The year was 1976, long before "hot stampers" were even a thing. John Lennon presided over a good old-fashioned record pressing shoot-out-- in federal court, no less. The pressings played in the Southern District of New York's federal courthouse had songs familiar to lovers of Lennon's ROCK 'N' ROLL album, his beautiful homage to early rock and roll, but the two albums' quality couldn't have been farther apart. The first... Read More

Ry Cooder, in 1959, when he was 12 bought a copy of a ten inch record on an odd label with an amateurish paste-on cover and mimeographed liner notes tucked inside. The record was Get On Board by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, two middle aged Black men who had been playing blues for Black audiences for more than two decades, but now, probably to their own surprise, were becoming popular with young white people. Cooder began listening and woodshedding and we know the... Read More

In 1960, often referred to as “The Year of Africa,” seventeen former French and British colonies in Africa became free, independent nations. In the U.S., in February 1960, the struggle of Black Americans to attain the civil rights which had been promised them by Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, entered a more aggressive, confrontational phase when in Greenville, North Carolina Black students, frustrated and angered by the slow progress in ending segregation,... Read More

Readers on this website might be most familiar with me for my classical music reviews, but the breadth of music I enjoy and collect spans far beyond the purview of Bartok and Brahms. Japanese popular music has long been one of my particular interests. I tracked down my first Dir en grey CDs way back in middle school, and since that time over the last 15 or so years, I’ve been steadily importing physical media from the land of the rising sun. My journey has been long... Read More

This report was originally written in 1994 for The Absolute Sound and never published there. Please keep the date in mind as you read it!–Ed.Everything was out of joint this year (though not out of joints – judging by the odors emanating from some parked cars around the Sahara bi-level), from the unusually cold wet weather – it rained almost every day – to the thoroughly bizarre product mix at The Saharaʼs bi-level complex High End audio exhibits. Who would have dared... Read More

Craft Recordings Celebrates 60th anniversary of Vince Guaraldi's Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus featuring the GRAMMY Award-winning instrumental hit "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" with a Small Batch (limited to 3000 copies) all-analog edition of the original album cut by Bernie Grundman using the original master tapes, "One-Step" processed and pressed at RTI on 180 gram NeoTech VR900 compound. Set for release February 24th, 2023, the Small... Read More

Victrola just announced a series of Sonos-ready turntables, topped by the Victrola Stream Carbon shown in the photo, now available for pre-order. Additional models will follow in 2023.According to the press release, "After a single, simple setup process via a Victrola Stream app, users can control their Victrola Stream turntable from the Sonos app or the illuminated control knob...listeners will be able to send (and control the volume of) the music from a record... Read More

Dead Oceans, Ghostly International, Jagjaguwar, Numero Group and Secretly Canadian—key indie labels— welcome Colemine Records and Sacred Bones to the lineup. "Equal parts pop-up shop, block party and Roadside fruit stand, each event will celebrate music and community through thousands of LPs , cassettes, and CDs plus hi-res listening stations from Qobuz and more", says the press release about the almost two week traveling merch show/block party. How about... Read More

Attn U.K TrackingAngle readers:Deluxe reissue label Numero Group recently announced its return to London for a five-day takeover. From October 5th-9th, for the first time in three years, the Chicago-based record label and rights management organization will bring thousands of LPs, 45s, cassettes and CDs, exclusive t-shirts and hats, test pressings, lavishly packaged box sets and decades' worth of precious lost sounds to a pop-up shop in the Shoreditch... Read More

After making an impressive musical and sonic splash at last winterʼs C.E.S. (1994) with the superlative 200 gram vinyl edition of Muddy Waters Folk Singer (MFSL 1-201) and three less inspired choices: (ELPʼs Tarkus [feh!], Manhattan Transferʼs Extensions [yawn!] and Pink Floydʼs Atom Heart Mother [snooze]), Mobile Fidelityʼs vinyl reissue program sort of dribbled to a stop. In fact, the Pink Floyd didnʼt appear at the show due to a problem MoFi wouldnʼt identify. The... 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

Unlike Sgt. Pepper's… producer Giles Martin explained to an invited group at New York's Republic Studios, the Revolver recorded assets, despite all of the record's innovative studio trickery (mostly done on tech "shoe-string"), did not include pre-mix "stems" that he could use to create a better stereo spread. The album had been recorded to 4 tracks and elements were permanently "married”. Director Peter Jackson's Beatles... Read More

(This feature originally appeared in Issue 5/6, Winter 1995/96.)“Eddie Kramer/Olympic Studios.” A magical combination. Kramer engineered Traffic’s debut album and had his hands all over the group’s second effort. Both are among the finest sounding rock records of the decade. He also is credited on The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet second to Glyn Johns. Kramer also worked with The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Buddy Guy, and Kiss, among others, but his best known... Read More

(This feature originally appeared in Issue 5/6, Winter 1995/96.)Ever hear an LP copy of Maurice Jarré’s soundtrack to Dr. Zhivago? It was released by MGM during the label’s “Sounds Great In Stereo” era. They’d put that statement on the record jacket whether or not what was inside was really recorded in stereo. “It would sound great if it had been recorded in stereo, but unfortunately, it wasn't” is what MGM meant to put on the cover, I’m sure, but they probably... Read More

Back in 1987, I interviewed the young up and coming and not particularly well-known Warner Brothers recording artist Chris Isaak. Thanks to a reasonably successful recording career, an effective and consistent live show, and an unusual “reality”-type comedy series on Showtime, Isaak divides his celebrity between being a respected recording artist, and a campy “celebrity,” known in some quarters simply for being known. With his swept-back ‘50’s hair and Eddie... Read More

MF: And you’re going into the studio in a few weeks?CI: Yup! I hope to record three songs at a time.MF: It seems like there are few young performers willing to accept the responsibility and stick their neck out and be the front man and go for stardom.CI: Yes, I know. Because I kind of see it in the old position of…it used to be a bunch of musicians would go out and play, and there was one guy who was the team ham and he’s elected to go out—if somebody breaks a string,... Read More