Castle
2000
Here Come The Nice: The Immediate Anthology
About This Album
There have been so many reissues and recompilations of the music that the Nice did for Immediate Records that it's difficult even for people who worked on those reissues to tell some of them apart without a scorecard. However, this set stands out, not only for its comprehensive nature but also for its sound quality, which is exceptional. The vexing aspect of working with the Nice's Immediate catalog was the lack of first-generation master tapes -- the record company's holdings were scattered to the four winds when it went bankrupt at the dawn of the 1970s, and the closest that anyone got on the early CDs was Sony in the early '90s, with the clean original production masters from the Columbia-distributed Immediate catalog. Castle Communications, however, has finally found what sounds like the real thing, and it makes a world of difference: no background noise, minimal tape hiss, each instrument loud and upfront, and all of the playing sharply delineated even in the busiest passages of the group's most complex works. What's more, the stereo separation is now sharp enough to enhance the music in a serious way -- the divided string section in the "Brandenburger" section of "Ars Longa Vita Brevis," for example, adds to the appeal of the band's playing in ways that were difficult to discern on earlier CD releases, as well as on most of the LP issues.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 5,11,13 and 14)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 3,6 and 8)

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Disc 3 (try track 3)

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