No apologies need to be made for this musically and sonically attractive collection of contemporary Irish guitarists and their music, yet the compilation producer Cian Nugent, who also contributes a tune, felt it necessary and does so in his annotation. "Passing a Dublin tourist trap pub, the sound of a plastic piezo strum can elicit horror in the passerby". "But", he adds "the guitar can also be a tool for dreaming and mystery". And... Read More

Hair and beard turned white and wearing the same sunglasses as on 1993's Joe Harley produced The Old Songs (Audioquest AQ 1017) and otherwise looking remarkably unchanged, tenor saxophonist Bennie Wallace and friends turn in a sensual, moody set, beginning with an unusually slinky, conga line take on the old gospel warhorse "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho".With a pair of Bossa Nova classics—"How Insensitive" and "Desafinado" and... Read More

(Press release): The Köln Concert – the groundbreaking recording of Keith Jarrett’s improvised solo concert at the Cologne opera house – has attained legendary status since its release in 1975. An iconic album and an essential document of the era, few live recordings in any idiom have been celebrated as widely. In the liner essay included in the 50th anniversary edition of the LP, the concert’s context is outlined in detail. Recorded on 24 January 1975 and originally... Read More

King Crimson formed, played to an estimated crowd of 500,000 at Hyde Park, birthed progressive rock on In The Court of the Crimson King, and disbanded by the end of 1969. Guitarist Robert Fripp took the reins as the group entered an interregnum. For the next two years, Crimson survived on session players and members who left almost as soon as they joined, lacking a definitive lineup to sustain the touring circuit. In The Wake of Poseidon, released in the spring of... Read More

(December 12, 2025 - Los Angeles, CA) Rhino High Fidelity (Rhino Hi-Fi) expands its acclaimed series of limited-edition, audiophile vinyl reissues todaywith two pivotal albums: T. Rex’s Electric Warrior and Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!.Each album was cut from the original analog master tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at Optimal in Germany. Both releases are limited to 5,000 individually numbered copies and available exclusively at... Read More

It's once again time for Tracking Angle's annual holiday gift guide. Whether it helps you find a perfect gift of music or hi-fi for friends and family, or guides you to a self-indulgent present for yourself, either way you're sure to find a high quality something or other guaranteed to bring happiness and good cheer for the holiday season and throughout the next year.

Rather than try to build some suspense and to keep you from just scrolling to the bottom of this review, I’ll just start by saying I love this PrimaLuna Evo100 V2 Phonostage and I’ll be sorry to pack it up and send it back. I was looking forward to trying this new version, as it included the ability to switch between 12AX7 and 6922 tubes in the MC gain section. Herman van den Dungen, PrimaLuna’s founder, told me that PrimaLuna’s designer, Jan de Groot, wanted to make... Read More

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Chicago, IL - December 9, 2025—Thorens, one of the world’s oldest and most iconic turntable manufacturers, has appointed MoFi Distribution as its exclusive distributor for North America. Founded in 1883 in Sainte-Croix, Switzerland, Thorens has shaped the landscape of analogue music reproduction for more than 140 years, from early phonographs to legendary turntables such as the TD 124. Under the leadership of CEO Gunter Kürten, who took over the... Read More

There’s a moment every long-term listener reaches — though nobody ever tells you when it’s coming. It’s the moment when the chase for bigger, better, shinier components suddenly quiets down, and you start paying attention to the space around the notes instead of the notes themselves, when you stop wondering what the next component will reveal and start wondering what’s hiding in the shadows of the system you already love.Spend enough time immersed in this hobby, and... Read More

Little Fwend, the automatic tonearm lifter made by Lasse Gretland of Norway, has grown into a niche success story. Unparalelled product quality and usability – plus attention from Technics – has turned the device into a cult favorite among turntable enthusiasts.

