The Zombies MONO MIX "Odessey and Oracle" Release Coming September 26th

first time original mono mix, remastered from studio tapes, on LP since 1968

THE ZOMBIES, “BRITISH INVASION” PIONEERS, ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF THEIR ALBUM ODESSEY AND ORACLE MONO REMASTERED ON SEPTEMBER 26TH VIA BEECHWOOD PARK RECORDS
 
LISTEN TO THE MONO REMASTERED VERSION OF
“THIS WILL BE OUR YEAR” HERE
 

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees and “British Invasion” pioneers, The Zombies, today announce the release of Odessey & Oracle Mono Remastered on September 26th. The album, the first of four definitive physical reissues from their catalog, includes the classic songs “Time Of The Season,” “Care of Cell 44,” and “This Will Be Our Year” and is a regular entry in “Best Albums of All Time” lists in publications like Rolling Stone, NME, and Mojo Magazine. The release, which coincides with The Zombies’ documentary,Hung Up On A Dream, marks the first time the band's original mono mix, remastered from studio tapes, has appeared on LP since the record's British issue in 1968, presenting the album as they originally intended it to be heard. Pre-order the album on all formats here.

(Tracking Angle is trying to ascertain if the record is "tape to lathe" or if there's a digital step as well as finding out who cut lacquers and where as well as where is it being pressed).
 

Recorded primarily at London’s legendary Abbey Road Studios in 1967, Odessey & Oracle was self-produced in Mono on a shoestring budget by primary songwriters Rod Argent (keyboards/vocals) and Chris White (bass/vocals).  Under last-minute pressure from their record label, the album was hastily remixed in the newly emerging Stereo format, which sacrificed key elements from the Mono recording, most notably the beloved horn parts in “This Will Be Our Year”.
 
The band today also share the first track off the album, the mono remastered version of “This Will Be Our Year”, with the horn parts restored.  Although never released as a single, this deep cut has found a new life thanks to prominent uses in TV and film, including memorable scenes in Mad Men, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Schitt's Creek, and covers by artists like Foo Fighters, OK Go and Susanna Hoffs.  Its positive and uplifting message has been embraced by couples as a popular wedding song, and become a staple of New Year’s playlists. Listen to “This Will Be Our Year” here.
 
The album also includes new liner notes from famed writer, David Fricke. Read an excerpt below:
 
Odessey and Oracle is very much of and about its time: songs of youth and love – the lucky strike of attraction ("I Want Her She Wants Me"); flickering memories held tight ("Brief Candles"); longing that defies the odds ("Maybe After He's Gone") – from pop's high season of amour, a crowded nirvana of landmark debuts (Pink Floyd, the Doors, the Jimi Hendrix Experience) and definitive accounts of Britain's psychedelic bloom…This album was also built to stand the test of time, at the 11th hour by a band with everything to prove. "We were always dissatisfied with the production of our records," Argent said in 1971 of the Zombies' Decca work. "We wanted to produce an album before we broke up to satisfy ourselves." The result was a fearlessness that still rings fresh, that invention driven by the Zombies' stringent resources and their confidence in the songs. Most of "A Rose for Emily" is simply piano and vocal, an Argent-Blunstone duet with streaks of choral sigh.

The '64 beat group on the Zombies' first British album, Begin Here, is alive and swinging in the strident delight of "I Want Her She Wants Me" – the strutting harpsichord and White's assertive, melodic bass suggesting a 17th Century Who – and the pocket raveup in "Friends of Mine," a three-way punch of guitar, piano and Grundy's snare-shot drumming. The Zombies' affection for Motown and Curtis Mayfield ballads, a regular feature of their many BBC Radio sessions, comes through in the wistful pastoralism of "Beechwood Park," lined with the R&B flair of Atkinson's strolling, tremolo guitar.

“Time of the Season" was, of course, the entrance to everything, a million-selling U.S. single and the first song most people heard from Odessey and Oracle….the dramatic climax of an album that is (as I once wrote in Rolling Stone) "the closest Mother England ever came to its own Pet Sounds."
 
Then there are the extremes, Argent's "Care of Cell 44" and White's "Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)," each profoundly affecting in its way – one defiantly jaunty, the other claustrophobic with fear – and each released as a single to no avail… But it's right before "Butcher's Tale," in "This Will Be Our Year,", that the Zombies summed up with compact pop-soul bravado – and uncanny prophecy – the odyssey and miracle here. "This will be our year/Took a long time to come," White wrote and Blunstone sings with feathery certainty in the chorus. The song is about enduring faith and devotion on a record that has become one of the most acclaimed and adored of all time. It wasn't always this way. It is now – and again in mono.
 
 The Zombies’ four surviving founding members, lead singer Colin Blunstone, keyboardist Rod Argent, bassist Chris White, and drummer Hugh Grundy, along with Helen Atkinson, the widow and Estate Trustee of late guitarist Paul Atkinson, acquired the rights to their catalog last year from Marquis Enterprises Ltd., the independent UK production company they originally signed with as teens in 1964. Q Prime will manage all aspects of manufacturing, distribution and licensing for The Zombies’ new label imprint Beechwood Park Records, with a catalog that includes the timeless hit singles “She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No,” and “I Want You Back Again.” Of the partnership, Q Prime co-founder Cliff Burnstein says, "There's a very narrow window in a Venn diagram where love, admiration and business overlap. That’s what the deal is all about.” Q Prime boasts full label creative and digital marketing teams have offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Nashville and London.
 
Additionally, Primary Wave Music has formed a strategic marketing alliance with the band which will see the publisher provide marketing support alongside the team at Q Prime. The Zombies and their team will now have access, not only to Primary Wave’s marketing team but also their branding, content, digital, and sync departments.
 
The Zombies publishing catalog is represented by Wise Music Creative. Hung Up On A Dream: The Zombies Documentary is now available globally for rent and download at Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Altavod here.