Spatial Audio File

NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE: BARN

Unless you’ve only just recently emerged from a bout of suspended animation, you’re likely well-aware of Neil Young successfully having his entire music catalog pulled from Spotify due to its handling of misinformation (or lack thereof). This bold move has shone a renewed spotlight on Neil’s other—and infinitely more hi-res-oriented—streaming destinations. While many of us are quite familiar with the balance of Neil’s impressive decades-deep catalog, there’s no time like the present to dive deeper into some of his more recent handiwork—such as the Spatial Audio treatment of his latest resaddling with Crazy Horse, December 2021’s barn-burning Barn.

Recorded live in a 19th century barn with the full moon as its critical backdrop to boot, the Spatial Audio mix of Barn puts us inside the titular structure right alongside this always fierce five-piece band. Warning: Neil doesn’t refer to what he and his various cronies/collaborators do as being “Volume Dealers” for nothing, so make sure your levels are set to your preferred threshold before cuing any of it up. That said, if you feel like testing your redline limits, I suggest starting with either the hard-galloping “Human Race” or the slow-building jamfest of “Welcome Back,” both of which feature Neil’s squealing lead guitar riffage just right of center (and at varying tempos, of course). The gnarly identity mashup of “Canerican” reflects positivity in the face of peril—accented by rightly aggressive center-left snare and cymbal hits from ace drummer Ralph Molina—while the acoustified album-opener “Song of the Seasons” features some fine, fine left-channel accordion accents form returning Crazy Horse member Nils Lofgren (who also pulled his music from Spotify in solidarity with Neil).

“When you do the first takes, if you’re lucky and you’re good, you get the master right there. That happened more often than not with this [album],” Young said of the Barn experience in a videoclip on his YouTube channel. “There’s a lotta love in it—and lotta edge in it.” (Couldn’t have said it better than myself, tbh.) Young has always been an artist who concurrently stays true to his heart and his hardscrabble roots alike, because, frankly, he knows no other way of doing it. Everybody should know: This Spatial Audio Barn is pure Neil.

THE WEEKND: DAWN FM

Released somewhat clandestinely on January 7, Dawn FM—The Weeknd’s bold, never stationary follow-up to March 2020’s career-defining After Hours and its mega-smash super-single “Blinding Lights”—further refines the rarefied hybrid synth-pop/neo-soul air The Weeknd occupies (and owns). Dawn FM is fresh and all-encompassing in Spatial Audio, with an overall vibe that is certainly much younger at heart than the wizened sage look the always stylish, thirtyish Canadian artiste sports on the album cover.

“Gasoline” opens with all-aswirl, Kraftwerk-y synths and samples, as The Weeknd’s deliberately Euro-tinged vocal inflections on the verses give way to his own signature sing-with-me tone on the choruses, all of it unfolding in a way that would have made the late, great Prince smirk his approval (especially how the doubled/counter vocal is sometimes off to the left, and sometimes directly underneath the lead vocals). “How Do I Make You Love Me?” is an ’80s dance hit that never was, with vocals and synth stabs ping-ponging across the soundfield in not-so-silent fluidity. “Sacrifice” burbles with a turgid guitar riff that gives way to more than a few 360-degree Euro-enunciations of the title word throughout the choruses, not to mention a vocal shift halfway through that mirrors the best intentions of a young Michael Jackson.

Finally, the uplifting lamentations of “Less than Zero” could also dopplegang as a theme that could’ve run over the credits of a John Hughes coming-of-age movie—and please note how the recurrent, strategic all-in volume swells (as well as the wide-split guitar strumming toward the end) buttress the track’s resolve more forcefully in Spatial Audio than they do in Lossless stereo. Taken as a whole, Dawn FM should be cued up as a recurring destination on your Spatial Audio dial.

PORCUPINE TREE: “HARRIDAN”

If you haven’t yet checked out “Harridan,” the lead track from Closure / Continuation, the Porcupine Tree reunion album of sorts due out in full this upcoming June, then you’re in for a visceral treat. Ostensibly the bastard child of PTree’s “Time Flies” (the 11-minute decades-spanning linchpin track from September 2009’s The Incident) and Steven Wilson’s solo magnum opus “Luminol” (the 12-minute opening cut from February 2013’s The Raven That Refused to Sing (and other stories)), the eight-minute “Harridan” hits on all the hallmark gear-shifting points that made PTree one of the most revered post-prog bands at the turn of the century (and beyond).

Truth be told, the now three-piece British collective (bassist Colin Edwin is not involved in this return engagement) chose the exact right track to debut in its Spatial Audio glory a half-year-plus in advance to remind us all why they occupy the mindshare they do. Churning bass from Wilson (reminiscent of the performance style of his oft-preferred go-to solo-band bassist, Nick Beggs) kicks it off, and his own echo-laden vocals further the gambit before alternating into an ethereal falsetto (a vocal choice he used to great effect on his January 2021 solo masterpiece, The Future Bites). Full-channel, all-in volume swells punctuate all the choruses, so be prepared to receive those blasts. The middle break slides into a brief acoustic reverie before multi-layered, height-challenging dark-metal doom riffage reiterates why PTree are masters of many disparate genre choices. Richard Barbieri’s always clever keyboard accents waft in and out of the mix at all the right moments (and sound levels). Meanwhile Gavin Harrison’s animated, pace-flexing stickwork helps lay further claim to his being anointed modern rock’s premier kitsman, now that Rush’s Neil Peart is no longer with us.

“You can only save yourself,” intones Wilson early on in the track, and this hardcharging “Harridan” most definitely serves to save us from the winter doldrums, with nary a doubt. If this wide-ranging Wilson-bred mix is any indication, the upcoming C / C album is likely to be one of the best long-form Spatial Audio offerings of 2022.

FURTHER LISTENING

Still want more Spatial Audio options to listen to before an all-new Spatial Audio File returns next Friday? Go to Apple Music: Spatial Audio Relations to get an additional all-channel fill.