Free Hand is the seventh studio album by British progressive rock band Gentle Giant, released in 1975. It was Gentle Giant's first album with their new label Chrysalis Records in the UK. It is noted for its high production values, and for a less dissonant, more accessible feel than their previous album The Power and the Glory. It was their highest-charting album in the US and the only one to reach the Top 50 on the Billboard 200.
In addition to the usual stereo version, the album was also mixed in 4-channel quadraphonic sound in 1976. The 4-channel mix was not used until 2012 when it finally appeared on DVD with encoding in multichannel LPCM, DTS and Dolby Digitalsurround sound formats.
A 1990 CD re-issue in the US by One Way Records used an alternate stereo mix. This version revealed some different details in the musical and vocal parts. However, this edition may have actually been a reduction or variation of the 4-channel mix.
Alucard Music/EMI Records re-released the CD in 2009, "from the original 1/4-inch tapes through 24bit 96k Hi-Resolution transfer."
On 25 June 2021 a new remix by musician and producer Steven Wilson was released in Dolby Atmos & 5.1 surround sound, accompanied by custom animated visuals for each track on Blu-ray. In addition, a flat transfer of the original mix, the 1975 quad mix and an instrumental mix were all included in a digipack CD. A double vinyl album was also released with both the same transfer of the original mix and Steven Wilson remixed versions.
International releases of the album include a slightly different position of the hand featured on the cover.
Duly signing a new deal in Britain with Chrysalis Records, their seventh album Free Hand (1975), again only found a paying audience (and Top 50 status) across the water. However, it did contain impressive vocal gymnastics, much in evidence on jewels in the crown, "Just The Same" and the renaissance/retro, part a cappella/part folk-rocker "On Reflection"; the latter combining four pieces of group scribed fugue. Minnear's un-medieval meanderings on the ivories for the pure-prog title track was just the ticket for a group still going strong despite others such as ELP and the aforementioned Genesis and King Crimson were collapsing under rock's evolution. Although at times exquisitely off-kilter, tracks such as "Time To Kill", the beautiful "His Last Voyage", the folkie "Mobile" and Tudor-esque instrumental ditty "Talybont", gave the set an aura of accessibility – a classic![4]
One of the more unusual albums to be released this static summer, Free Hand lives up to the promise in the accompanying blurb of being "a melting pot of styles". The ingredients here arc, as in previous [Gentle] Giant offerings a mix of jazz, classical, folk, round-singing and rock. There are seven long tracks, some tuneful beaty numbers, and others broken up into songlets of different styles which manage to be different without being computerised.[3]
The album was their highest-charting album in the US and the only one to reach the Top 50 on the Billboard 200.[5]
