GILES MARTIN remembers being on a flight with his father George, when the enormity of what his dad had achieved with The Beatles struck him. “I said to him, ‘What you did with The Beatles was kind of amazing, wasn’t it?’ He said, ‘Not as amazing as Brian Wilson. He made Pet Sounds and, y’know, The Beatles had me, and I had The Beatles. But Brian Wilson didn’t have anyone. And without that record, we wouldn’t have had Sgt. Pepper.’”
In this way, having been entrusted with his Beatles remix and remaster programme, Martin is well placed to fully understand Brian Wilson’s 1966 opus, which he’s now reworked in Dolby Atmos surround sound. Pet Sounds, originally rendered in mono, has been the subject of various remastering jobs down the years: a strange Duophonic (or fake stereo) release in ’66; an audiophile mono remaster in 1995; a proper stereo mix in ’97, with an “improved” version emerging in 2001.