Visiting the Montreal Audiofest for the first time was a similar experience to my 2022 visit to the Toronto Audiofest. While in very different cities, the two shows have two important things in common: show organizers par excellence, Sarah Tremblay and Michel Plante, and a friendly, easy-going Canadian vibe - with lots of French thrown in to flavor the proceedings.Further similarities to the Toronto (and Tampa shows) were my inability to take notes on the model... Read More

So far we've covered ska in Part 1, rock steady the singers in Part 2a and rock steady the groups in Part 2b. We now come to the deejays and how in the early 1970's they became Jamaica's most popular recording artists.Some of the most famous deejays got their start working for sound systems. As recounted in part 1 of our survey, these sound systems often consisted of a truck equipped with a turntable, speaker, cables and amplifiers. The owners,... Read More

Lana Del Rey delivers her best album yet; Black Country, New Road turn obnoxiously theatrical; Gorillaz' new one bores; Lil Yachty and Slowthai turn to rock

Let’s start with, would you buy an ethernet switch at all? If your music is all in the analog domain, you don’t need one unless it’s for your home theater set-up or for your household Internet and even then, you may be 100% wireless and not need one. And let’s continue with, why is any ethernet switch being reviewed on TrackingAngle.com? And let’s complete the questioning with why is that analog guy doing the reviewing? All good questions.Of course, vinyl records... Read More

This is probably the most costly cavitation based machine you can buy and it's also most likely the most ruggedly built and if not the most effective, among the most effective and easy to use. When you read "the most" or "the best" and the reviewer writing or saying that hasn't sampled every possible contender, whether it's a cleaning machine, or an amplifier or a turntable, or whatever, it's pure clickbait and nothing more. And... Read More

Long after the Western world moved to digital downloads and streaming, CDs reigned supreme in Japan; only now is Japan widely adopting music streaming. Western collectors value Japanese CDs for their nicer packaging and apparent sonic superiority, but even in Japan, imported American and European CDs are cheaper than their locally-made counterparts. To encourage domestic purchases, Japanese labels often add bonus tracks and/or nicer packaging, but they also flaunt their specialized, supposedly superior CD manufacturing technologies.

It was a long time coming, yet shocking nonetheless. Today, it was announced that Japanese innovator Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away on March 28th at age 71. The cause was rectal cancer.

Last month, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced its latest group of nominees for induction, a list which includes Willie Nelson, George Michael, the White Stripes, Joy Division, and other worthy candidates. (The Spinners seem to be a controversial choice, but since my first-ever concert was seeing those Motown legends, I'm rooting for those guys.)No one should be surprised that the Monkees were not included in this list of nominees. I'm pretty sure... Read More

On April 5, 1923, one hundred years ago, in Richmond, Indiana, at the studio of Gennett Records, King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band made the first recordings by African American musicians that are indisputably jazz. They are also the first recordings of Louis Armstrong, who, during the next eleven years, would revolutionize jazz and popular music in America and the rest of the world. Mixing African vocal techniques and concepts of improvisation and rhythm with... Read More

After a failed Netflix deal to put Gorillaz cartoon band members into a full length film, Damon Albarn and illustrator Jamie Hewlett regroup under a slick pop banner to deliver album number eight with the help of mega-producer Greg Kurstin.

Upon reaching a certain age, it’s inevitable to ponder the impending end of the run, to embrace - as Warren Zevon once wryly observed - the importance of enjoying every sandwich. Unfortunately, these thoughts aren’t reserved only for card-carrying members of the octogenarian or nonagenarian membership club. The reality is that this experience of life is something that humans of all ages should appreciate, explore and enjoy. After all, one never knows how long a life... Read More

I interviewed Peter Frampton via ZOOM about his newest project, a recently announced 3 LP box set (as well as on SACD) to be released by Intervention Records, cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering from analog tape. The 3 records can be described as a "donut hole" solo period for the guitarist/singer-songwriter.He'd been in Humble Pie with Steve Marriott, but left to start a solo career. Eventually it paid off hugely with "Comes... Read More

Almost no one asked for 2014’s spotty, blandly produced 'Songs Of Innocence' to be shoved into their iTunes library, and even fewer asked for a nearly three-hour compendium of mostly acoustic rerecordings from the catalog. Of course, U2’s latest project 'Songs Of Surrender,' conceived by The Edge and billed as a companion to Bono’s aforementioned book, is exactly that.

This is the first time I've attended the long running (34 years) Montréal Audiofest, which took place March 24th through the 26th. It falls around my birthday so the timing for me isn't ideal. This year I was asked to present a lifetime achievement award to Oracle turntable designer Marcel Riendau and felt it was an honor and a good thing to do, as an Oracle Delphi was my first high performance turntable, I've reviewed two iterations and Mr. Riendau is... Read More

For anyone more familiar with John Barry’s 50s and 60s discography and his early scores for spy films like the James Bond series or The Ipcress File (1965), encountering his late-career work on films like Dances with Wolves (1990) and Chaplin (1992) can be a bit of surprise. Gone are the stylings of his era-defining London mod classics like “Hit and Miss” and “Beat for Beatniks”, let alone his genre-defining “James Bond Theme” (Barry's arrangement of a melody by... Read More

Cécile McLorin Salvant has reached the point in her career where she can, apparently, get away with doing whatever she wants. Dreams and Daggers and The Window solidified her status as the preeminent jazz singer of our time. Ghost Song, her debut on Nonesuch Records, cracked open all genres, covering a range enveloping Kurt Weill, Kate Bush, Harold Arlen, a 19th-century folk ballad, and a half-dozen original songs, which matched the album’s standards for wit, swing,... Read More

After Peter Frampton exited Humble Pie, but before the double live LP "Peter Frampton Comes Alive!" delivered to him super nova pop stardom (an unexpected career explosion that almost destroyed him) he released a series of superbly crafted A&M albums that caught the ears and eyes of rock cognoscenti worldwide, but didn't exactly light a fire on the Billboard Top 100. In the U.K. Humble Pie was signed to Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records.... Read More

Hopefully, one day soon Neil will reveal the reason he's so rapidly releasing so many Bootleg series titles, but for now he's leaving fans guessing. According to the Warner Music publicist there will be "many more" titles this year. These releases are not randomly chosen. Behind each is a unique story. The latest two, out April 14th are The Ducks High Flyin' and Neil Young and the Santa Monica Flyers Somewhere Under the Rainbow.High... Read More

The best reissues provide fuller context to the material, guiding listeners to (even) more favorably reassess the work without seeming forceful. As more recent installments have generally grown in size and curation quality, the series has become essential for anyone with more than a passing interest in Dylan. The latest set, 'Fragments: The Bootleg Series Vol. 17,' is the definitive collection of session material and tour recordings surrounding 1997's 'Time Out Of Mind.'