Tom Waits’ 'Bone Machine' Deserves Better
UMe vinyl reissue of 1992 album ruins great remaster
And here we have it: the most pathetic vinyl reissue of the year.
It’s not the worst, but it’s the most pathetic because of how great it almost was. Like the recent Swordfishtrombones reissue, this edition of Tom Waits’ excellent 1992 album Bone Machine subjects an excellent remaster to a painfully mediocre lacquer cut. It really makes you wonder if anyone’s actually listening to these test pressings, or considering the vinyl market’s long-term viability.
Earlier this year, UMe announced a long-awaited reissue series of Tom Waits’ five studio albums for Island. These albums desperately needed reissuing—original vinyl pressings are getting expensive, and the CDs still used decades-old transfers. That’s not to mention that Bone Machine and 1993’s The Black Rider were only ever officially released on vinyl in Europe, probably cut from mastered CD-resolution digital sources since almost no one in the 90s sent analog copy tapes across the ocean. (Those original pressings in particular are incredibly rare.) CDs and cassettes were priority so labels would usually send mastered DATs that could be used for everything.
Guided from Tom Waits’ engineer Karl Derfler (himself supervised by Waits and his wife/collaborator Kathleen Brennan), Chris Bellman mastered 192kHz/24bit files from the original 1/2” flat master tapes (or in the case of Swordfishtrombones, a 1/2” EQ’d production master). The hi-res files sound incredible: dynamic and spacious, and clean whilst retaining the original recordings’ character. Those files could’ve made excellent vinyl reissues, except UMe hired Alex Abrash to cut lacquers. I’m not insulting Abrash, but it’s clearly a cost-cutting measure to use him instead of hiring Bellman to also cut lacquers. Abrash lists his cutting system and prices on his website; investigate for yourself. Whatever the case, there’s something going on that makes Abrash’s cuts sound inferior to the digital source.
Unfortunately, this Bone Machine reissue is no exception. Abrash took a 192kHz/24bit file that sounded alive and eerie and atmospheric and it’s now completely dead. (This is an album about death, but it works because under ideal circumstances the sound design provokes such visceral reaction!) The mix itself is purposely a bit veiled for artistic effect, but Abrash’s lacquer cut is straight up dull. Hard-panned elements sound like they’re choked inside a speaker instead of floating in an invisible space, and everything is smushed on a one-dimensional plane. This vinyl reissue sorely lacks the great depth of Bellman’s hi-res file or Bob Ludwig’s original CD. The chorus on “Earth Died Screaming” is supposed to startle you; it does that on the digital versions, but not the LP. Similarly, the aggressive snare on “Such A Scream” should sound like someone hitting a drum a few feet behind Waits’ vocal, but instead it sounds like someone firing a machine gun at the front. And that’s just two of the first three songs! Bass is a thick blob and despite what sounds like additional compression, the vinyl rarely sounds cohesive.
The further you crank it up, the grainer and flatter it sounds. That’s a problem, not only because it makes Waits’ voice sounds like cardboard but because it’s cut at a comically low level. The sides are very long—25 and 28.5 minutes, respectively—but even then it could’ve been louder. Ideally it would’ve been spread across two LPs, though by now it’s clear that this pressing exists merely as marketplace product that looks nice on your shelf or your wall. Records like this will eventually kill vinyl’s momentum, because why would anyone buy anything when they can access the hi-res files (and basically everything else ever recorded) for only $10.99 a month and it sounds better?
Those who’ve never heard Bone Machine, as well as those new to vinyl, might get this reissue, crank it up, and think it sounds nice and “warm.” And it certainly sounds “warm,” but the recording itself sounds that way and there are better ways to hear it. The original CD isn’t mind-blowing but still sounds much better than this reissue. Speaking of which, the new 192kHz/24bit file is a slight improvement on the original CD though the difference is negligible. There are CDs of these new Island period Waits remasters, but dithered and downsampled to 44.1kHz/16bit I doubt anyone could tell the difference between the new Bone Machine CD and the original.
GZ Media pressed the European reissue LPs while their Canadian subsidiary Precision handled North American pressings. There are some recurrent pops on the sealed promo copy I borrowed, but most of the Precision pressing is otherwise quiet enough. The artwork scans are good though the packaging quality is average. Honestly, UMe could’ve taken the original CD master and cut it DMM at Record Industry or even GZ and it would’ve turned out far better than this mess. A bass-heavy single LP with these long side lengths needs to be cut DMM for best results.
As for the actual music, it’s a beautifully dark record about death in many forms: drowning, kidnapping, decapitation, suicide, murder by axe, you name it. It’s the perfect balance of raw and produced, blending a carefully created atmosphere with with Waits’ rough voice, unconventional percussion, and vivid stories of characters facing their end. The result is a record that you very distinctly, very physically feel. Les Claypool and Keith Richards also appear. Really, Bone Machine belongs in every collection as one of Waits’ best records, in any form other than this vinyl reissue.
