Suzanne Ciani's New Synth-Heavy Album Will Be Pressed On Super Rare Quadrophonic Vinyl

The album captures Ciani’s first solo Buchla synthesizer performance in 40 years.

In recent years, iconic synthesist Suzanne Ciani has returned to the stage, treating audiences around the world to mind-bending and immersive modular performances using her famed weapon of choice: the Buchla 200 system.

The first of these spectacular shows has now been captured on vinyl. LIVE Quadraphonic is the recording of a performance Ciani gave in San Francisco March 5, 2016, her first Buchla solo show in 40 years.

But the album has importance beyond its historical interest. In conjunction with Jack White’s Third Man pressing plant, 227 copies of the album will be pressed to super rare quadrophonic vinyl. Third Man claims that it’s the first quadrophonic vinyl to be released in over 30 years, pressed to perfectly leverage the wide-screen 360° listening experience of Ciani’s concert.

In a comment accompanying LIVE Quadraphonic‘s announcement, Third Man noted that:

For this experimental release and inspired by the Buchla 227 quad output module, there is a limited edition of only 227 LPs, numbered, 45 rpm, 180g quadraphonic vinyl discs sold, plus a custom quadraphonic hardware decoder made in collaboration with Involve Audio to decode two channels of audio from the vinyl disc back to the four-channel recording- and with stunning results.

The vinyl discs were thoughtfully pressed at Jack White’s Third Man Pressing plant in Detroit, MI and are fully compatible for play with any vinyl playback systems in stereo. Current owners of vintage Regular Matrix quadraphonic receivers may also listen to LIVE Quadraphonic in quad via any format, digital download, streaming, radio broadcast or vinyl.

Roe Peterhans, Oblique Strategist at Third Man’s Cass Corridor location, says “We really enjoyed the opportunity to work on Suzanne’s project. Adventurous projects like this are the kind our plant was designed for.”

LIVE Quadraphonic will also be available via digital download on June 4 here. The vinyl edition is expected to cost USD $277. More details on the vinyl release can be found here.

Read more: Listen to Suzanne Ciani’s mix of modern synthesizer heroes