Genesis March-July 1981 Surrey, England @ Fisher Lane Farm Studios "Abacab Complete - Second Edition" SBD > ? > cassette > minidisc > CDR > flac > CDR 1.1 Abacab 07:06 1.2 Jangley (You Might Recall) 05:36 1.3 Nationwide (No Reply At All) 04:47 1.4 German I & II (Dodo/Lurker) 07:28 1.5 Sub (Submarine) 04:21 1.6 Vocal 3/4 (Naminanu) 03:55 1.7 Chunkey (Me & Virgil) 06:24 1.8 Odd (Keep It Dark) 04:36 1.9 Spike (Me & Sarah Jane) 06:02 1.10 Westside (Another Record) 04:42 1.11 Wierdsynth (Who Dunnit?) 03:41 1.12 Lonely Man (Man On The Corner) 04:30 1.13 Don (Like It Or Not) 05:00 1.14 Paperlate 03:39 1.15 Abacab Single Version 04:19 notes: compiled from tracks recorded during the first group sessions at The Farm; track listing refers to working titles of songs during composition stage (final titles are inserted in brackets after the working title for reference) > Is there any difference between this and the official album? I've only listened to it once, but there are a few differences. The major ones are some extra tracks not on the offical album. The minor differences are a couple of starts / endings that are left uncut, as well as a few places where there are a few extra bars present within a track that were cut from the final versions, though you'd hardly notice these unless you know the songs very well. Seems (to me) like the same mix as the offical release... except maybe Paperlate. ----------------- It sounds like Abacab is close to the original, but it has different synth parts in the middle, and it sounds like a different vocal take. The drums are more raw clearly the snare sound on almost every track is more louder. Keep It Dark is definetly a different take. It is certainly hard to tell on the other songs. You Might Recall (Jingly) has the bass way high in the mix compared to the released version(s). ----------------- 'Abacab Complete' is the title of a CD which appeared amongst traders a couple of years ago, featuring all the tracks from the Abacab sessions in what appears to be a potential running order for a double album featuring the whole lot. The cassette tape was in the hands of a collector and was a standard blank cassette with a 'Farm' sticker on it. Although rumour has it that the tape was one of many originally handed out to journalists for review, this theory seems implausible. The band would have been unlikely to send out copies of the unfinished album, especially when it contains many songs which did not make the final tracklist. It seems more likely that the tape was being used by the band or their staff as a kind of 'monitor tape' for listening back to the album and making decisions about which tracks to keep and which to use as B-sides. As for the contents of the tape; despite the tantalising use of the 'Working Titles' for all these tracks, the majority of them are almost identical to the tracks as they were finally released. One or two of the tracks have some extra backing vocals, or drum machine intros which were later removed, but all in all, you have to be listening extremely closely to pick out the differences. Rumour has it that at one stage, Dodo / Lurker, Submarine and Naminanu were originally meant to be a side-long suite, and some people still believe that the 'Abacab Complete' CD contains this medley. However, the songs are all separate on the tape, with just a slight hint of an overlap in the fading in and out between the tracks - hardly what one would call a Medley or Suite. We can only hope that the opening of the Genesis vaults will reveal the actual demos for this album and unearth this much rumoured suite along with the tracks which were supposedly recorded for this album but discarded for sounding too similar to previous Genesis songs. The CD circulates amongst traders in 3 editions, with the 'Second Edition' being the best. For this second edition, a new transfer of the tape was done, using no Dolby Noise Reduction, and ensuring that all of the skips or clicks that marred the first edition were not present.