The Nice, consisting of Davy O'List, Brian "Blinky" Davidson, Lee Jackson and Keith Emerson, released their first album in 1967. The name of the album is a combination of their names. This album was released in the UK, as was customary at the time, both in MONO and in STEREO. With other artists, sometimes the mono version was simply a "fold-down". This means that in order to create the mono version the left and right channels of the stereo mix were simply added together into a single mono channel. This is entirely equivalent to pressing the mono button on your amplifier. But in many other cases the MONO record was viewed as being more important and received more care and attention, leading to a different, separate, mono mix. Famous examples are Sell Out by the Who, Sergeant Pepper by the Beatles, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd and Disraeli Gears by Cream, all from the same magical year 1967.
The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack was mixed separately in mono and in stereo. It is most likely that the mono version was issued first, since there exists a promotion 45 rpm single which only mentions the mono LP. Each version was issued with a variety of different coloured paper labels, either very pale lilac, or a strong pink colour. Some copies carry the legal text "Sold in the UK......etc" which was mandatory for a time.
The mono and stereo versions of The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack sound quite different and there are portions were even the instrumentation is different. A harpsichord (or similar) was added, probably played live during the mono mixing, during one of the quiet bits in the title song. This was not done during the creation of the stereo mix. There are more differences all over the record.
The mono mix of the album has never been issued on CD. Even compilers of multi-disc luxury reissues have failed to include the mono album. So either the owners of this material could not care less or else the mastertapes for the mono version are lost forever. For this reason, distribution of the mono version is left to us amateurs!
Over the years I have so far bought three different copies of the mono mix on original UK vinyl. The matrix numbers of these records are identical however the printed paper labels are all different. The most recent find from the summer of 2022, in a really great shop in Tenterden, Kent, UK, was almost unplayed and so I decided to do a vinyl rip of this album. In a few places where the music is very delicate I made the choice of substituting identical sounding portions from other sources, suitably mixed down to mono of course. All this was done to get the maximum listening pleasure.
So if you want to hear the mono version of the Nice debut LP, in high resolution audio, 32 bits - 96 kHz, download the file shown below. But I ask you to keep this for yourself! Please don't shout about it. Feel free however to send me an email to [email protected] if you enjoyed hearing this version, and even if you believe I could have done better!
https://mollenkramer.nl/nice/monolp.zip
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