OK... I know straight away, some people are going to see this that don't know about the original version of Infinity. This has been spoken of before, but I want to make a seperate discussion topic for it here so we can keep all of the comments in this one place, and also tree and trade our interpretations of it. Here goes....

When Devin was nearing the completion of Infinity, a representative from Song Japan came to visit him in the studio and was apparently rather forceful when it came to guiding Devin through the mixing process. Now I'm not saying that the album that is released is bad, or that it is inferior to the way Devin would have done it, I amjust suggesting that perhaps this guy rushed him a little too much and that perhaps some of the songs that are just "demos" on the Christeen EP would have made it on the album if he were given a little more time to get them sounding the way he wanted.

Nonetheless, the album was released and is fucking amazing of course, and apparently the Sony rep knew a little what he was on about because the album charted pretty amazingly in Japan (but then, Japanese people tend to be a little smarter than the rest of us) and in the aftermath of it all, Tracy let us know that the album didn't turn out the way it was originally envisioned, and gave us the tracklist, which is as follows:

TRUTH
PROCESSIONAL
CHRISTEEN
WAR
STARCHILD RISE
SOUL DRIVEN
OM
DYNAMICS
UNITY

This is a biiiiiggggg change form what the album was to become. On a first glance, the immediate differences are that the album is a lot less accesable, a lot less pop oriented. The key pop pieces were not there, being Bad Devil, Wild Colonial Boy and Noisy Pink Bubbles. While I love those songs, the album without them is something entirely different...
It takes on a more drifting, meandering sort of flow, a slow moving, meditative sort of feel.

The main contributing factor to that is putting Processional as track two. Track one is Truth, it smacks you in the face and shows you the face of God, then instead of throwing you into the thick of it with Christeen, it leave sit go and takes you on a slow journey through Devin's psyche and, most likely, your own too.

When you're good and ready you're left at Christeen's doorstep, and the merger to War means that rather than digress on the state of our insanity we're immediately pondering the nature of humanity and our incessant drive for war. This then goes deep into the stratosphere via Starchild Rise rather than into ourselves via Soul Driven, although it soon follows to that place, and more smoothly flows from that into Dynamics rather than having a show tune wedged between them.

Dynamics delivers the supremem statement, that life is give and take, ebb and flow, good and bad, easy and hard, and that all is balanced. It is with that thought in mind that we take the final journey into the cosmos, drifting through space both real and imagined, in our own universe and in the multiverse of our minds and the collective unconscious.

With this Infinity, Devin has created one of the most incredible concept pieces of our time, possibly of all time. While Infinity as it stands is a powerful monument to Devin's genius, I feel that this version retains the feelings of the album more strongly throughout.

Now, onto the trading/treeing... I do not want to take any money away from Devin, so it is my desire to get a copy of this out to people without anyone paying for it. I think the best way to set this up would be via a tree and leaf system, where the guys with the stuff burn it and trade it withkey people in as many countries as we can so that those people can then distribute the disk via trades to people in their own country. This saves big shipping costs etc...

The beauty with this is that everyone gets to assemble their own version. Or, if you aren't that keen, then I have already done a version and I would be happy to tree it out. I am in Australia, so if someone from each province would be interested in trading for this disk and leefing it out, then pm me and we'll work out the trade. We'll then get a list of names up on the board here so that other can pm the person in the nearest area to them to get a copy of the album. I think it is that good that it warrants us doing this for the love of it.

[djskrimp]

You have taken the love of Dev to a new level...and I thank you for the info. Now, I must rearrange the songs to this "old" new sequence to see, (hear?) for myself.

You have taken the love of Dev to a new level...and I thank you for the info. Now, I must rearrange the songs to this "old" new sequence to see, (hear?) for myself.

I haven't heard any of those tracks taken out of the original album plans. Do they still lead into each other at all if you reconstruct the album with the original track list? I really would like to hear what its like. I gotta get my hands on that Christeen EP.

Personally, I would argue against making the copies and distributing them. It's possible that I'm misunderstanding what you're proposing. However, it sounds like you're saying that we should take the songs off the Christeen demo and REPLACE them into the midst of the Infinity songs and re-create the "original" Infinity lineup. Then, we burn those discs and trade them with each other, with no money exchanging hands. This would still represent a violation of copyright since it is beyond the fair use doctrine to make a copy and give it to someone else. Sure, you won't get prosecuted, or anything. But, I just think that if people want to do this "project" they should go and buy the Christeen demo album and do it themselves.

That's my two cents worth. I hope it was helpful. I don't mean to make anyone angry.

