Acoustic Sounds

Features: News

Craft Recordings relaunches Original Jazz Classics – the acclaimed reissue series that faithfully presented more than 850 memorable jazz albums over three decades. The soon to be relaunched reissue series will be focused on audiophile-quality vinyl and HD audio releases. Upcoming reissues include titles from Bill Evans, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Mal Waldron and Yusef Lateef, with further details to be announced soon via Craft Recordings. First launched in 1982... Read More

The series Includes jewels of the label’s deep catalogue that have long been out of print or have never been available on vinyl, packaged in elegant, high-quality editions cut from the original masters made in Europe analogue production wherever possible 

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February 18th, 2023

Rich Record Store Day 4/22 Offerings! here are some "must haves"

By: Michael Fremer

This year's RSD offerings are many, varied and of great interest whatever your musical tastes. The lead image shows the Craft offerings that includes the first American mono reissue of "Chet" by Chet Baker, Jonathan Richman's country record "Jonathan Goes Country" from 1990, Travis's "The Invisible Band Live", and others. Here are some great ones. At the bottom is a link to the Record Store Day listing of all titles. From... Read More

VMP's January 2023 "Record of the Month" is The Grateful Dead's "Anthem of the Sun"—the original 1968 mix not the 1971 Lesh remix—originally released on Warner Brothers-7 Arts. Chris Bellman cut lacquers using the original master tape for an AAA release. VMP does this so correctly both in terms of how they produce these records and in how they describe the process: "with AAA lacquers cut from the original master tapes by Chris... Read More

Saxophonist Jerome Sabbagh recently recorded "Vintage", a new all-analog jazz album with Kenny Barron, Joe Martin and Johnathan Blake, tracked to 30 IPS multitrack tape at Oktaven Audio, mixed to a custom, completely restored 1/2" 30 IPS Ampex 351 tube deck. Ryan Streber engineered at Oktaven, Pete Rende mixed at Brooklyn Recording.darTZeel's Hervé Delétraz recently came on board the project as the vinyl edition's Executive... Read More

This Thursday, December 15th from 4PM until 8:30PM at a special event hosted by Maier Shadi at The Audio Salon at The Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Avenue (Gallery F1) Santa Monica, California 90404, I will be be talking about my 60 years of record collecting and offering tips on what to look for and what to avoid when buying records, both new and used. Especially used. It will be more of a conceptual discussion rather than a list of what you should buy and own,... Read More

You have to log into your Sirius/XM account and then you can hear: "...decades of Neil’s classics, tracks from his new World Record LP, and songs from his recently released Harvest 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition featuring outtakes, demos, alternate versions and live tracks."The "Harvest" link takes you to where you can order the deluxe bundle for $149.00. The most interesting thing there is a previously unseen two hour 1971 documentary film shot... Read More

Blue Note announces today a list of new, upcoming titles in its Classic Vinyl Reissue Series, the label's affordable long running series, mastered by Kevin Gray from original master tapes and pressed on 180 vinyl at Optimal. The series is curated by Don Was and Cem Kurosman. The first two coming January 20th, 2023 are Grant Green's "Green is Beautiful" and Bobby Hutcherson's "San Francisco". Both are currently available for pre-order on the Blue Note Store.

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The holiday season is here, and finding good gifts for picky vinyl obsessives can be hard. To provide some suggestions and guidance, we’ve compiled the 2022 Tracking Angle Holiday Gift Guide, selecting some records, gear, and accessories that would make suitable gifts. These products are independently selected by our Michael Fremer and Malachi Lui, and are recommended based on our experiences or personal opinions of each item.

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VMP's just announced December's record of the month is Bob Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" mono edition mastered by Ryan K. Smith using the original analog master tapes.The cut appears to be from a previous one done by Ryan for Music On Vinyl in 2010. The 2010 Columbia box set was mastered by the late George Marino. The records are pressed on "blonde on blonde" colored vinyl.Listening notes by my old pal Michael Simmons. This is a record... Read More

Audio-Technica just announced the return of the $199 AT-SB2022 "Sound Burger" portable record player. It's been bought back after 40 years away to help the company celebrate its 60th anniversary. The Sound Burger is a belt driven portable 33 1/3/45rpm record player driven by a high-precision DC motor. It features a die-cast aluminum alloy platter with "damping design" and is equipped with the ubiquitous Audio Technica AT3600L moving magnet... Read More

I unbox the "Revolver" "Super Deluxe" 4 LP Edition that includes 180 gram vinyl editions of the original mono LP, the new stereo mix by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, two Sessions LPs of outtakes, rehearsals, demos and studio chat, plus a 7" bonus EP that includes the original mono and new stereo mixes of "Rain" and "Paperback Writer". The press release confused me. Apparently only me so I apologize here to the publicist and... Read More

I just posted this "unboxing" video of the new "Revolver" re-mix deluxe 5 CD box set. It includes the original mono mix on a CD, following Harry T. Moss's original vinyl mastering notes. I thought the set would include the vinyl LP but it doesn't. However, the box set presentation is outstanding and the book is really special! Since I've not yet read or listened I've nothing else to add here. Will write a full review ASAP! Read More

This week, Temporal Drift announced the first official CD and vinyl reissues of Japanese psychedelic rock band Les Rallizes Dénudés' three-album discography. Originally released on limited edition CDs in 1991, this series marks the first official vinyl and digital releases of these seminal recordings.The three albums—’67-'69 Studio et Live, Mizutani / Les Rallizes Dénudés, and ’77 Live—capture the band from their formation to their artistic height, and were... Read More

Creed Taylor produced records are no doubt among your most treasured, whether on CTI, which he founded in 1967, or Verve or other labels in which he was involved. Taylor passed away Augusts 22nd, 2022 at age 93. The recently released documentary "Creed Taylor, The Music Came First" is now available as a free, high resolution stream on the Snapshots Music and Arts Foundation website. If you click on "Vimeo" from that site you can watch full screen... Read More

Full disclosure is but one welcomed feature of this ambitious and exciting Steely Dan catalog reissue roll-out from Analogue Productions. All titles remastered from the original analog tapes with the exceptions of Aja and Gaucho. Aja will be mastered from an analog, non-EQ'd tape copy and Gaucho from a 1980 analog tape copy originally EQ'd by Bob Ludwig (who cut the original Gaucho lacquers). According to the press release, it's likely that original... Read More