Led Zeppelin will release previously unreleased material in multiple box sets due in 2014.
Hello there Led Zeppelin fans! 2014 promises to bring newly remastered and previously unreleased material, all spread out over a series of box sets devoted to each of the band’s albums.
Jimmy Page has been hard at work in the studio preparing previously unreleased Led Zeppelin material for a new box set. He explained that each of the group’s original LPs will receive an exhaustively comprehensive upgrade. Speaking with TeamRock Radio, he gave fans some info about the content: ‘Each of the albums has been remastered but it also has a companion disc with it. Let’s take, for example, Led Zeppelin III — that’s remastered from analog from the original thing. I know everybody does that, but what they don’t do: I revisited all the working mixes that were done at the time…Say, for example, there’s ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ — there’s an incredible version of that which is totally different, it’s really raw in its approach, it’s quite dramatic, it’s cool.’
Last year, Page told Rolling Stone that he’s been working on an extensive remastering of Led Zeppelin’s catalog. ‘The catalog was last remastered 20 years ago,’ the guitarist said, referring to the 1990 release of the four-CD box set ‘Led Zeppelin’. ‘That’s a long time. Everything is being transferred from analog to a higher-resolution digital format. That’s one of the problems with the Zeppelin stuff. It sounds ridiculous on MP3. You can’t hear what’s there properly.’
In a recent interview with BBC Radio 6, Robert Plant revealed that he has unearthed some previously unreleased Led Zeppelin recordings. he said: ‘I found some quarter-inch spools recently…I had a meeting with Jimmy [Page] and we baked ’em up and listened to ’em. And there’s some very, very interesting bits and pieces that probably will turn up on these things.’
Among them are some recordings featuring the group’s bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones on lead vocals. Plant said: ‘Oh, John, wherever you are with your opera, John, you can’t wait to hear yourself singing all over the world.’ (Jones is writing an opera with Robyn Hitchcock and the Norwegian group Supersilent.)
Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones have been working on new material, according to Jason Bonham. The son of John Bonham told Detroit’s WCSX radio station that he had been meeting with Page and Jones in England, filling in for his late father on drums.
‘I’ve been over [to England] a couple of times…I’ve been working with Jimmy and John Paul and trying to do … some new material and some writing. I don’t know what it will be, but it will be something.’ he added about released new material: ‘the possibility of doing something is in the cards. I really felt it was on the cards from the moment we walked offstage at the O2.
‘At the moment, all I know is I have the great pleasure to go and jam with the two guys and start work on some material. When I get there, I never ask any questions. If I get a phone call to go and play, I enjoy every moment of it. Whatever it ends up as, to get a chance to jam with two people like that, it is a phenomenal thing for me. It’s my life. It’s what I’ve dreamed about doing.’
