Apologies if this has already been mentioned elsewhere.

Having a trawl through Amazon.co.uk and Fiend... is available for pre-order as an audio only dvd.

One for the completists. Same track listing as the audio cd, yours for £12 on April 05.

Are you in another country, Elderford? I only ask because it's been in Oxford Virgin for ages...obviously I didn't buy it, though...

I'm in the UK, but am a desperately keen to please newbie, hence why I began with an apology.

You have to expect this sort of thing for a bit until I've done all my homework.

So be prepared for me making the sort of post that begins 'Hey everybody, have you heard The Fall's new album "Live at the Witchtrials"? It's really great".

Feel free to point and laugh at me.

Don't worry, Elderford.

I would say that a lack of knowledge of Receiver release shedules is a wholly admirable trait :P

check eBay there's always stuff on there for sale.

So despite lacking the proper technology, I bought this thing on eBay, curious to see how a DVD audio disc would work in a standard player hooked up to a regular 4x3 stereo TV set (which is my setup). Obviously this did not enable me to take full advantage of surround sound, but I do perceive surround effects from how the sound bounces off the walls when watching movies with 5.1 sound mixes, which is kind of cool.

One thing that nice about this disc is that it has a little demo with a woman explaining that if your speakers are set up properly, you'll hear her voice equally from each speaker discretely as her voice went around the room. Coming through my television set, this just meant that the rear left and right channels were coming from the same place as the front left and right channels. This was reassuring to me because I'd always wondered if I was missing those channels when watching movies with 5.1 mixes on my TV.

(Pressing the "menu" button on my remote didn't bring up anything; I had to press "title," which I'd never used before, to get the song list, speaker setup, credits, and highly dubious liner notes.)

As the disc plays you get a photo of MES onscreen (with the song title) which remains static until the next song offers a different photo. Most photos are just of MES with no other band members, mid-eighties to mid-nineties.

I knew to begin with that Fiend had a shoddy reputation, so I wasn't expecting much. "I Feel Voxish" sounded pretty neat this way, but was little different from its PBL counterpart. The "Man Whose Head Expanded" remix was quite different from the original and the mix sounded really weird coming through my set, although with proper 5.1 it might make more sense. (On the other hand, it might have just been glorified stereo to begin with.) "Ed's Babe" is an irritating instrumental rendition. In its instrumental form, "Fiend with a Violin" sounded like something I hadn't heard before and it wasn't till I heard the vocal version that I realized it was "2x4" (though later I remembered I'd read about this particular scam somewhere). It's churning, repetitious, and not particularly compelling. The vocal version adds some violin playing, according to the liner notes from MES, but it sounds too tuneful to really be him. It lasts all of 1:15.

I wonder if he meant "pushes the envelope of what constitutes creativity."

The rest of the tracks are alternate takes or (possibly fake) live renditions of songs from TNSG, Code: Selfish and Shift-work from unspecified sources/occasions. Some of them aren't bad, none are phenomenal. The fidelity of the recordings as heard here is variable, and it's questionable as to whether any of it benefits at all from the higher resolution of DVD-A technology (I'm sure there's no way I'd be able to tell through my TV's speakers).

Anyway, I got a bit of a kick out of it; I paid about $11 with shipping, money that could probably have been better spent, but I am not embittered. After all, it means I have another Fall... thing.

Is it Brix? :) Seriously though they should have got MES to do a cut-up version of this. "The DVD in your hand - front left side speaker - 5.5.1 - sound emanates - from the ceilings and walls-ah" etc

Advice wanted:
Saw 3 sets of reviews, 1 of CD, 2 of DVD here here and here
(http://z1.invisionfree.com/forums/thefall/index.php?showtopic=1145
http://invisionfree.com/forums/thefall/ind...showtopic=7339).

The cd reviews imply that FWaV is worth buying, in contrast to the 1st DVD review, which say the album is crap.

I now have a SACD/DVD-A player and wouldn't mind having some high-quality Fall to alternate with classical music and 2 Grateful D. albums, which are all that seems available.

I don't use a credit card (guess why?) so it's a bother to order on e-Bay. Could someone help me decide?

Eg by rating it as
- for completists only
- 'I had fun"
- undiscovered treasure.

BTW, DVD-A does sound better (to me), depending on the original recording and on the speakers.

for twats, syndikatists & consortiumists only
:lol:



erm, sorry...

for completists only...
and aren't we all fall-completists???


YES WE ARE!!! :applaud:

Thanks! I'll wait until my lottery investments come in.

When will somebody release the entire catalogue on dvd, I want to know!

Can't remeber this comp off the top of my head which, with The Fall, is a sure sign of averageness.

I do remember the title track - The vocal version is cool but too short.

Lemme check out my copy, get the tracklistings. Two secs...

Yeah, like I though - Very average.

Odd selection of tracks.
The version of the otherwise amazing Ed's Babe is reduced to a dull instrumental though I do like this take on ".. Head Expanded".

Honestly cannot remember how the other songs sound. I do strangely recall liking this comp at first though.
But have been during one of my "This band can do no wrong, ever!!" phases.

the linear notes are great. especially:

"..performing an eclectic repertoire on a prestigious London stage in a critically acclaimed play written by MES"

I don't remember the acclaim as much as the panning.


love these revolver compilations though for the different takes and studio run throughs