Perhaps, it’s because of their last albums’ success and still being an active concert ensemble that DEEP PURPLE seemed to have missed out on properly celebrating the fiftieth anniversaries of the band’s classic achievements, yet eventually, on the way to their next platter, the veterans remembered about “Machine Head”: the record which crystallized and embodies the very idea of hard rock. Hard to believe but the last truly revelatory reissue of this milestone appeared in 1997, to mark its 25th year around the sun, with 2012’s arrival of the 40-years edition not adding anything worthy of a fan’s worry, and its forthcoming re-release, scheduled for March 29th, will be basically an expansion of what’s been out before – only the expansion looks rather alluring.
Disregarding the fact that the super deluxe edition of “Machine Head” combines an LP – colored, said to be “opaque white with hints of purple” – with three CDs and a Blu-ray, which never is a good idea, aficionados should focus not on the album’s remastered version, present on both compact and vinyl discs, but on its remixed variants, stereo and Atmos, prepared this time by Dweezil Zappa (whose father, of course, was part of the platter’s history, as mentioned in “Smoke On The Water”), whereas the previous ones came from the group’s own Roger Glover. Here’s why the fresh mixes can turn out more conservative, each track’s length being equal to the original cut’s duration. To provide more context for the studio opus, the other CDs are dedicated to on-stage material, and while “In Concert ’72” – preserved for posterity in London’s Paris Theatre in March of that year – first saw the light in 1980 and is, thus, quite familiar to many a listener, the audience recording of the collective’s April 1971 show in at the Montreux Casino, where “Machine Head” would have been laid down if the venue didn’t perish in a fire, has never been officially released. As a result, the reissue, accompanied by a nice booklet, might become the final word on the album – in other words, it might become essential… for those who don’t own earlier reissues.
Machine Head:
Super Deluxe Edition
CD 1
2024 Remix:
1. Highway Star
2. Maybe I’m A Leo
3. Pictures Of Home
4. Never Before
5. Smoke On The Water
6. Lazy
7. Space Truckin’
8. When A Blind Man Cries (B-side)
2024 Remaster:
9-17 – as 1-7
CD 2 – In Concert ’72:
1. Introduction
2. Highway Star
3. Strange Kind Of Woman
4. Maybe I’m A Leo
5. Smoke On The Water
6. Never Before
7. Lazy
8. Space Truckin’
9. Lucille
10. Maybe I’m A Leo (soundcheck)
Machine Head:
Super Deluxe Edition
CD 3 – Montreux ’71:
1. Swiss Yodel
2. Speed King
3. Strange Kind Of Woman
4. Into The Fire
5. Child In Time
6. Paint It Black
7. Wring That Neck (Hard Road)
8. Black Night (7.48)
9. Lucille (5.49)
Blu-ray
2024 Atmos Remix:
1-7 – as CD 1: 1-7
8. When A Blind Man Cries
Quad Mix (1974):
9-15 – as CD 1: 1-7
5.1 Mixes (2012):
16. When A Blind Man Cries
17. Maybe I’m A Leo
18. Lazy
LP – 2024 Remix:
1-7 – as CD 1: 1-7
