Michael Fremer

The Yardbirds original "Shapes of Things" took the protest song—a surprising departure from the group's blues-based output— as a smartly rendered military march with mild middle eastern undertones. Jeff Beck played on the original but here for his first solo outing he led with a slinky, heavily syncopated version that presaged by a few years Led Zep's heaviest of metal. The song's conclusion, a rhythmic meltdown to a complete stop was something altogether new to rock fans. Needless to say, back in 1968 buyers of this record had minds blown, in part thanks to the great Ken Scott's impeccable engineering skills and of course by much of the world's first exposure to Rod Stewart.

Fender the guitar company announced on September 21st the release of this limited edition "The Fender x Mo-Fi PrecisionDeck" turntable created in association with Mo-Fi. The Fender Custom Shop's principal Master Builder Yuriy Shiskov crafted the shape using the same swamp ash wood used in the iconic Fender Precision Bass guitar.

Blue Note today announced an extensive list of upcoming Classic Vinyl Reissue Series titles launching October 1st, 2021 through April 15th, 2022. All reissues mastered by Kevin Gray cut directly from the original analog master tapes, with the exception of two titles, as noted, cut from the digital masters, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal in Germany.

Zesto Audio recently announced this new super-deluxe Andros Téssera phono stage, which features a new 100% tube analog circuit design featuring "optimized" components and a wide variety of performance and convenience upgrades from its previous reference phono preamp.