January 6th, 2025
Acoustic Sounds Unveils Definitive Ultra High Quality Record Vinyl Reissue of Steely Dan's "Katy Lied" Available now for pre-order, release date of 1/31 By: Tracking Angle
Press release: [Jan. 6, 2025] — Acoustic Sounds announces their latest high quality reissue, Steely Dan’s groundbreaking fourth studio album, Katy Lied. This gold-selling classic, originally released in 1975, has been meticulously remastered for an Ultra High Quality Record (UHQR) reissue, the pinnacle of vinyl craftsmanship. Available on January 31st, 2025, and available for pre-order HERE, the release is the latest installment of Acoustic Sounds' ongoing series, which has featured releases from Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy a Thrill, Countdown to Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, The Royal Scam, Aja and Gaucho since September 2022. “This could be the best vinyl record I’ve ever heard,” said Bob Lefsetz, on Acoustic Sounds’ UHQR edition of Can’t Buy a Thrill. “This is rarefied air. Not only is this a classic album that has stood the test of time, this is not the vinyl you see in your clothing store, not even in your record store.
Read More Comments: 0January 6th, 2025
The Velvet Underground Strived for Hits on “Loaded” Analogue Productions’ reissue is "loaded" with sonic sweetness By: Dylan PegginOf all the '60s era artists that expanded their craft to unfathomable heights, The Velvet Underground was arguably the most adventurous. Few if any other contemporaries sought to work in unorthodox approaches to both instrumentation (drones, detuned guitars, and distortion) and subject matter (drug use, S&M, and prostitution). These approaches appear prominently on their first two albums, The Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat. A key... Read More
Comments: 0January 6th, 2025
Bill Evans' Best Studio Album The 1961 "Explorations" gets its best vinyl treatment By: Fred KaplanThe trio of pianist Bill Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian is one of the most influential in jazz, yet the group recorded just three albums over the course of two days in the first half of 1961—a total of two hours of music, supplemented decades later by an hour-and-a-half of outtakes. Two of the albums—Waltz for Debby and Sunday Afternoon at the Village Vanguard, arguably the best in Evans’ 25-year discography—have been reissued on vinyl many times... Read More
Comments: 2January 4th, 2025
A Little Touch of L.C. Franke in The Night? though a collection of winning originals, not covers By: Michael FremerReading the press release while listening to this effervescent, ornately orchestrated instantly likable set of new, yet nostalgic tunes, it wasn't surprising to discover that modern day "crooner" L.C. Franke's musical roots at least for this record were anchored in his grandmother Elsie's "dusty" record collection (crooner in quotes because his singing style is more straightforward, though the tunes and arrangements could be used by... Read More
Comments: 0December 31st, 2024
007 for the Holidays: The John Barry - James Bond Soundtracks PART 2 “Do you expect me to talk?” -- “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to groove…” By: Mark Ward
With due apologies to Auric Goldfinger as he leered over Sean Connery about to have the family jewels melted by a laser beam, we continue our holiday stroll down Vinyl (and occasionally CD) Memory Lane and through the used bins for some choice Bondian music picks: original soundtracks and compilation albums, all featuring the indelible music of John Barry. (You can read Part 1 of this survey here).
Read More Comments: 5December 30th, 2024
A Front Row Seat at the Corner of Forlorn and Regret With Gillian Welch and David Rawlings in "you are there" spectacularly natural sound By: Michael FremerRarely does regret sound so affirming, loss so found, emptiness so filling, distance so near and dated so au courant as do those dark sentiments on this collection of woe filled songs that though relentlessly morose, somehow bring to the listener peace and resolve.Though the Welch/Rawlings musical style remains fixed in mountain balladry and many of the themes are timeless, there's modernity too in "Hashtag"—an unrelentingly down road song about chasing... Read More
Comments: 19December 29th, 2024
007 for the Holidays: The John Barry - James Bond Soundtracks PART 1 “Do you expect me to talk?” -- “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to groove…” By: Mark Ward
With due apologies to Auric Goldfinger as he leered over Sean Connery about to have the family jewels melted by a laser beam, let’s take a holiday stroll down Vinyl (and occasionally CD) Memory Lane and through the used bins for some choice Bondian music picks: original soundtracks and compilation albums, all featuring the indelible music of John Barry.
