The Fall – Bend Sinister

The question no one has asked here is what "analogue tapes" these were re-mastered from. Steve Hanley in The Big Mid-week says that Mark E Smith insisted on using a muddy mix of the album he had on a cassette he'd been playing in his walkman. I also heard Brix recount this story on conversation with Marc Riley on his radio show on BBC radio 6. This sounds a lot more like the production on the previous two albums so could this actually be the original John Leckie mix?

Another first class Beggars reissue, absolutely zero complaints about it. The facsimile program is pretty minimal in design but definitely an essential MES curio!

The packaging is top-notch. Fat, sturdy gatefold, added booklet, all photos and inserts reproduced at a high quality. The pressing itself is as great as it can get. If you ever see this reissue in the wild, grab it without hestitation.

Need an OIS, please!!
In Love with the Fall, great stuff

Maybe you lived in a converted industrial garage in a large eastern metropolis the first time you heard this too. That might be the best way to hear it. There weren't easily accessible LPs, the internet was a toddler yet. So you bought it on CD, cuz tapes get eaten all the time.

One of the best albums of the Fall... with Doctor Faustus

Perfect pressing for me, no noise and a clear sound. Great extra LP, "Hey! Luciani" being a personal highlight. Probably the most underrated Fall album too.

Just spinning this again now (brand new copy). The pressing is OK in that my copy doesn't have an abundance of surface noise (definite nasty extra hiss on 'Terry Wait Says' though) and the thing spins flat without any warps, but what immediately strikes me is how brittle and lacking in low end/low-mids the mastering job is. Certainly wouln't use the word 'rich' to describe it.

I had an original and I think this reissue sounds just as good. Nice pressing. Worth it.

the original vinyl sounds much different from the newly remastered version. the vocals are much more buried in the mix and the whole thing feels more like texture, personally i much prefer the original pressing, it arguably makes more sense sonically. the remasters sound more poppy whilst the 1986 pressing sounds more like a meditation on rhythm if that makes any sense. both are really great however and I find myself periodically switching between them.