Music Reviews: Vinyl

A perfect black and white frozen New York City cover for an album released February of 1974 when winters there were still really cold and "pretzles" (sic) were 15 cents. The master tape images in the fold out containing Donald Fagen's notes show that the mixes were finalized on February 5th, lacquers cut at The Mastering Lab on the 6th and the record released for sale on the 20th. That's a pretty fast turnaround! Speaking of fast, compared to the... Read More

Here's Tracking Angle's exclusive look and listen to Intervention's upcoming limited to 2500 copies Frampton@50 3 LP box set cut from analog tape by Chris Bellman and sounding like it! Intervention worked with Peter Frampton to get this box to look and sound the way he wanted it and the results are what every great reissue should look and sound like. The box rights a musical wrong.

This review was brought to the attention of the producer Jason Jones who insists, and I believe him, that this record and "Dixie Chicken" as well, were cut by Bernie Grundman using the original master tapes. A number of readers asked why I didn't first check with people involved. A few times in the past I was assured what I was hearing was AAA even though it sounded otherwise and later I found out I'd been correct and had been handed a line. Here Jones says he can provide documentation that it was cut from tape so I'll take his word for it and issue here a "mea culpa". I was wrong and I apologize. However, I will still write reviews based on what I hear and I'm happy to be corrected and issue a mea culpa later, if only because I've previously been burned. So, Jason, my apologies and I've revised the review below but not to "cover my tracks".

People are hardly self-sustaining. Everyday life neglects and misaligns our spirit. Periodically, everyone must seek a spiritual tune up. Some read, some paint. Others meditate, chasing the unrivalled clarity silence offers. Most reading these words prefer music. Though not all artists create equal music. Many albums, while fun, are just that; lighthearted pleasure. Compelling music reorients its recipient. Of course, lighthearted pleasure isn’t especially compelling. Susanne Sundfør’s Blómi is. The Norwegian artist’s sixth studio album checks all boxes. It’s creative, inquisitive, and intricate, incorporating multiple cultures. Chiefly, Blómi certainly spiritually revitalises its listener.

In 2023, Serge Gainsbourg is possibly more controversial than he’s been since his 1991 death from a second heart attack at age 62. The upcoming museum opening of the artist’s Paris home, at 5 bis rue de Verneuil, sparked more than a few debates: can we still listen to the album about pedophilia made by a 42-year-old man with appearances by his 24-year-old girlfriend? Is it alright that he made a song with his then-12-year-old daughter about incest? Does anyone even... Read More

For what may have felt like a death knell for the godfathers of metal, vocalist Ronnie James Dio was a saving grace for Black Sabbath when in 1979 original vocalist Ozzy Osbourne made his exit. Dio brought forth some fresh approaches to the Sabbath mold, adding fantasy-based lyrics and more intricate vocal melodies. This allowed the band to write in a new direction and evolve further. The first offering of Black Sabbath Mark II, 1980’s Heaven and Hell, broke the slump... Read More

Where to start here? They still can't spell the late Doug Sax's name correctly so let's start there. It's not "Sachs". They made a mistach on the original, understood. If they repeated it to preserve the jacket's "authenticity", then why add the additional credits? But more to the point, why take a wonderful, magical recording, with depth, space, transparency, transient purity, shimmer, delicacy, three-dimensionality and... Read More

When I opened the package that contained this album, I rolled my eyes and said, “Just what the world needs, another audiophile reissue of Waltz for Debby.” But on a few seconds’ reflection, I dropped my cynicism. The previous reissues, on vinyl anyway, were either out-of-print or available only as part of an enormous, expensive 11-album boxed set, so, yes, this is at least one of the things we can welcome to the world with joy. Waltz is the best album in Bill Evans’... Read More

After dominating the UK music scene in 2021 with her epic, bombastic LP “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert”, Little Simz (real name Simbi Ajikawo) wasted no time in returning with another magnificent expression of her partnership with producer Inflo. While her latest LP “No Thank You” was released on streaming services in December 2022, the physical formats, including a range of vinyl variants, finally surfaced in mid-June 2023.Before turning to the exceptional Little... Read More

Barbra Streisand has garnered virtually every accolade, tribute, award, and honor it’s possible for a great popular artist to get: ten Grammys, nine Golden Globes, five Emmys, two Oscars, and a Tony, not to mention four Peabody Awards, the American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts, and France’s Légion d'honneur. Her albums have been reshuffled, remastered, and reconfigured with almost... Read More

1971 was a mammoth year for the Alice Cooper group (not to be confused with the group’s frontman who would eventually go solo). After delving into Los Angeles-tinged psychedelic freakouts with their first two albums, Pretties for You and Easy Action, the group relocated to the Metro Detroit city of Pontiac, Michigan. Within the area that embraced the harder driving sounds of The Stooges and MC5, the band was able to hone in on a straightforward hard rock sound. This... Read More

What do you get when you combine acoustic singer-songwriter qualities with the electronic and infectious beat of the dancefloor? You might find something similar to the German duo of childhood friends, Clemens Rehbein and Phillipp Dausch who go by the moniker Milky Chance. This review may be your introduction to the band—if so, then Willkommen!—but Milky Chance have existed for about a decade and have just released their seventh full-length, Living in a Haze on their... Read More

Josh Smith records the epic inner struggle between music and hatred, which provides the backdrop to his review of the late Republican operative's infamous vanity project.

If we set our musical Wayback Machines to 1976 what do we find dominating the radio landscape? ABBA had two of their biggest singles that year, “Dancing Queen” and “Fernando” and Queen was king with “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” was a monster hit, as was Elton John and Kiki Dee’s, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. If there is one commonality between those five songs, it’s the slick and glossy - perhaps even hedonistic - production values. For better... Read More

Brotherhood kills two birds with one stone. The first bird climbs high altitudes, showing no hesitation. This bird possesses two key qualities: strength and valiancy. Strength—the ability to grapple the truth—compliments valiancy. Above the clouds one finds the first bird. It soars despite the truth: if it falls, the ground takes its life. On the ground one finds the second bird, the first bird’s antithesis. Whilst the first bird aims beyond the sky, the second bird... Read More

Sasha Matson first came to the attention of many audiophiles with his 1993 Audioquest release "i-5/Steel Cords" (Audioquest AQ-LP 1013), which includes the most unusual "Works For Pedal Steel Guitar, Harp and Strings" and i-5" a paen to Interstate Highway 5, the road that in the late 1980s brought Matson from Berkeley to Los Angeles (the composer will probably tell me "paen" is the wrong word for his tribute, but that's okay).... Read More