In anticipation of the 30th anniversary reissue of Rush’s truly seminal Moving Pictures as both CD+DVD (April 5) and CD+BD (May 3) deluxe editions, with PCM 5.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround-sound mixes by Richard Chycki, I’m dipping into my personal Rush interview archive to present a truly exclusive, incremental look at how the band’s attitude toward bringing its vaunted studio material into the surround-sound arena has literally changed from “no” to “go” over the last decade.
“Anything that we sit down in, we’re good at.” This is Steven Wilson, 5.1 mixmaster nonpareil, discussing two of the gold medals that Great Britain won in the Summer Olympics — one in cycling, the other in rowing. If there were Olympic medals given for achievement in surround-sound mixing, then Wilson would own more golden hardware than Michael Phelps has collected a dozen times over.
Back in September 2002, I interviewed Michael Tilson Thomas about the launch of a bold new project with the San Francisco Symphony: a complete cycle of the Mahler symphonies to be released on hybrid multichannel SACD via the orchestra’s fledgling in-house label, SFS Media. At the time, Thomas already had clearly formed ideas about the sound he wanted:
