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In 2025, Greg was again looking for a short-term project to occupy himself after the release of Scale. He decided to give the same treatment he had given to Moose and Holding Inside the Sun to his two-volume set, Greg Goldman Volume I and Greg Goldman Volume II. These two albums had previously been reduced down to a single 12-song release in 2012, but by definition this meant that about half of the songs were omitted in 2012, and had therefore been commercially unavailable for about two decades. And then there was the problem of the drums: despite valiant efforts in 2012 to make the original drum tracks sound professionally recorded, they simply were not up to modern-day standards. Greg set about reworking the full collection of 22 songs for fresh release.
Accessing the original multitracks from 2001-2002, Greg discovered that not only were the drum parts poorly recorded, many of the other instruments (especially acoustic guitars) left much to be desired in terms of their sonic quality. Greg went song-by-song, instrument-by-instrument, making often-difficult decisions about whether each element needed to be re-recorded entirely. In the end, Greg re-recorded a number of acoustic guitar parts, some electric guitar parts, and quite a few keyboard parts. He also added keyboards to several songs that had none. In one case ("Two Stories Taller"), Greg re-recorded the lead vocal track, and in another case ("Hiding in a Cloud"), Greg was forced to re-record the entire song from scratch (the song was originally recorded in a university recording studio and Greg no longer had access to the original multitracks). With regard to the drums, Greg re-recorded drums for each song using his trusty Akai MPD218 and Addictive Drums software, using the original drum performances as demos to guide the new drum parts. In many cases (e.g., "Nowhere," "Fulfill the Prophet") the new drum parts were identical to the old ones, whereas in other cases (e.g., "Stick to It," "Concession Stand") the new drum parts deviated somewhat from the original recordings.
In this way, recordings from 2001-2002, 2009, 2012, and 2025 were blended to create an entirely new experience of this set of songs. Fresh mixes were created in Reaper, and mastering was done using Izotope's AI-guided software (the reference track for EQ and loudness was "O Valencia!" by The Decemberists).
These two releases are now considered the definitive versions of these songs.
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