The Beatles' Rarity, CARNIVAL OF LIGHT, Might Be Released

One of the rarest tracks ever recorded by The Beatles was a 1967 14 minute psychedelic experimental piece called CARNIVAL OF LIGHT, and now Paul McCartney is considering the release of this very rare track which was originally slated for release on the ANTHOLOGY 2, but McCartney considered it to be a waste of space because of the length of the song.

A 4 minute sound sample floating around on YouTube of the song seems to put it in a similar nature to some of the stranger moments of THE WHITE ALBUM in some ways such as REVOLUTION #9, however since the track appears to be largely just experimental instrumentation rather than a vocal track, it lacks the commercial appeal to be launched as a single and will probably find it's way onto a larger Cd of other rarity material as well since there are still a large number of Beatles' recordings that have not been used in the ANTHOLOGY series or on bootleg recordings of the legendary band.

The 14 minute avant garde Beatles piece seems to remind some music critics of THE RETURN OF MONSTER MAGNET from the Frank Zappa album FREAK OUT in many ways. And while this interesting Beatles' musical experiment really lacks both rhythm as well as melody, it still seems to be an early bridge to the later more advanced experiments in breaking new ground musically that were so highly successful on THE WHITE ALBUM. The track is so rare that it is like the Holy Grail of lost Beatles songs, despite it's lack of a more commercial nature.

There is still a wealth of Beatles' material that hasn't been issued either on the ANTHOLOGY series or on bootleg recordings of the band, so there is certainly enough great material out there still for the surviving Beatles to issue another pretty good album of rarities and outtakes.

Another lengthy rarity is the 1967, ANYTHING, which is a 22 minute long experimental piece recorded during the 1967 SGT PEPPER sessions, and features a drum beat with conga and tambourine accents. And while ANTHOLOGY 3 featured a greatly shortened version of HELTER SKELTER 3, which is a bluesy and far different sounding version of the song than the more popularly released frantic classic, this rarity actually goes on for 27 minutes in unedited form and is unavailable on any bootleg recording to date.

Fans of THE BEATLES who thirst for more of their music have also taken some satisfaction in some bootlegs that purport themselves to be remasters of the band's original complete catalog of albums. And some 24bit mono and stereo remasters issued by shadowy bootleggers such as Mirror Spock and Dr. Ebbetts are known to exist in the collector's market. These "remasters" have typically been from vinyl sources and digitised with pretty awesome sound quality in many cases, but with results still below what would be expected if the original master tapes owned by The Beatles were used in a true remastering process.

The fact of the matter is that The Beatles have not released the last of their rarities or possible albums to the public. There is enough more material of recorded rarities or possible remasters out there that new releases should surface for quite some time. And since The Beatles and their record companies own the original master tapes to any of these rarities, then they are in the driver's seat to issue some stunning official releases that bootleggers and rarity collector's would not be able to match. It's only a matter of time when more of such rarities such as CARNIVAL OF LIGHT will officially surface as a release.