Newvelle Records is having a big record sale between now and Christmas. The company has priced most of its stock at nearly 50% off. Individual records are currently $35-$40. According to Newvelle's Elan Mehler, "Ron Horton's Double LP is $45, Full 6 LP Box sets are $200. We still have a couple of Season 4 Box Sets, Irma Thomas, and Ellis have a couple left as well".Many great records there! Read More

It’s a remarkable moment to be a record collector. Music lovers have never had more ways to hear their favorite albums in whatever format feels right: hi-res files, streaming on the move, sometimes reel-to-reel and cassette tape—the whole buffet. And yet, there’s a meaningful difference between a solid pressing and a pressing built to be the definitive document of an album. Audiophile labels have chased that ideal for decades: each working to deliver versions that... Read More

In April 1958, Chess Records released its third LP, The Best of Muddy Waters. It was a straight up, no compromises, hard blues album, a look back to earlier days of the label when Muddy, recording classic after classic, created the template for what became Chicago Blues. But now Chess was chasing crossover, big money, pop hits, and was no longer primarily a blues label. The prior two LPs, Rock, Rock, Rock, a movie soundtrack, and After School Session, Chuck Berry’s... Read More

UMe's Vinylphyle series, its version of Rhino's High Fidelity reissue series strikes the same pose, hits the same high notes and so far is a complete success. Warner Records should be flattered. With these two strong, image making audiophile quality reissue programs Rhino and UMe have left Sony in the vinyl dust. If Sony's not going to let its master tapes go to others to reissue titles, the least it can do is start a similar series.There are... Read More

Vibraphonist-composer Patricia Brennan is a rare musician: a child prodigy (she started studying music in her native Mexico at age 4) who advanced through the classical world (selected to tour with the Orchestra of the Americas at 17), then won a scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music while also playing with the local Philadelphia Orchestra—and then, when she moved to New York and took up jazz, turned out to have a flair for sophisticated composition and a... Read More

Last night (December 3) at members club/coworking space Neuehouse in Kips Bay, Manhattan, Sony/Legacy unveiled the 50th anniversary Dolby Atmos mix of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, soon to be released on December 12 on standalone Blu-ray and in the multi-format deluxe box set. (I assume the Atmos mix will also stream on Apple Music.) Newly mixed by longtime Pink Floyd engineer James Guthrie, this is the third surround iteration of Wish You Were Here, after the... Read More

Rosalìa is a Catalan singer whose musical studies focused on flamenco, but that is only one aspect of her broad and uncompromising compositional and performance abilities. Born near Barcelona in 1992, she may be more familiar as a pop performer, having produced hip-hop and reggaeton-flavoured tracks with artists like Pharrell Williams. If she is not that familiar to some North American readers today, that might change rapidly; the album “Lux” reached top ten in the... Read More

Vincent Furnier, who took on the Alice Cooper moniker after the titular group had disbanded, triumphed by releasing his first and arguably best solo album, Welcome to My Nightmare. As if going solo was entering the big unknown enough, supporting the album on the road became a huge risk. Cooper and manager Shep Gordon invested over half a million dollars of their own money into the production, making it a win-big-or-lose-everything scenario. Welcome to My Nightmare... Read More

Caelan Cardello’s exciting new Jazz Bird/Liam Records release Chapter One had audiences from the recent Warsaw Audio Video Fair to The Capital Audio Festival applauding as if Caelan and his trio were playing live instead of on 180g vinyl.Musically, Caelan’s studio set debut is nothing like the now sold-out Rufus Reid Presents Caelan Cardello (Liam Records ARF-1)—a live recording of elegantly performed jazz standards that goes down smoothly— like well-aged Scotch.On... Read More

“Some get stoned,

Some get strange,

Sooner or later, it all gets real.”

Keen listeners will recognize these lyrics from “Walk On,” a sunny number Neil Young rambles through on the middle installment of the famed “ditch” trilogy, On The Beach. But as revealed by Neil’s latest release, those words actually speak to the dark and drunk final installment: Tonight’s The Night.