Ian Hunter's 'Stranded In Reality', the 30-disc Anthology box set, is available to pre-order now exclusively via Propermusic.com : http://smarturl.it/ianhunterboxset

The 'Sampling In Reality' boxset sampler is available to buy now for just £7 and features 5 tracks taken from the forthcoming anthology plus 2 unique tracks.

The career of the British rock great and Mott the Hoople icon Ian Hunter is celebrated with this strictly limited edition 30-disc Anthology box set, Stranded in Reality, containing a swathe of rare and previously unreleased recordings and film. Compiled and curated by Ian and recognised Hunter-Mott biographer Campbell Devine, the project is the ultimate celebration of the artist’s hugely influential and sparkling solo work. Covering the years 1975 to 2015, Stranded in Reality comprises 17 original albums on 19 CDs, 9 “new” discs of intriguing rare and unreleased tracks plus 2DVDs.

All of Ian’s classic solo albums are contained in the box set including expanded Anniversary Editions of Ian Hunter, All-American Alien Boy, You’re Never Alone with a Schizophrenic and Welcome to the Club, plus special unique bonus track discs of Short Back n’ Sides, All of The Good Ones Are Taken, The Artful Dodger, Strings Attached, Shrunken Heads and When I’m President.

The new albums are titled Tilting the Mirror (Rarities 2CD), If You Wait Long Enough for Anything, You Can Get it on Sale (Live 1979-81 2CD), Bag of Tricks (Live Volumes 1, 2 and 3), Acoustic Shadows and Experiments. The box presents many unheard and “lost” songs from Ian’s archive including ‘San Diego Freeway’, ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ and ‘Salvation’ as well as rarely performed live versions of ‘Wild East’, ‘While You Were Looking At Me’, ‘The Outsider’ and a 2008 acoustic concert.

A visual 2 disc set, It Never Happened, features promo, live and archive material, and most of the footage has not been issued commercially on DVD until now. The project includes a complete 1979 Hunter Ronson concert from London’s Hammersmith Odeon and a TV film from the same tour, live in Toronto. Collectively, the albums and DVD’s offer music fans a rock ‘n’ roll jackpot of over 400 tracks!

Lavishly presented in an LP-size deluxe box with custom Escher-style cover, the collection also contains an 88-page hardback book with comprehensive essay, rare memorabilia and Ian Hunter “Track by Track” for every song, a stunning facsimile Shades newspaper featuring classic historic press features, an Alien Boy lithograph personally signed by Ian and original and brand new album artwork in replica card sleeves.

2016 will be a special year for Classic Songwriter Ian Hunter with a brand new studio album, an unprecedented box set release and live dates in New York City, Sweden plus a UK tour including shows in Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester and London.

Ian Hunter’s new studio album, Fingers Crossed promises ten new songs including ‘Ghosts’, ‘That’s When the Trouble Starts’, ‘Bow Street Runners’ and Ian’s much-anticipated homage to David Bowie ‘Dandy’. Recorded at HOBO Studios in New Jersey, and co-produced by Hunter and Andy York, the record features his magnificent Rant Band and will be released later this year on Proper Records.

Maybe getting the sampler from the box would answer your questions before laying out the big bucks.

Dear Geff,

I am Alan Price and I have been working with Proper Records on the gargantuan Ian Hunter box set since the initial idea was hatched nearly 3.5 years ago.

First thing to say is that I apologise for not responding to you sooner, things have come to a head production wise over the last couple of weeks and we have had some pretty tight deadlines.

When we originally discussed the overall sound for the box set we decided we should be faithful to the sound of the original recordings and that we would not artificially enhance that sound, so we were never going to go down the “brickwalled mastering” route therefore avoiding the screechy sound that you and most other people hate. Original tape masters from many of the licensors has helped us immensely.

We have obviously pulled together a vast amount of archive material, live and in the studio and we have been judicious in our choices of recordings and again have been sensitive in the way that they have been mastered, trying to avoid all of the nasty compression techniques.

I do hope you receive your sampler soon so you can hear what I am getting at, oh and please don't throw it away, it has 2 tracks that will not be on the box set.

There will be some further sound clips rolled out to everybody in about a weeks time so again you will be able to assess the cut of our jib.

See below a message from our mastering engineer Pete Reynolds.

Again apologies for the tardy response and your increased frustration.

All the best, Alan

Hi Geff

I am the engineer who worked on the Ian Hunter Box Set.

Where possible we have worked from original master tapes and, like you, I don't like the modern
trend of hard limiting and over bright sound. Other Box sets I have worked on include -

Eddie Cochran – Somethin' Else
Manfred Man Earth Band – 40th Anniversary
Family – Once Upon A Time
Streetwalkers – 1974 / 1977
Bing Crosby – The Complete United Artist Sessions
Fred Astaire – The Complete London Sessions
Joe Meek – Portrait Of A Legend
The Searchers – 50 Years Of Harmony And Jangle

Best bet is to check out reviews of my other projects and hear other people's opinions.

Best regards

Pete Reynolds

Reynoldsmastering.com

This is really getting to be a hard decision for me. I'm a HUGE IH fan, & this is a limited set of 2500.

I'm also broke, it costs a lot of $'s, & the big surprise was realizing how many of the rarities I already have; as through the years I've bought every legal IH set that's been released (some of which were worth big $'s before this box).

I am 100% complete catalog to the best of my knowledge, & a GUESS is I have about 1/2-2/3 of the rarities on here.