Bob Marley & The Wailers ‎– Confrontation (Half Speed Master)

Black 180g vinyl - Half speed mastered at Abbey Road Studios.

Confrontation is the 12th studio album by Bob Marley & the Wailers and the first album released posthumously in May 1983, two years after Marley's death. The songs on this album were compiled from unreleased material and singles recorded during Marley's lifetime. Many of the tracks were built up from demos, most notably Jump Nyabinghi where vocals from the I-Threes were added, which were not there when Marley released the song as a dubplate in 1979. In addition the harmony vocals on Blackman Redemption and Rastaman Live Up are performed by the I-Threes in order to give the album a consistent sound - on the original single versions they are performed by The Meditations. The most famous track on the album is Buffalo Soldier.

Tracklist:

1. Chant Down Babylon
2. Buffalo Soldier
3. Jump Nyabinghi
4. Mix Up, Mix Up
5. Give Thanks & Praise
6. Blackman Redemption
7. Trench Town
8. Stiff Necked Fools
9. I Know
10. Rastaman Live Up!

Abbey Road's world-renowned engineers have been cutting grooves into discs since the studios first opened their doors in 1931. This record was pressed from a master cut using a precision technique known as half-speed mastering. The procedure requires the source master and the cutting lathe to run at half speed on a specially adapted Neumann VMS-80 lathe. This rare and specialised technique transforms difficult to cut high-end frequencies into relatively easy to cut mid-range frequencies. The result is a cut with excellent high frequency response and very solid and stable stereo images. In short, half-speed mastering produces a master of the highest quality that enables the pressing plant to produce a superlative record.