JIMMY PAGE Digs Up “Substantial” Rarities for New LED ZEPPELIN Remasters

Source: Bravewords.com

“It will be coming out, bit by bit,” JIMMY PAGE says with a tantalizing lilt in his voice. The LED ZEPPELIN guitarist is referring to his current labors in the band’s archive, preparing new deluxe editions of each of Zeppelin’s studio albums, from 1969’s Led Zeppelin to 1979’s In Through The Out Door, plus the 1982 post-breakup collection, Coda. Page says the reissues will include “added sonic and visual thrills”, and he expects to begin issuing the first albums in the series sometime next year.

Details of the project emerged during Page’s interview for the new issue of Rolling Stone – his longest and most extensive conversation with the magazine, coinciding with the release of Celebration Day, the new film and album of Led Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion concert at London 02’s arena.

I had asked Page about the reissues in a phone interview three days before our first session in London, says Rolling Stone Senior Writer David Fricke. “But he preferred to wait and discuss them in person – which he did, as soon as we sat down in a lounge in his management’s office in London.”

“The catalog was last remastered 20 years ago,” Page said, referring to the 1990 release of the four-CD box set, Led Zeppelin. “That’s a long time. Everything is being transferred from analog to a higher-resolution digital format. That’s one of the problems with the Zeppelin stuff. It sounds ridiculous on MP3. You can’t hear what’s there properly.”