticated and very much in keeping with the style of the time. The mix also has a slightly longer fade, ending at 3:20 rather than the usual 3:11.
We All Live Happily Together - this is essentially the standard recording, musically, however, in this mix the stereo picture is widely separated, with the instruments hard left, vocal chorus hard right, and occasional vocals in the centre. Further, and more noticeably, this mix lacks the sound effect overdubs. Consequently, without the air raid siren fading at the end, this mix runs at 3:40, some 20 seconds shorter than the standard mix. How Italy ended up with this mix is unclear; perhaps it's an earlier "unfinished" mix or perhaps the WWII-themed effects were considered too risky for the Italian market at the time?
==About this transfer==
I lucked out with this one - the first copy I acquired was true NM. Hardly any wear whatsoever.
The downside though is that it's obvious that the original recordings were not intended for audiophiles! Comparing my transfer to a reference transfer I had, it was apparent that the master was cut from either a vinyl source or a very poor tape copy, with some pops and clicks inherent in the recording. I debated whether I should leave the imperfections in place, however, in the interest of presenting the best sounding tracks possible, I removed the majority, leaving only the few innocuous clicks that also appear on the standard/common mixes.
Further, both tracks were either mastered or cut extremely "hot" (I needed to turn my input volume down substantially when needledropping!). Consequently, the vocal In "Land Of Make Believe" is somewhat distorted in places. Interestingly though, *only* the vocal track has distortion; all other tracks sound fine. I suspect this, at least in part, is on the original recording/mixing, as other mixes of the song I own exhibit similar vocal distortion, although not as pronounced. Indeed, most of the imperfections mentioned above surrounded the vocal track (and appear in exactly the same places on my reference copy). "We All Live Happily Together" doesn't exhibit this problem, at least not to the same extent.
I've also repaired a few minor tape dropouts.
The result is a sound that should please Easybeats fans who are interested in unique mixes that have never made it into the digital domain. There's a few more unique mixes out there that aren't available on CD, and over time I'll make as many of them available as possible.
==Vinyl transfer and 24bit mastering by Q==
Source Matrices
01: UA 3145/1N
02: No etching (deadwax gap too narrow - label states UA 3145 2N)
Hardware
- Project Xpression III Turntable
- Ortofon 2M Blue Cartridge
- Project SpeedBox II Quartz-Generated Electronic Speed Regulator
- Denon PMA-700AE Integrated Amplifier
Software
- Audition 3.0.1 (audio capture and editing)
- iZotope RX 2 Advanced (audio editing and resampling/dithering to Red Book audio specifications)
Artwork included - just front and back cover scans this time. I can't imagine anyone wanting to burn two tracks to a CD!