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.

In early November I posted a "re-do" story about the AFI Flat.Duo originally reviewed back in February. The "re-do" article included files comparing an excerpt from side one of the 4 LP one-sided reissue of the famous Reiner/CSO stereo recording of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" recorded in stereo in 1954 but not released in stereo until 1960 As LSC-1806. After recording it I put it into the AFI Flat.Duo, set it to "Relax" mode and... Read More

This interview with recording engineer Shawn Murphy originally appeared in The Tracking Angle print magazine published right around this time 30 years ago. This weekend, the L.A. & Orange County Audio Society will present Shawn with a "Record of the Year" award for his recording of Yuja Wang performing Shostakovich's Piano Concertos 1 and 2 reviewed on this website. More significantly the recording is up for a Grammy Award. We published it back in September, 2022 as the new website was going live but I thought it a good idea to bring it now to the front page.

Back in 2019, Crosley and Record Store Day revived the 3” 8ban records originally developed in Japan by Bandai and Toyokasei. These 33rpm single-sided 3” singles did okay as a collectors’ novelty, with one main problem: some of the spindle holes aren’t the standard size, so one must spend $70 on the special Crosley player (fitted with an Audio-Technica AT3600L cartridge) to play them.Now, Tiny Vinyl aims to replicate that novelty value with wider compatibility.... Read More

It was one of those steamy July days in Manhattan when everyone looks and feels like a damp hot dog that’s just been pulled from a street cart. Piling on to that discomfort are the handcuffs Arthur Baker is being fastened to after being slammed up against a wall near the corner of West 37th Street for supposedly hitting a traffic warden with his car. The false charges are eventually dropped, but the memory of missing out on reuniting with Bob Dylan after one of his... Read More

Sony/Legacy, which in 2021 acquired from Warner the American rights to most of Prince’s imperial 1980s catalog, hasn’t been too active in mining his legendary vault, maybe because of issues over who actually owns what of the unreleased material and for where. (Territorial rights splits between major labels easily become an inefficient nightmare for everyone.) Aside from partnering with Warner on a super deluxe Diamonds and Pearls box set, Sony’s work has been... Read More

The enduring charm of this soundtrack and the 1/2 hour animated special associated with it—the one that everyone loves no matter age or religion—had an unusually troubled beginning. It almost wasn't produced. No one at the three networks was interested in an hour long Charlie Brown special having nothing to do with Christmas so it was trimmed to a half hour version but still in 1964 no one wanted it. But Fantasy had commissioned Vince Guaraldi to produce a... Read More

This year's Black Friday RSD titles aren't the greatest but there's still many worth considering and I've played the ones I'm recommending so there won't be any sonic surprises. I've found that some of the most desirable will later be found on Discogs and Ebay for premium prices but many that are out of the way and ones you might want will be offered at the "list" price.

Spins of Ray Charles's Ingredients In a Recipe For Soul—original ABC-Paramount pressing followed by a new Tangerine Records reissue appropriately pressed on orange vinyl— preceded a first play of Jerome Sabbagh's latest album of 8 originals each dedicated to a different individual, a few with whom he's crossed career paths, but others not. Coincidentally, the bluesy opener "Lone Jack" dedicated to both Ray Charles and Sabbagh's producing... Read More

Mack Avenue Music Group and Strata-East Records recently announced the physical release of four legendary albums from the Strata-East catalog. Celebrating the revolutionary spirit of one of the most influential artist-owned independent jazz labels in history, Strata-East titles from Charles Tolliver & Stanley Cowell, The Heath Brothers, Cecil McBee, and The Descendants of Mike and Phoebe will be released on CD and 180-gram vinyl, with audio cut directly from the... Read More

If you already own the earlier edition of Anthology 1, 2, and 3, this new box set containing those plus Anthology 4— 13 previously unreleased tracks and 17 songs selected from super deluxe versions of five classic albums plus 2025 Jeff Lynne mixes of "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love"— might not be enough to get you to buy it yet again but maybe the additional 26 never before released on vinyl tracks will entice you to buy the separately available... Read More

The third and final video coverage of the Capital Audio Festival 2025 features mostly "room walk ins" plus a few interviews. You'll walk into rooms featuring Acora, VPI, VAC, ,EMM Labs Credo, Aequo, Trilogy, Burmester, Audience, Martin Audio, Luxman, Estelon, Vitus, Crystal Cable, Sonorus, SAT, Lyra, Lampizator, Tidal, REL, Turnbull, C.A.T., Göbel, EMM Labs, Revox and THRAX.Because of technical issues related to a truly stupid function on the DJI Pocket... Read More

Capital Audio Festival Part 2 coverage begins with the final room I visited on Sunday thanks to a tip from Stereophile's Herb Reichert. A chance lobby encounter had Herb going on about the goings on on the 8th floor in the La Dolce Audio room. Herb's tastes run to esoteric tubey stuff, just as he insists mine are towards "oligarch" products. I plead guilty, though I also try to review affordable stuff. Fortunately I took Herb's word for his... Read More

Capital Audio Festival 2025 was the largest ever and perhaps the most unusual, starting with a manufacturer greeting me by grabbing my junk. Not kidding. I've been described as being "a handful", but this was too literal for my liking. I didn't give him the pleasure of a reaction. Just glad to be wearing my Tommy Johns, which put everything in a neat package. Ok, enough of that. This was the largest Cap Audio Fest ever in terms of manufacturer... Read More

The Donnas were at a career crossroads in the mid-2000s. Atlantic Records’ revolving door of personnel left the group without the core team of people who helped market them via product placements, both benefiting album sales and landing them major tours. First-year sales of 2004’s Gold Medal were a mere 20% of what 2002’s Spend The Night achieved. Atlantic insisted that The Donnas’ follow-up effort be more rooted in pop and assisted by outside writers. Not aligning... Read More

The "Studio Confidential" event announced a few weeks ago had a pre preview last night (Nov.18th) at Technica House in Manhattan and it was well-worth attending. On hand with entertaining anecdotes were Niko Bolas, Frank Filipetti, Jimmy Douglass, Chuck Finlay, Sylvia Massy, and Elliot Scheiner. George Massenburg did something he never does while working: he "phoned it in" because he was working on the west coast.This was not a tech-based... Read More

You'll note that this press release is authored by me and not by "Tracking Angle" as most pressers are. That's because I took original promo copies of both of these early I.R.S. records (I.R.S. was a record label founded by Police drummer Stewart Copeland's brother Miles and Jay Boberg, distributed by A&M) to the Capital Audio Festival and played them for a room full of people, all of whom thought the new One-Step Murmur absolutely crushed... Read More