The atmospheric Black Metal force of Panopticon released his seventh full-length album last year. Autumn Eternal marked, personally, Austin Lunn's greatest album yet. Lunn has been making music under the moniker of Panopticon for roughly eight to nine years now and has grown in stature in prowess with every album and split. 2016 is shaping up to be quite the year for Lunn. Earlier this year he was part of an amazing split LP featuring Panopticon and fellow Black Metal band, and friend, Waldgefluster. It was also announced this year that he would be performing his first ever public live show at the inaugural Migration Fest in Olympia, Washington this year and again in September/October at Nordvis's Host Fest in Stockholm and Sundsvall.
Last week, it was learned that in addition to all of these exciting moves from the Panopticon camp, two of his earlier releases, On the Subject of Mortality and Social Disservices, are set to be completely reworked and remastered by a star-studded group of musicians and engineers. Lunn opened up about the process and stated, "The album [On the Subject of Mortality] suffered from terrible production due to the headspace I was in when I recorded it, the equipment ( or lack of ) and COMPLETE lack of recording knowledge I had during its recording. To me, this is the album as intended and the definitive version of the record."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lhc3A871RI
Lunn also had this to say about the work being done to Social Disservices: "Social Disservices has also been completely reworked by Spenser Morris, painstakingly sample replacing the drums ( using samples from my drum kit), hit for hit and blending them with the original lo-fi drum tracks, so you can finally hear the parts played as they sounded live. When this album was tracked, I still had very little equipment or knowledge of how to convey the music as it sounded in my head…thanks to Spencer's hard work I can finally hear the album the way it was meant to sound..brutal, suffocating and furious"
Spencer Morris and Colin Marston handled the tireless work of retooling these classic, raw Panopticon albums. Morris re-mixed both albums before Marston remastered everything. The new, reimagined offerings are being repackaged into a collaborative piece entitled Revisions of the Past with gorgeous, new artwork from Nate Burns and a 16-page album booklet full of liner notes, original text, and reflections from Lunn on the albums. Austin said on the finished product about working with Morris, Marston, and Burns, "…honestly I am relieved to have these ( in my opinion) improved versions of the albums done and I am forever grateful to Spenser, Colin, and Nate for the work they put into this. Thank you my friends!"
The 2CD pre-order is now available through Bindrune Recordings in the United States and through Nordvis in Europe. There are workings towards a vinyl version of the release, however, they will not be available in time for Panopticon's performance at Migration Fest.
