July 12th, 2024
Rhino High Fidelity Does Eponymous "Bad Company" and Yes "Relayer" sit down! see yourself! stand up! turn around! buy these! By: Tracking AngleLOS ANGELES—Rhino High Fidelity (Rhino Hi-Fi) returns with the latest additions to its acclaimed limited-edition, high-end vinyl reissues. Bad Company’s Self-Titled(1974) debut and Yes’s Relayer (1974) are available today exclusively at Rhino.com and internationally at select WMG stores. Each release is limited to 5,000 individually numbered copies priced at $39.98Rhino High Fidelity has set the industry standard for sound quality and packaging, demonstrating... Read More
Comments: 19July 9th, 2024
Is This The Most Essential Joni Box Set Yet? yes, please read the reasoning By: Michael FremerOn 1974's Court and Spark Joni Mitchell cautiously dipped her musical toes into the jazz pool, adding some studio players like Milt Holland, Wilton Felder and Tom Scott to the arranging mix and capping the record with a sly, startling cover of Wardell Gray and Annie Ross's "Twisted" found originally on Lambert, Hendricks & Ross!: The Hottest New Group in Jazz (Columbia CS 8198). Cheech and Chong added some of their zany comic commentary to the... Read More
Comments: 13July 8th, 2024
The Gryphon Audio Designs Diablo 333 Integrated Amplifier Beauty and The Beast By: Ken RedmondThe Gryphon Audio Designs Diablo 333 integrated amplifier is the highly anticipated, long-awaited replacement for the very successful Diablo 300, which had a remarkable 8-year run and sold thousands of units. This new design incorporates advanced technologies used in Gryphon's flagship Apex and Commander amplifier and preamp. I met Anthony Chiarella, Gryphon's Director of Sales and Marketing for the USA, at AXPONA 2024. We talked about Gryphon's... Read More
Comments: 3July 8th, 2024
I'm So Glad Bluesville Reissued This Skip James Classic! best it has ever sounded and it never sounded bad By: Michael FremerSeries curator Scott Billington says it all in his obi strip annotation: "In the 1960s James may have startled listeners the most, because the haunting quality of his music had only deepened with time". Scott was referring to James's eerie, almost ghostly falsetto vocals that first appeared on record back in 1931 on the Paramount label.This outing recorded January 9 and 10 1966 at Vanguard's 214 West 23rd Street New York City studio, is... Read More
Comments: 6If you click on a writer's name it will take you to a page showing a clickable link to every review by that writer! Try it! You'll like it. Read More
Comments: 5July 5th, 2024
Jason Moran's Classic "Ten," Now on Vinyl The great jazz pianist's breakthrough trio album as a Classic Vinyl two-fer By: Fred KaplanIt may seem odd for Blue Note to reissue Jason Moran’s Ten on two LPs as part of its Classic Vinyl series. For one thing, it was recorded in 2010, a bit recent to be deemed a classic. For another, contrary to the “hype sticker” (and unlike most titles in the series), it was not “mastered from the original analog tapes,” as the album was recorded digitally. (Blue Note has since acknowledged the error.) Nonetheless, the album fits the category. The sound quality, though... Read More
Comments: 9July 5th, 2024
MoFi Electronics Studio Silver MC Perfect MasterDeck Companion Cartridge One down from the top of the Mofi cartridge line By: Michael FremerObviously, MoFi Electronics has not gone into the cartridge making business, though it does manufacture its own turntables and phono preamp. The lineup of three cartridges appears to be manufactured per Allen Perkins' order by Audio-Technica, which has of late been doing this for a number of American companies.The $999 StudioSilver is the middle of the three cartridge line, with the MasterTracker MM below and the $1495 UltraGold MC above. A value-packed cartridge... Read More
Comments: 3July 4th, 2024
Fluance's Top of the Reference Line RT85 Offers Remarkable Value and impressive performance By: Michael FremerIt’s no secret that with vinyl once again popular, many well-known brands eager to enter or re-enter the turntable market have them manufactured at the same well-established, highly capable Taiwanese factory using familiar looking parts. It doesn’t take an ”eagle eye” to spot the similarities. Other companies, like Canada-based Fluance.com, once an “upstart” but now well-established, do likewise. Most of these turntables are not “branding exercises”, in which a... Read More
