Giles Martin, son of late Beatles producer George Martin, has confirmed that the group’s 1966 Revolver will be rereleased as a box set sometime during fall 2022, via Apple Corps and Universal Music.
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After remixing and reissuing The Beatles’ later albums, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be, Martin has gone back to earlier albums, which were more of a challenge since they were recorded to more basic four-track masters with multiple vocals or instruments often squeezed into a single track.
“If you take something like ‘Taxman’ from Revolver, ‘Taxman’ is guitar, bass, and drums on one track, and vocals and a sort of shaking and guitar solo [on the right],” said Martin. “And it sounds good; they’re amazing recordings and amazing mixes. We have to look into what technology we can do to make things de-mixed and all this kind of stuff, which I’m looking into.”
Martin previously spoke about finding technology that would allow him to do something more innovative—rather than a general remaster which has already been done—with Revolver as well as the group’s 1965 album Rubber Soul.
“I always think about George Harrison saying [of the endless thirst for Beatles scraps], ‘We’re scraping the bottom of the bottom of the barrel now,'” said Martin in an interview. “This is the conversation I had with Paul [McCartney] in lockdown. He said, ‘How many versions of ‘Get Back’ do people need to hear?’I said, ‘You’re asking the wrong person – my answer would probably be less than other people’s answer!’”
He added, “But I also think there’s a beauty in the sketches. People can get inspired by realizing there are raw ingredients to something they love. Sometimes you think, ‘How the hell did they do this? And then you go, ‘Oh! That’s how they did it!’ Sometimes it’s a bit disappointing that it wasn’t magic, but it’s also hugely inspiring.”
Released on Aug. 5, 1966, Revolver, which birthed classics “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yellow Submarine,” was The Beatles’ seventh album and last before they retired as a live band.
“I really hope you like it,” said Martin revealing his work on the Revolver rerelease on Twitter, along with a photo of the Revolver album cover and a shot from inside the studio. “It’s all going to be a bit immersive too.”
(Photo by William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Getty Images)
