Debbie Wiseman - Bizet, Chabrier, Rimsky-Korsakov/ Rosie Middleton: Espana

180-gram vinyl

Live, cut direct-to-disc

Mike Valentine's Chasing the Dragon record label brought in the National Symphony Orchestra to Air Studios to record a selection of pieces with a Spanish theme. These pieces were performed live without overdubs and cut direct-to-disc as per earlier recordings, but this time Valentine also captured the performance on a dummy head to produce binaural recordings of the work that is available here on 180-gram vinyl.

The boom in headphone listening has prompted greater interest in a binaural approach, suggesting that Valentine is onto something. All he has to hope now is that today's headphone lovers appreciate classical music.

There were a total of 63 mics used in the recording, however many of them were hardly faded up, so it's a "subtle" blend from those mics, Valentine says. "The main mics were Neumann M50s for the Decca tree and we try to go for very old ribbons in front of the brass, RCA mics from the '50s and '60s."