Fair enough opinion. I just think that it's not so simple to do a rearrange that sounds good, because the fun of Devy's albums is that all the songs bleed into each other and it's one big magical journey, and simply placing the tracks in a different order can't do that (especially seeing as Starchild Rise has to be cropped from the start of the Processional piece)

I was able to make a decent approximation of the original version by using my studio computer to do crossfades and edits that make it sound fairly reasonable... It is certainly not what it would have been, but it does sound a hell of a lot better than an amature's take on it using a burning program to re-order the tracks.

That said, if Hevy Devy have problems with this, by all means I will shut this down.... I'm not proposing this as an alternative to the released Infinity, I think that album is a fucking masterpiece and possibly the single greatest album of all time (I just can't decide between that one and Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects record Sol Niger Within) so it's not as if I'm saying people should accept this as the proper version and circumvent the released version....

I had thought maybe to get people to scan their reciepts of CDs they have purchased off the Devy store as a way of verification to be allowed to get a copy of this but the problem with that is that I remember when I was a younger dude with no way of paying for things over the net (no credit or debit cards or Paypal account) and I don't think that this sort of genius music should have a discrimination like that as to who gets access to it..... So I think that as long as you have bought the released Inifnity (and lying to yourself as well as others is a bad thing....) and you can afford to send a CDr to a guy in your country, you should be able to get a copy of this masterpiece.

But as I mentioned, if Geoff or Tracey or whoever wants us to do this via pm only and not have this thread, then I will gladly step aside.... I would just like for people to see the Dev's original vision, because it is a beautiful take on a sublime album.

[Blazingmonga]

I am not sure of the legal angle on all this.

I think, for the meantime it might be best to keep this as a private sort of project. Obviously it is still fine to be talking about it here, and it is not likely to cause a problem if you were trading these discs...but if it turns up on eBay then we have a problem, heh.

I have made a version of this ('Infinity 2.0' on my machine) and I can get it to sound fairly good, but it needs a lot more work. I haven't really listened to it in this form so much though. I do find the concept of a 'different' Infinity a little strange though.

I would be interested to hear what exactly you have done to each track to get them to sound better together.

Awesomeness.

This is a biiiiiggggg change form what the album was to become. On a first glance, the immediate differences are that the album is a lot less accesable, a lot less pop oriented. The key pop pieces were not there, being Bad Devil, Wild Colonial Boy and Noisy Pink Bubbles. While I love those songs, the album without them is something entirely different...
It takes on a more drifting, meandering sort of flow, a slow moving, meditative sort of feel.

Now I'm confused. Does this mean that Devy composed those songs (Bad Devil, etc.) during the recording process?


And yes, I'd love to hear Infinity with the original song-order, since it's also my fave album of all times. I didn't know that somebody else had a say in how the album finally turned out.

It will take about two months until my copy of the Christeen EP arrives, so it seems I'll have to wait. And damn, I've already been waiting for so long. BTW, thanks for sharing all this info with us, Greg... it's a very cool idea to do this. But Blazing is right... if somebody thinks he must sell it on ebay, this whole thing could turn out very un-funny...

[djskrimp]

How are you guys breaking apart "Processional"? I can't do it. I've ripped both albums from ther CDs and I don't know how to break "Processional" down. Help?

Use Sound Forge or some program like that and just edit the waveform.

i also did this up, but without the knowledge of Starchild Rise being cropped out of Processional. back to the drawing board.

Greg, I guess I didn't think of the fact that the songs fade into each other and the editing involved. Good point.

I can't imagine that someone would take a copy of this approximated "original" Infinity and *not* buy the actual release version. Who would do that? If you're into Dev enough to want this you'd want the actual copy, too. So, rather than keep people from buying Dev's work, I would think this would induce them to make purchases.

Thank for putting this topic up, i wanted the original Infinity tracklist but was too lazy to use the search function.

Actually, i think i would listen to the album more with this tracklist, it is just a matter of taste i guess, as i love the song Processional.

However, i think that Christeen is out of place compared to all those songs; it's very simple and catchy. Also, all the songs but Christeen and War only have a few sung sentences, then it's all about choirs, "tiny voices" and guitar wall that lead you into a trîp (a bit like Devlab, effect-wise).

i never heard the song "Starchild rise" whats that one like ?

[Blazingmonga]

i never heard the song "Starchild rise" whats that one like ?

Part of 'Processional', the first section.

Helps if you think of the song 'processional' as A 'processional' song, ie one composed of different sections.

gotcha, thanks !

as far as teh first setlist goes for inifinity i just realized that bad devil isnt on it. thank god it is now that song is prob one of my favs all time.