Rush announce 40th anniversary edition of Hemispheres

Rush will release a 40th anniversary edition of their progressive rock tour-de-force ‘Hemispheres’ next month.

Originally released back in October 1978, the Canadian trio’s ambitious album is reissued on Friday 16th November on four distinct formats: Super Deluxe Edition, 2-CD Deluxe Edition, 3-LP Deluxe Edition and Deluxe Digital Edition.

Recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales and Trident Studios in London, ‘Hemispheres’ was produced by Rush alongside their long-term collaborator Terry Brown.

The entire first side of the LP featured the sprawling 18-minute opus ‘Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres’, with side two boasting ‘Circumstances’, ‘The Trees’ and the seminal ‘La Villa Strangiato’.

Guitarist Alex Lifeson says: “Hemispheres was one of our most challenging and demanding records to make. From its inception in a Wales farmhouse where it was written over a four-week span, to the very difficult mixing sessions in two London recording studios, it stands as a key transitional album in Rush’s long recording history.”

‘Hemispheres’ Super Deluxe Edition

The Super Deluxe Edition includes two CDs, one exclusive Blu-ray Audio disc, and three high-quality 180-gram black vinyl LPs. The set encompasses the Abbey Road Studios 2015 remastered edition of the album for the first time on CD, along with previously unreleased and newly restored bonus content consisting of the band’s masterful June 1979 Pinkpop festival performance in the Netherlands.

Unfortunately, the Pinkpop recording engineer failed to capture the first several minutes of ‘2112’, so an amazing, unreleased performance of the song during the ‘Hemispheres’ tour from Tucson, Arizona in November 1978 appears here in its place.

The third bonus disc is the album newly mixed from the original multitracks in 5.1 surround sound on a Blu-ray Audio disc, along with four bonus videos: three shot in 1978 as promo videos, and one of “La Villa Strangiato”, originally shot at Pinkpop with newly restored stereo audio.

Elsewhere, the Super Deluxe version features include several exclusive items, including a 40-page hardcover book with unreleased photos and new artwork by original album designer Hugh Syme; an extensive, 11,000-plus-word essay by Rob Bowman; “The Words & The Pictures”, a replica of the band’s rare 1979 U.K. tour program; a 24×24-inch wall poster of the newly created Syme art; a Pinkpop festival replica ticket; a Pinkpop festival replica cloth VIP sticky pass; and a replica 1978 Rush ‘Hemispheres’ iron-on patch.

The two-CD Deluxe Edition and Deluxe Digital Editions feature the newly remastered Hemispheres album; the Pinkpop festival performance and “2112” from Arizona; a 28-page booklet with unreleased photos and new artwork by Syme; and an edited, 5,700-word version of Bowman’s aforementioned essay.