I've been trying to reach Theo by email about this repeatedly, but got no response.As already mentioned, the "weird" sound of the CD is partially due to the signal polarity being out of phase, which can be corrected by inverting one channel's phase.However, the sound quality is - probably deliberately - fucked up even further.All tracks are completely in mono, while at least some of the "original" versions (I cross-checked "Rain For Jimmy" and "Dirt Rhodes") clearly have stereo content on other releases (CD and vinyl).Heavy limiting is put to work throughout - for example, on the CD, the bassdrum in "Dirt Rhodes" basically is truncated into a square waveform, while a vinyl rip shows a nicely rounded waveform with no limiting at all.In the end, even with the signal polarity corrrected, this is distorted audio crap compared to the original versions.Do your ears and your respect for Theo Parrish as a musician a big favour by not buying this scam of a compilation.

@ Fals, check out his early album Parallel dimensions, there you'll find some hip-hop joints.

Is "Didn't Pay Dues" the only hip-hop beat Theo's ever done?

check out brain by theo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx_gtLmLwtM

tong:I actually was going to mention this too. I think this was most likely intentional by Theo. He said before that he likes to mess with the CD versions a little bit or make people question some things. He mentioned this in a Resident Advisor interview regarding the "Sound Sculptures Vol. 1" CD:"How is the CD different? When you went in to make it, how were you approaching it?I ended up completing about forty songs over the course of two-and-a-half years and so, in mixing those songs, making different versions and figuring out which ones can form a cohesive piece, I eventually figured out which ones I wanted to do for the vinyl and I figured out which ones I wanted to do for the CD. The goal, in the end, was that I wanted the whole album to play as one piece. So the track IDs are intuitive. That means that if you try to download this album, it's going to be hell to try to get all of the songs starting from the beginning. I wanted to make it a little difficult for these CD Jockeys I hear too. So if you pick up the CD, there's a little surprise. It's been kind of fun to see who picks up on that surprise. Not many have yet. One distributor did so far and a few of my buddies have picked up on it. But most people haven't…or they know that's part of how I get down. [laughs] I'll probably release some CD numbers sans surprise in the future, but in much lower numbers."--- excerpt from "http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?896"Makes sense why the audio is this way after you read that, hey?I did probably what you did and inverted the signal polarity on one of the channels (for me, the left) to bring it into correct phase.

The way the CD is mixed, you really have to turn the bass up and treble down on a lot of tracks to get it 'normal'. on the other hand, this encourages you to do your own weird theo-style EQ-ing on the fly.

Oh interesting, I never did check this but you might be onto something! Need to check my copy when I get a moment...

ha! maybe this explains why the CD of Sound Sculptures 1 sounds so ~weird~

theo = what a knob!trying to listen to this again today, and the only way I can enjoy it is through headphones. On my system I can't switch polarity of one speaker channel because my sub isn't L/R differentiated.so pissed off

all making sense nowsounds terrible on sound system (i.e. bass is distorted and very low in the mix) whilst on headphones not as bad as i guess i am not getting the constructive/destructive interference across the independent channels.tbh - i am pretty peeved. this and the ugly edits comp. i thought it was just shoddy mastering but it is intentionally making a crap quality product. theo goes on about vinyl being the only true medium, then uses CD-R live and presses these CDs and charges good money for them. i can download copies ripped from vinyl with better sonic quality than those that i pay for on CD. i've been collecting theo CDs since back in '98 and continued to support him on the format that i enjoy and he then goes ahead and f#@ks you over.and reversing the signal polarity every time you want to listen to this cd is just a big smack in the face

I'm surprised no one noticed or mentioned this already but the left and right channels on this cd are out of phase, at least on my copy.. A review in Wire mag mentions a lack of bass and weird overall sound, but it's actually just the sonic consequence of the signal being out of phase.. Mastering error ?