Comments: 13July 3rd, 2024
The Fly Buzzes Roxy Music's legendary guitarist inks “Revolución to Roxy” memoir By: JoE SilvaAbout 23 pages into “Revolución to Roxy”, you’ll find eight-year-old Phil Manzanera carrying a small tray of cake and Cuban coffee to a man across the road standing watch over an empty house. By way of thanks the guard gives him a “broad smile” and then, as a sort of improvised firecracker, sets off a pinch of gun powder from an empty .303 shell. That’s just one charming glimpse into the life of the Roxy Music guitarist at a time that was otherwise lit up by the... Read More
Comments: 3July 2nd, 2024
UHQR Bill Evans "Sunday At the Village Vanguard" and "Waltz For Debby" Coming from Analogue Productions Kevin Gray mastered from the original analog tapes By: Tracking AngleGreat titles, oft-released, first time on UHQR. What else is there to say? At least until we get to hear it. Read More
Comments: 33July 2nd, 2024
McIntosh Releases an AAA Jazz Album by The Peter Erskine Quartet McIntosh SESSIONS Volume 1 two record set will cost you $150 By: Tracking AngleBINGHAMTON, NY – July 1, 2024 – McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., the premier name in audio excellence, proudly announces the release of SESSIONS Volume 1, a jazz album featuring eight original compositions by The Peter Erskine Quartet. Produced with iconic mastering studio Sterling Sound, this unique collaboration results in an album worthy of the world’s most discerning listeners – McIntosh customers – with the goal of creating the best sounding record possible, while... Read More
Comments: 13July 1st, 2024
Raul Midón Interviewed at "Making Vinyl" Nashville followed by a performance you're sure to enjoy By: Michael FremerThe plan was an on-stage interview with Patrick Leonard, whose new double LP album "It's All Comes Down To Mood" is due end of July. Patrick produced all of Madonna's early Warner Brothers Records, Amused to Death for Roger Waters, two of the final three Leonard Cohen records (he wrote or co-wrote songs on all three), as well as Elton John's Songs From the West Coast. There's more but that's enough! I wrote an essay published in the... Read More
Comments: 3July 1st, 2024
Joe Lovano Records at Van Gelder Studio and You Are Invited to Attend—A Tracking Angle Exclusive! well, I was and here's the video By: Michael FremerWould you like to attend a recording session at Rudy Van Gelder's legendary Englewood Cliffs studio featuring saxophone great Joe Lovano? Of course you would! I was lucky enough to attend one—the only invited journalist—last May 19th, four days after returning from Switzerland following High End 2024. Here's the story. The old audiophile riddle "How do you make $1,000,000 in the audio business? Answer: "start with $2,000,000" didn't... Read More
Comments: 1June 29th, 2024
"Seconds of Pleasure", Rockpile's Solo Release Reissued A Timeless Throwback Pub Rock Classic By: Evan TothThe sum - it’s said - is always greater than the parts. Rockpile may have only released one album, but 1980’s Seconds of Pleasure stands as a prime example of that adage. Nick Lowe (guitar, vocals) and Dave Edmunds (guitar, vocals) were the band's star power, but they brought more than just their entertainment acumen to the table; with them came their longtime musical cohorts Billy Bremner (vocals, guitar) and Terry Williams on “drums, drums, drums” (as the liner... Read More
Comments: 23June 29th, 2024
"Because Sound Matters One-Step"/Warner Records Series Launches With Three Linkin Park Releases "Hybrid Theory", "Meteora" and "Minutes to Midnight" for audiophiles? By: Michael FremerBelow is the press release for a new and some might think surprising "One-Step" audiophile vinyl release for three classic Linkin Park releases, under the "Because Sound Matters" banner relaunched by Warner Records, which now has an online store using that name. "Because Sound Matters" was a vinyl series originally created almost twenty years ago by Tom "Grover" Biery when he was working at Warner Brothers Records. The vinyl... Read More
Comments: 6June 28th, 2024
A Listener’s Guide to Non-Toxic Modern Classical Music These pieces are just good music, period. By: John Marks
Countless pieces of music written by 20th-century (and later) composers are very accessible, listenable, and rewarding. Here are a few.
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