Opening Up The Libertines’ Catalog for Remasters

At AudioShake, we often say “open up your music,” because stems create more options and opportunities for music and their artists. In the case of older or archival material, stems can introduce these pieces of work to entirely new possibilities. Often, due to time passed or recording format, the project files and stems for this work are no longer available or were never available in the first place. Which is where AudioShake comes in.

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Leading up to the 20th anniversary of the iconic British album Up The Bracket by The Libertines, Rough Trade Records found itself in this exact knot as they set out to remaster the album. The Libertines’ debut album, which was produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, has been described as one of the most influential albums of the 2000’s. The rock’n’roll classic was heralded for its role in shepherding in a new era of music that broke away from the British-pop that dominated the late nineties. Unfortunately, after nearly 20 years, the indie record label was unable to access the stems for the album and turned to AudioShake as they neared this milestone celebration.

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Without the original project files, the label’s team of engineers and producers were able to use AudioShake’s stem separation AI to create stems from the master tracks, from which they could mix a brand new album.

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“For an album as historic as Up The Bracket was for the early noughties, we knew we had to do a proper job in mastering its 20th anniversary album. However, when working with older material like this, it has long been a challenge to find project files we can tidy up and do the album justice. AudioShake was a crucial element in making a remaster of this iconic album possible, without it we wouldn’t have had the level control and care we put into this album.” — Joe Smith, Production Manager