R.E.M. - Chronic Town / Murmur (2025) {Definitive Sound Series}

R.E.M. is one of the most influential bands of all time and inspired thousands of kids to pick up guitars and begin their own path to DIY ethics. For 40+ years R.E.M. did it their way! And won.

After the release of the now legendary Hib Tone 7 inch Radio Free Europe came the EP Chronic Town in 1982 which garnered enthusiastic press, fanzine support and love from college radio. On the heels of Chronic Town came the debut album, Murmur in early 1983. Many life-long fans look at both of these recordings as the launch of the incredible career of R.E.M.

For the DSS One-Step release the band agreed to let us combine the two records into a single slipcase for release. Chronic Town cover art has been restored as closely as possible to the original color and along with Murmur both now have tip on wrap jackets.

We had original first pressing copies of both records to use as guides, along with several reissues from over the years but nothing could prepare us for what we heard on the original master tapes. For recordings we had heard hundreds, if not thousands of times, the tapes gave a “next level” presentation to this music. It was an instant reflection on how accomplished R.E.M. was from the very beginning. How did Mitch Easter, and along with Don Dixon for Murmur, get all these sounds down? We needed fans to hear what we were hearing on the tapes via the DSS One-Step.

We were fortunate to have Mitch Easter be part of the DSS One-Step process –giving us his input and recalling the magic that happened all those years ago. The fact that he was blown away with our DSS test pressings gave us the confidence we were not just hyping ourselves as we listened back but have accomplished the goal of creating the definitive sounding versions of these iconic albums.