Hydravion (Philippe Besombes)

[Onomatopoeic]

Why hasn't either of the Hydravion albums been issued on CD yet????

They were great back in the day. I miss them!

Hello Musea! Hello Captain Trip! Hello Esoteric!

[Onomatopoeic]

Oh, and yes. And these wonderful albums, too!!!

[Mr.Krautman]

AFAIK, there was no legit CD-reissue of the two Hydravion albums. The Pole (Besombes-Rizet) has been re-issued last year by Gonzaï Rec. but only on vinyl and in a shortened version. (the original was a 2-LP set, the reissue is reduced to a single LP with missing tracks). All are excellent electro records and desserves a good CD reissue but demand being very low I have few expectations...

[Steve F.]

Pole was reissued on CD (nicely too) by MIO about 10-12 years ago.

Long unavailable.

[spacefreak]

Yep, MIO from Israel reissued a couple of Besombes albums and i.m.o. they are the best versions next to the originals.

And I agree that Hydravion albums are long overdue for a reissue, but the problem seems to be who's gonna buy them...

[Steve F.]

And I agree that Hydravion albums are long overdue for a reissue, but the problem seems to be who's gonna buy them...

No one. Exactly.

[Steve F.]

Hello Captain Trip!

p.s. to my post above:

As far as I can tell, Captain Trip is out of business.

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

music should never have been digitized

if CDs and MP3s were never created and everyone still had to buy the LP the music industry would not be the corpse it is today

[Mr.Krautman]

Pole was reissued on CD (nicely too) by MIO about 10-12 years ago.

Long unavailable.

Thus it seems that potential buyers for such obscure re-issues are slightly more than zero.

[Progbear]

And I agree that Hydravion albums are long overdue for a reissue, but the problem seems to be who's gonna buy them...

I’ve heard mixed reviews of Hydravion anyway, so that pretty much answers your question. An acquired taste niche market obscurity is a hard sell.

[Steve F.]

Thus it seems that potential buyers for such obscure re-issues are slightly more than zero.

That was 12 years ago. The greybeards that gave a crap had their chance. Doing it again, now, in the age of Spotify? You'd be lucky to sell 100.

[Mister Triscuits]

The greybeards that gave a crap had their chance.

Talking about me again?

[Mascodagama]

^ I believe new copies of the Besombes-Rizet CD are still in stock at Ultima Thule (UK record store specialising in Kraut, prog & psych that takes email orders). I bought it there fairly recently.

[spacefreak]

I’ve heard mixed reviews of Hydravion anyway, so that pretty much answers your question. An acquired taste niche market obscurity is a hard sell.

Well, the debut is far better than "Stratos Airlines" which is the acquired taste i.m.o. .

[Steve F.]

Talking about me again?

Or me....

[MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER]

Well, the debut is far better than "Stratos Airlines" which is the acquired taste i.m.o. .

yeah, Stratos Airlines is nowhere near as strong as the debut

[Trane]

That was 12 years ago. The greybeards that gave a crap had their chance. Doing it again, now, in the age of Spotify? You'd be lucky to sell 100.

I wasn't bearded at the time, but I guess I did miss out, partly because of financial reasons back then... I still have the sampler and still hang on to it.... right next to the Cunei samplers.

[Steve F.]

Someone 'missing out' (even 100 people 'missing out') doesn't make it a viable business proposition.

[Steve F.]

You can buy a FLAC file of a legit reissue of this great album (in the original length) here for E 7.00

http://gonzairecords.com/album/pole

[Mr.Krautman]

Someone 'missing out' (even 100 people 'missing out') doesn't make it a viable business proposition.

Steve, from your experience in the music industry how much quantity would you consider as commercially "viable" for such small re-issues ? (I'm speaking of physical media only,CD or LP) I noticed "bigger names" like Esoteric or Musea are steadily re-issuing very obscure (no less obscure than Hydravion) records on CD. Are they doing that at a loss without any preliminary market exploration ? 100pces seems a very low figure if you have a worldwide distribution, even for specialized low-demand albums. Or maybe the solution would be some kind of subscription/funding ? That's the way Gonzaï took for the Pôle re-issue and they quickly reached their goal.

[Steve F.]

Steve, from your experience in the music industry how much quantity would you consider as commercially "viable" for such small re-issues ? (I'm speaking of physical media only,CD or LP) I noticed "bigger names" like Esoteric or Musea are steadily re-issuing very obscure (no less obscure than Hydravion) records on CD. Are they doing that at a loss without any preliminary market exploration ? 100pces seems a very low figure if you have a worldwide distribution, even for specialized low-demand albums. Or maybe the solution would be some kind of subscription/funding ? That's the way Gonzaï took for the Pôle re-issue and they quickly reached their goal.

I don't have time to properly answer your question and I can not and would not answer for Esoteric or Musea, as every company has different expenses and a different goal or achievement that they hope/expect to reach.

And my point is that Pole was commercially viable for someone to reissue on CD properly once, but not more than once.

And you are very, very wrong if you think that it is so easy to sell 100 physical copies of a reissue of a old French progressive rock record on CD (even a good CD) that has already been produced on CD and has no particular 'story' about it, but is just a reissue of a old record on CD for the second time.

We have put out way too many releases in our history (for the 1st time and only time) by bands that are active now and play concerts now and people seem to be interested / excited about them now, but we end up selling 300 copies or worse worldwide.

OK?

[Steve F.]

p.s. re: Pole

There are no copies of the MIO CD currently available on discogs but here is the sales history:

Have: 64
Want: 68
Avg Rating: 4.85 / 5
Ratings: 13
Last Sold: 27 Jan 16
Lowest: $7.87
Median: $20.09
Highest: $23.08

This means that all these years later, you can still find a copy for $20 if you want one. And Mascodagada was correct that Ultima Thule still list it for £13.00

Why should anyone bother reissuing it from a business standpoint?

[Mr.Krautman]

Thank you for responding Steve, it's a litlle bit more clear to me now. As you rightly pointed out there's a considerable difference between a very 1st reissue and any subsequent re-issues. Once the first batch (say 500 copies) are sold out to a very limited specialized audience throughout the world the market is saturated and it would be very difficult (or impossible) to sell more. But if it was never re-issued and the original is either rare or expensive there is still a small market. I believe that if someone puts the two Hydravion records (which were never re-issued so far) on a single package CD they could probably sell a few hundreds around the world. Problem is that it may take YEARS to sell them all. Is that viable and enough to make some money (or just recover your expenses) ? I'm not sure and don't know as I'm not into the music records business.

[Shadow]

I bought a stack of import 45's once and I think one of them is from the first Hydravion.

[Steve F.]

Is that viable and enough to make some money (or just recover your expenses) ?

imo and strictly from our p.o.v.

no.