Hearing something in a totally new way

For a brief period I worked in the music industry as a sound engineer. My main job was to record four-song demos for various bands on the midnight to 8:00am shift, and I mainly worked at a studio in Wood Green, North London (the one where Big Black recorded some of "Songs about Fucking"). Bands would come in, usually a bit worse for wear after spending the evening in the pub, and we'd try, in 6 or 8 hours to record a few tracks.

My recording set-up was usually pretty much the same for everyone. Lots of mics on the drums including some "ambient" mics on the walls round the drum kit, drums high in the mix, vocals relatively low. It made for a bright and very live sound. Rarely did I work with anyone for longer than the one night so the question of final mix was not very prominent in my thinking.

People tend to have the idea that bands have a fixed plan for their songs when they go to record them, but actually that is usually not the case. Much of the final version chosen is "found" in the studio. But this suggests that albums could sound very different. When "alternative versions" would appear later, they were usually seen as simply attempts to rip-off the public with new versions, when actually they might well have been one of the main working versions for much of the time the band was in the studio.

There is little genuine tradition in rock music of recording your version of someone elses work. Cover versions are rarely well-thought-out. There are, of course, some exceptions. The version of the 13th Floor Elevators song "Rollercoaster" by the Spacemen 3 is such a radical take. Likewise Cat Power's version of "Wild is the wind" and several other songs she has covered.

But perhaps one of the advantages of digital music distribution is that bands might not be so locked into a final version of their music as set out on their "final" cd mix. And alternative versions need not be considered mere re-mixes or demos but could stand alone as works of art in their own right. Such versions would extend the listeners understanding of the other pieces, including the so-called "original" the listener knows well.

I am prompted to these thoughts by my latest acquisition - the Japanese version of Boris's "Smile" cd. My understanding of this version is that Boris made the original recordings available to a selection of other producers who simply made their own version of the cd. I have only listened to this version a couple of times but already it has both widened and deepened my understanding of the US version - the one which came out on Southernlord records and which forms the basis for the various live recordings that I have also heard

So a track like the final piece - called "untitled" on the US issue and "Bonus" on the Japanese - is such a radical rework of the version I have come to know and love over the last year or so, that it is like hearing the piece for the first time. It is so fresh and exciting - just like I felt before. Iam totally blown away by it again

Boris have released multiple versions of tracks before. "Feedbacker" can be acquired in four versions. The original cd, on the "Rock Dreams" collaboration with Merzbow, as a live version on "Heavy Metal Me" and on a DVD of a concert in New York from 2004. And I have also managed to acquire a copy of this DVD, which I am desperate to watch but am leaving till later in the week. "The Evilone which sobbed" is also available in quite a few versions

Finally, I also have Merzbow and Boris's "Sun baked snow cave" to listen to as well - what a treat that will be for sure.