Read More Comments: 8December 28th, 2024
The Album That Never Was But Should Have Been Finally Is Short on duration long on musical value By: Michael FremerImagine a young Miles Davis fan's excitement back in 1973 spying a new compilation titled BASIC MILES The Classic Performances of Miles Davis (C32025) only to find that it was a seemingly haphazardly chosen set of tracks, and worse, that the asterisked ones had been "Electronically Re-Recorded to Simulate Stereo". But reading the discography on the jacket before putting it back in the bin, the second track "Stella By Starlight" listed the... Read More
Comments: 6December 26th, 2024
Ortofon's Re-tooled 12" AS-309R Tonearm a well-established design gets a major update By: Michael FremerOrtofon has long marketed a tonearm made in Japan to its specifications. For the recently introduced 12" AS-309R, the latest revision to Ortofon's tonearm, Ortofon provides few specifics other than "130 redesigned components.... crafted with unparalleled mechanical precision and advanced engineering". The company doesn't divulge what any of those parts are, or how and why they were redesigned.The additional 'boilerplate" marketing... Read More
Comments: 1December 23rd, 2024
Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra (updated with comments from producer/annotator Charles Granata) A Neglected Album is finally restored to its rightful place as one of Sinatra's masterpieces. By: Paul Seydor
Impex Records releases a new 1step, 45-rpm remastering of Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra, one of Sinatra's most important albums yet one that is often neglected despite the fact that it occupies a watershed place in his development as a singer and recording artist.
Read More Comments: 11December 23rd, 2024
Legacy Extended The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974-80 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair By: JoE SilvaLet’s remember 2022; back when there were still two Popes and Post Malone fans wondered whatever would he do with those last few patches of un-inked skin. The rush of time will do what it can to rinse all of that and more from our memories, but it will probably have little to no impact on the persistent stream of interest that’s still generated by The Beatles.Today we’re still seeing fresh documentaries flicker to life, reissues continue to drop, and an untold number... Read More
Comments: 2December 21st, 2024
"Long After Dark" Emerges From the "Damn the Torpedoes" Shadows the "in-betweener" gets a revised look By: Michael FremerIn old school animation—the way Disney and Warner Brothers did it way back when— rough drawings of the action were sketched on paper by the animators, who then flipped through the pages to see what they've drawn come to rough life. Once these roughs met with their approval they handed them off to secondary animators usually referred to as "in-betweeners" who produced the drawings that go in between what the animators hand them, thus producing the... Read More
Comments: 15December 21st, 2024
Resistance Music - Shostakovich from Berlin During Lockdown Music-Making of Searing Intensity on the Berlin Philharmonic’s In-House Label By: Mark Ward
This beautifully designed and annotated set appeals to seasoned classical collectors and newbies alike with its gripping performances of three of the master symphonist’s most compelling works in outstanding sound and video. Amidst all the tinsel and seasonal levity, give this set serious consideration.
Read More Comments: 11December 21st, 2024
Analogue Productions Serves a "Smokin'" Piece of Humble Pie! A long out-of-print audiophile reissue gets repressed By: Dylan PegginWhether the members of Cream were considered “cream of the crop” players or ELP debuting before a crowd of 600,000 at the Isle of Wight, supergroups became a hot-button commodity that granted success in the late 1960s. Although Humble Pie may have included members of Small Faces, The Herd, Spooky Tooth, and the Apostolic Intervention, they were keen to distance themselves from any preconceived connotations by the music press. The foursome established a sound rooted in... Read More
Comments: 2December 19th, 2024
VPI's Forever Model One Modular Turntable Hits All the Right Notes a modern take on a VPI Classic By: Michael FremerWith "retro" industrial design having been a "thing" in audio for the past few years, especially in loudspeakers and receivers, I've been wondering why VPI hasn't stepped up to the audio plate and knocked one out of the nostalgia Ozone Park with a re-imagined vintage VPI turntable (yes I do spend my spare time thinking of such things). Well here it is— a new and improved take on the venerable HW-19, proving there's VPI life beyond... Read More
Comments: 2