Recorded at (Utrecht) and Bauhaus Studios (Amsterdam), the production is polished yet retains an organic warmth. For audiophiles, the EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) designations are significant:
Whether you are a long-time fan or a curious archivist, seek out the 2000 CD, rip it yourself, or verify the logs. Guard this album. In an age of compressed streams and forgotten B-sides, if-then-else deserves nothing less than lossless fidelity. The Gathering - if-then-else -2000- -EAC-FLAC-
At 4:12 of “Eleanor,” just after the guitar climax, there is a single frame of silence—a breath before the piano returns. In the 2000 FLAC, that silence is absolute. In MP3, it is filled with quantization noise. That’s the difference. Recorded at (Utrecht) and Bauhaus Studios (Amsterdam), the
The string typically refers to a digital music release sourced from a high-fidelity rip of the 2000 studio album if_then_else by the Dutch band The Gathering . This specific naming convention indicates the album was extracted using Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and encoded into the Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) format to ensure an archival-quality, bit-perfect copy of the original CD. Album Background: if_then_else (2000) In an age of compressed streams and forgotten
Anneke's voice, arguably one of the best in rock history, benefits the most from the 1,411 kbps bitrate of a FLAC file. Her breath control and the "air" around her notes provide an emotional intimacy that makes the listener feel like they are in the room during the recording sessions at Koeienverhuurbedrijf Studio. Legacy of the Album