Bob Dylan has rerecorded some of his classic songs for release on T Bone Burnett’s new hi-fi format

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Bob Dylan has recorded updated versions of some of his well-known songs with acclaimed producer T Bone Burnett in conjunction with Burnett’s plans to introduce a new ultra-high-fidelity audio format, Variety reports.

According to Variety, a press release issued Tuesday announced that the Dylan recordings will be part of a series of releases dubbed “Ionic Originals” that will be put out by Burnett’s newly formed company NeoFidelity Inc. on a new medium that resembles a vinyl LP but is made of aluminum.

According to the statement, the “newly developed discs…advance the art of recorded sound and mark the first breakthrough in analog sound reproduction in more than 70 years.”

No details yet about what songs Dylan re-recorded for the new releases, but the statement notes that he “revisited a personally chosen set of his iconic songs for the first time in decades.”

The new discs bring to apparent fruition a plan Burnett has long been working on that he said would improve on the sound of LPs, CDs and digital formats.

“An Ionic Original is the pinnacle of recorded sound. It is archival quality. It is future-proof. It is one of one. Not only is an Ionic Original the equivalent of a painting, it is a painting,” Burnett said in a statement.  “It is lacquer painted onto an aluminum disc, with a spiral etched into it by music. This painting, however, has the additional quality of containing that music, which can be heard by putting a stylus into the spiral and spinning it.”

The release also notes that Burnett formed NeoFidelity with the intention to record artists across a wide range of musical genres and provide a platform of distribution for Ionic Originals, [as well as to] reset the valuation for recorded music.”

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