The Fat Angel Sings

This November, Concord Music’s Craft Records imprint will reissue a 25th anniversary super deluxe edition of R.E.M.‘s 1992 album “Automatic For The People”.
We knew this was coming (it was mentioned when Craft Records was launched) and the super deluxe edition very much echoes the content of last year‘s Out Of Time super deluxe, if not the presentation.

R.E.M. is excited to announce the reissue of their landmark album Automatic For The People to commemorate the record’s 25th Anniversary. Due November 10th via Craft Recordings, the remastered album will be available in a variety of formats, the most extensive of which is the Deluxe Anniversary Edition, which will feature the album in its entirety mixed in Dolby Atmos. The album (plus bonus track “Photograph,” featuring Natalie Merchant) was remixed in Dolby Atmos by Automatic’s original producer, Scott Litt, and engineer, Clif Norrell. This technology delivers a leap forward from surround sound with expansive, flowing audio that immerses the listener far beyond what stereo can offer. It transports the listener inside the recording studio with multi-dimensional audio – evoking a time when listening to music was an active, transformative experience, and reigniting the emotion you felt when you first heard the album in 1992. R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People is the first album to be commercially released in this expressive, breathtaking format. In addition, the 4-disc Deluxe Edition will offer a wealth of previously unreleased material. The band selected 20 never-before-heard demos from the LP’s sessions, including the fully-realized, unreleased track “Mike’s Pop Song” and the oft-mused about song, “Devil Rides Backwards.” “Mike’s Pop Song” is available NOW as an instant great track with preorder of the reissue.

The first CD features the remastered (‘from the original analogue tapes’) version of the original album, while disc two offers 13 tracks performed live at the band’s Greenpeace benefit concert at Athens, Georgia’s 40 Watt Club. This performance was about five weeks after the original album release and features four tracks from Automatic For The People.

Twenty demo recordings fill up the third CD and many of them have placeholder titles such as ‘Peter’s New Song’ and ‘Bill’s Acoustic’, although where applicable, the titles of the songs they became are indicated! There are also a couple of previously unreleased tracks, ‘Mike’s Pop Song’ and ‘Devil Rides Backwards’. As with Out Of Time, expect a fair few instrumentals.

The fourth disc is a blu-ray which features a ‘Dolby Atmos’ surround sound mix of the album (plus bonus track ‘Photograph’ featuring Natalie Merchant).

The blu-ray on this super deluxe also contains videos for the singles (including two versions of Nightswimming) and the EPK (Electronic Press Release) issued at the time. Incidentally, this disc also includes a hi-res stereo version of the album.

Craft Recordings have gone for a bigger, square-shaped book this time around and haven’t replicated the same packaging as used for the Out Of Time super deluxe. You will see from the image above that the cover features a variation of the 1992 album artwork (only the vinyl reissue maintains the original) and the 60-page book will feature photos (some unreleased) taken at various sessions by Anton Corbijn and Melodie McDaniel in 1992 and 1993, along with expanded liner notes by Tom Doyle who conducted new interviews with all four band members. The book sits in a 12” x 12” box.