Music Reviews: Vinyl

The core lineup of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers changed regularly, but 1964 brought more drastic changes than usual. On trumpet, Freddie Hubbard had joined the Messengers on 1962’s Mosaic; he stayed until March 1964, when Lee Morgan returned. In September, tenor sax player and musical director Wayne Shorter left to join what became Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet. Pianist Cedar Walton and bassist Reggie Workman followed in their departures, and trombonist Curtis... Read More

Don’t ask how because I don’t know how. But the day after Christmas, I came into possession of a piece of the Grande Ballroom.I'm afraid to touch this thing, for fear it will crumble any more. Honestly, I’m afraid to look at it. It sounds like woo-woo nonsense, but it’s got such intense energy that when I opened the box, I sat on the floor and cried. It felt like opening a tomb. Wrapped in plastic and packing tape like the body of a Lynchian sacrificial lamb was... Read More

Emerging from the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, Silversun Pickups were the ultimate 1990s throwback, embodying a sound that’s best described as ‘Smashing Pumpkins meets My Bloody Valentine.’ The alternative rock revival of the mid-2000s was perfect timing for their inception, where playing “Lazy Eye” on Guitar Hero or noticing “Little Lover’s So Polite” on the soundtrack of Jennifer’s Body turned unsuspecting teenagers into curious fans (myself included).... Read More

A detailed account of this history-making recording session and review of the resulting record includes a personal reflection from engineer Rainer Maillard about working with Pletnev.

It’s funny to think of old, professor-type dudes in internet slop echo-chambers dictating what supposedly is and isn’t “rock-and-roll,” when age is antithetical to the “rock-and-roll” ideal itself. When Grace Slick retired from music, she declared, “All rock-and-rollers over the age of fifty look stupid and should retire.” Grace’s statement is faced with an immediate conundrum: the aging rock star. If these guys really look as dumb as she says they do on their... Read More

The scope of modern music is so vast that almost everything and anything is dubbed under a specific subgenre. In the case of Blackwater Holylight, the all-female trio are the queens of ‘doomgaze.’ Their sound is rooted in doom metal, drawing obvious influence from Monolord and Weedwater, yet interjects shoegaze overtones, akin to My Bloody Valentine and Cocteau Twins, providing many textural layers. Coupled with introspective lyrics about vulnerability and... Read More

"This looks like a fire drill at an assisted living center" I quipped to my wife as we exited the Mayo Performing Arts Center theater and into the lobby March 13th, 2024 following Peter Frampton's energized and most enjoyable "feel good, rock hard" performance. Sorry, but that's what the audience looked like half a century later. At least we still are alive. I could give you a long list of who's not as I'm sure can many reading... Read More

If you're old enough to have bought Axis: Bold As Love when it was first released in January of 1968, and you were a stoner, you'll not likely ever forget your first spin, especially in stereo, wearing Koss Pro 4A headphones. Eddie Kramer was never shy about using the pan pots and things flew around your head and shifted left to right to left, sometimes without purpose. But it was fun, it was a free-wheeling time and Jimi had as deft a sense of humor as he... Read More

Let’s cut to the chase: Miles Davis’ The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel is one of the most thrilling jazz albums ever, ceaselessly captivating, “the sound of surprise” (as Whitney Balliett once defined jazz) at every turn. A 10-LP boxed set, recorded live at a small Chicago club called the Plugged Nickel in December 1965, it captures Miles Davis, the most masterfully innovative trumpeter of the era (perhaps of all eras), fronting what came to be called his... Read More

The music of 007 continues to shine in this La-La Land Records' release of - finally - all the music from John Barry's superb score for Moonraker (1979). With substantially upgraded sonics, fans can now enjoy a musical highlight of the series both on CD and vinyl. Includes an interview with reissue producer Neil S. Bulk.

Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), Igor Stravinsky’s primal ballet score, stands at the crossroads of much of music and art. Premiered in the spring of 1913 it sits ominously in between the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, and the start of the first world war in 1914. All three pivotal events in retrospect, are seen as starting points of the modern age. But we must ask: why is this 35 minute ballet deserving of such historical weight? What makes it the point... Read More

Mick and Keith went shopping for a new guitarist after Mick Taylor exited the band. Why not conduct live auditions in the studio while tape rolled and let's produce an album out of that? The original Black and Blue release Spring 1976 was in many ways an anti-climactic affair. An unfocused set of tunes, some great, some less so. A middling quality gatefold jacket, no annotation of any kind, just an inner sleeve showing the "Glimmer Twins" as producers... Read More

Powerful blasts of syncopated big band brass driven by the core quartet's sinewy rhythmic thrusts deliver an album's worth of adrenaline inducing musical aggression that resonates as appropriately today as it did in 1971 when this Strata-East label's debut album was originally released. As annotator Syd Schwartz points out, the album was a "musical project, self-powered, self-funded and done 100% on their own terms", but others saw it as... Read More

Following the commercial flop of Astral Weeks, his moody, mystical, musically eclectic masterpiece, that years later found its commercial footing, to detach themselves from New York City chaos, Van Morrison and wife Janet (Rigsbee) Planet moved to the Catskill Mountains near the town of Woodstock, New York.Earlier, following the break up of his group Them, he'd signed a contract with Bert Berns's Bang Records and in March of 1967 entered famed A&R... Read More

In the mid-seventies Philips recorded Colin Davis conducting the Boston Symphony in a complete cycle of Sibelius’s numbered symphonies, beginning with this classic coupling of the Fifth and Seventh. Now remixed and remastered by Rainer Maillard and Sidney C. Meyer at Berliner Studies, it is one of three new releases inaugurating Decca’s new Pure Analogue Project remastering and remixing celebrated vintage titles.

David Bowie’s artistry and career are pinpointed by not just what genre he was exploring at a given point in time, but by the cities of the world in which he found himself. Glamorous London was the hub for Ziggy Stardust, Philadelphia’s soulful streets influenced Young Americans, debaucherous Los Angeles in 1976 gave birth to Station to Station and the Thin White Duke.The Thin White Duke was an extension of Thomas Newton, an extraterrestrial character that David Bowie... Read More

In 2000, Warning’s prominent acoustic guitars and more nuanced lyrical approach might’ve alienated Green Day's core fanbase, as it sold significantly less than their previous major label LPs and seems comparatively forgotten in the popular memory. Now, however, a lavish 25th anniversary 5LP or 4CD super deluxe box set presents Warning as the excellent power pop record it’s always been.

• Officially Sanctioned Concord Music Group, Inc.
ALL VALVE Heritage pressing cut directly from the original analogue master tapes.
• No equalization, compression or any other processing undertaken during the cutting process.
• Cut in TRUE monaural using 1960's Lyrec SV8 all valve cutting system and Ortofon DS522 mono cutter head.
• Hand-crafted sleeve artwork faithfully recreated using a vintage letterpress procedure.
• Released in strictly limited, individually - numbered edition of 345.