Beck, Crosby, Verlaine and today Burt Bacharach. He was 94. No one reading this needs a list of his memorable, hummable tunes sung by The Shirelles, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, The Beatles, Burt and Elvis Costello. Burt and Hal David channeled through their songs a woman's world as few if any male songwriters managed.This is a sad but appropriate time to re-publish this interview that first appeared in The Absolute Sound that I conducted by phone with Burt... Read More

Forget the bloated “prequel” film trilogy by Peter Jackson. If you want to experience the real magic of J.R.R. Tolkien’s first novel, seek out a copy of this beautiful recording by the quirky Scottish actor, Nicol Williamson.Whenever I pop into a record store, I always make a point of checking out the Spoken Word section. There are many unusual treasures to be found here, usually at rock bottom prices. And if you’re lucky, you might score a copy of this 4-LP set... Read More

Oh, Yoko! A more polarizing figure in music history is hard to find, but soldiering on in the face of criticism is part of what Yoko Ono has always done and continues to do - without apology or excuse - even as she enters her 90th year. Not only has Yoko persevered after witnessing the death of her husband at the hands of a madman over 40 years ago, but since that fateful day she has lived a second life and continued to create meaningful art while cultivating a... Read More

(Los Angeles – February 3, 2023)— The Marley Family Tuff Gong, and UMe commemorate Bob Marley’s 78th birthday....with a series of events, including a dozen limited-edition Bob Marley vinyl LPs each numbered and press exclusively at the legendary Tuff Gong International headquarters in Kingston, Jamaica featuring nine original studio an two original live albums plus Legend the world's best-selling reggae album.Interesting fact #1: The limited-edition albums were... Read More

Veteran journalist Allan Kozinn and documentarian Adrian Sinclair set out to climb "Mount McCartney" over three massive volumes that place the ex-Beatles solo career under a new microscope.

This year's 12 Verve/Impulse! titles were announced today, all cut by Ryan Smith using the original master tapes. First to be released will be The Oscar Peterson Trio's Night Train.

After finding a white-label seven-inch promo copy of the Stones' most controversial song, the author finds the alternate mono version of "Brown Sugar" to be both piercing and majestic. After considerable thought and listening came the discovery that the Stones' best work is also their most provocative and outrageous.

In Starting a Jamaican Music Collection—Part 1:Ska, we highlighted ska, the first of the big three genres (the others are rock steady and reggae) that made Jamaica famous worldwide. Indeed, this Third World country has carved out a place in 20th century music history that far belies its small size and population. And again, IMO Bob Marley is THE musical artist of the 20th century.Ska, which dominated from around 1960 to 1966, was essentially upbeat and boisterous... Read More

I'm about to submit to TAS a full review of the new Kuzma Safir 9 tonearm. I thought it useful to post on YouTube an arm overview along with a visual explanation the workings of the unique 4 Point bearing system. It's all in this short video. Read More

ECM today announced six new titles available now or coming soon on vinyl. The titles are: Avishai Cohen: Naked Truth (pictured above), Mark Turner: Return from the Stars (available March 25th)—Tord Gustavsen Trio: Opening—John Scofield: John Scofield—Oded Tzur: Isabela—Enrico Rava & Fred Hersch: The Song is You—Within the press release: There is a searching, yearning quality to Naked Truth, and a raw beauty and vulnerability in Avishai Cohen’s trumpet sound on his... Read More

The legendary recording engineer and Michael Jackson/Quincy Jones right hand man, Bruce Swedien, loved Norwegian Electrocompaniet amps so much that they were credited on Michael Jackson's album covers. The company's founder, Per Abrahamsen, passed away before Christmas.

Blue Note Records just announced the upcoming 2023 line-up for the Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series, produced by "Tone Poet" Joe Harley and mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio. RTI manufactures the records, which are packaged in deluxe gatefold tip-on jackets. Once again, Harley handpicked the titles, which include include acknowledged treasures from the Blue Note catalog as well as underrated classics, modern era standouts, and albums from... Read More

Last year mastering engineer Kevin Gray built a living room recording studio adjacent to his Cohearent Mastering suite. He's been working on an all-analog recording chain to go with it and now he's ready in this video to show it off. (Photo: L-R: Audio-Fidelity/DCC Compact Classics founder Marshall Blonstein, Fremer, Kevin Gray at Cohearent mastering session for TRON soundtrack album.) Read More

Buffalo, NY, January 5, 2023—Bluebird Music, SME's North American distributor announced today the immediate availability of the all-new SME MK2 series turntables. The SME product range now includes: Model 12 MK2, Model 15 MK2, Model 20 MK2, Model 30 MK2 and Synergy MK2. The main photo is of the Model 15 MK2.According to Bluebird, the primary feature of the MK2 editions is a "highly sophisticated new generation drive system consisting of an A.C. synchronous... Read More

Dizzy, the Internet's most prolific and self-important record holderupper paid a visit to the Tracking Angle studios and I interviewed him! Nothing more needs to be written. Dizzy speaks for himself, or doesn't. Read More

Last summer, while visiting Geneva to attend the Montreux Jazz Festival and produce a Nagra factory tour I also visited darTZeel Audio's brand new manufacturing facility. The company had just moved from its old funky loft location into this brand new, modern cooperative facility and CEO Hervé Delétraz was anxious to show it to me. The Lake Geneva photo was taken from the air as my plane approached the airport.Delétraz had arranged with his friends at Nagra to... Read More

Which is actually quite odd, because Messiah was never intended by its composer as a Christmas piece - quite the opposite in fact. It was originally composed, in 1741, for performance at the most solemn time in the ecclesiastical calendar - Easter. The work tells the entirety of Christ’s story, culminating in His Crucifixion and Resurrection, with a meditation on the meaning of His life and death to Christians. So, this is hardly the stuff of Christmas levity.However,... Read More

In the mid 2010s I had a two hour radio show on the Fairleigh Dickinson college radio station WFDU. It was fun, it was popular and everything played on it was transferred at 96/24 from vinyl so it sounded really good. The weekly show was done under the name of my previous endeavor. I wasn't paid for it so I've gone in and changed the name to "TrackingAngle.com radio". I think you'll really enjoy the eclectic Christmas music and banter from the... Read More

Sorry it's taken so long to edit and post the second video from Warsaw Audio Video Show 2022 held the final few days of October, but based on previous show videos, interest remains strong well after the event. The Warsaw Audio Video Show is now considered Europe's second most important show after Munich, but that's mostly because Munich is more of a business to business show to which consumers are invited, whereas this show is almost exclusively a... Read More