Blue Note Records has announced the next run of titles in the Classic Vinyl Reissue Series, which presents affordable 180g all-analog vinyl reissues in standard packaging that are mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes and manufactured at Optimal. Curated by Don Was and Cem Kurosman, the series continues its exploration of the extensive Blue Note catalog with titles that span the many eras and styles of the legendary label’s 85-year history. The newly... Read More

Heritage Auctions now does record albums. That's cool. But what they are doing in this area is anything but!For instance they are auctioning an "early pressing" of Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced? Fair enough! But it's a sealed copy so they don't know if it's a more collectible "Tri-color steamboat" original, or an orange Warner-Reprise or a later Warner Communications copy, or where it was pressed OR ANYTHING. You... Read More

Before packing up the NAIA and returning it to The Sound Organization, I decided to produce a short video "overview" to supplement the long written review published the other day. Read More

Los Angeles – March 21, 2023 – Since launching in 2020, Verve/UMe’s Acoustic Sounds series has delivered best-in-class, all-analog, audiophile-grade pressings of some of the most legendary jazz records from their extensive and eclectic catalog, each mastered from the original tapes and produced with the utmost care. The slate of releases for 2024 is no exception, with a slew of classic records from the likes of Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, Diana Krall,... Read More

Dave McNair listens and evaluates four moving coil cartridge step-up transformers.

The Impex 1Step Getz/Gilberto review included 30 second hi-res "snippets" of seven different pressings: an early original, the 1994 Mobile-Fidelity, the Speakers Corner mastered by Kevin Gray, two George Marino mastered versions (45rpm released 2011 and the 33 1/3 issued in 2020), the Supersense lacquer and of course Impex's 1Step double 45.And here's which was which:1. MOFI2. Speaker’s Corner3. OG4. Impex 5) AP 45 6) lacquer 7) AP 33And there you... Read More

Written by Bill Philpot, the late Paul Messenger and Rega co-founder Roy Gandy, “A Vibrational Measuring Machine” released in 2016 chronicles Rega Research’s long, rich history and the evolution of its design concepts. In its quest to create and market the ultimate “vibration measuring machine”, Rega Research has over the years worked diligently, you could say almost ruthlessly to reduce mass and increase the rigidity of its turntables. A low mass, stiff plinth (or... Read More

KLAUDiO introduces a state of the art turntable featuring a direct drive magnetically levitated platter and an automated spindle and periphery clamp.

Yes, was a clickbait headline. Guitarist Anthony Wilson did not "meet" the rhythm section when last year they stepped into Kevin Gray's Cohearent Recording studio A/K/A "Hackensack West" to record this album live to two track tape, mixed "on the fly" as Rudy did. Wilson has been playing in Diana Krall's band for years with drummer Jeff Hamilton and bassist John Clayton, Jr.. Following this session, they were immediately back on... Read More

Ethan Iverson may be best known as the original pianist for The Bad Plus, a trio that made an improbably huge splash in the early 2000s by grafting jazz rhythms onto such pop and punk tunes as Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” Aphex Twin’s “Flim,” and Abba’s “Knowing Me Knowing You”—and doing it with energy, wit, virtuosity, and genuine cross-genre feel for idiom: no nudge-wink po-mo irony. The group’s drummer and bassist, Dave King and... Read More

There is a moment in the 1950 French film of the Orpheus legend by legendary poet and director Jean Cocteau when the hero enters the shadow world to find his dead wife by passing through a mirror. He stands before the mirror - tentative - and then as he reaches out his hands to begin his journey, they appear to pass through the mirror’s surface.It’s an indelible image that remains iconic to this day, achieved through simple analogue means, that still brings gasps to... Read More

ORG Music continues their rollout of selections from the Westbound Records catalog that have been remastered and reissued on vinyl for the first time in several decades with a rare release from later in the label’s history, Eramus Hall’s, Your Love is My Desire (1980). Armen Boladian founded Detroit’s Westbound Records 1968 and it became a soul and funk dynamo, especially during the years following Motown’s exodus from Motor City. ORG’s series recently included the... Read More

Neil with Crazy Horse (Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina, Micah Nelson and Nils Lofgren) recorded a bunch of old tunes last year giving them new song titles and performing them in an old guy's slop-fun way (at least based on the stream I was given access to). The appropriate album title is FU##IN' 'UP".Excerpts provided from Neil's sleeve notes:“Why do these old songs live so vividly now? They do to me.”“In the spirit it’s offered…made this for the... Read More

The term “supergroup” heralds a level of heightened pressure and expectation. If bands like Cream, Blind Faith, or Emerson Lake & Palmer had instant success granted to them, Bad Company found themselves in good company. The group formed from the ashes of three of England’s beloved groups: Free, Mott The Hoople, and King Crimson. Vocalist Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke had enough of Free’s guitarist Paul Kossoff’s drug abuse and unreliability. Guitarist Mick... Read More

Afric Pepperbird by the Jan Garbarek Quartet with Terje Rypdal, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen was an early ECM touchstone, and the beginning of five decades of cooperation between producer Manfred Eicher, engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug and the four Norwegian players. It gets its first vinyl reissue since 1976 in ECM's Luminessence series.

If the above title scans, then you’re probably already familiar with the well-worn tale of ex-Beatle gone rogue to the far reaches of Nigeria. If not we can refer you to Wikipedia where tales of poor studio conditions, robbery and physical exhaustion all did their best to derail Sir Paul’s fifth solo attempt at getting back into the upper ranks of the pop realm.But if you just glance at the charts from the years before he, the memsahib and Denny Laine set off on... Read More