Album Reviews

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Three Percussion Records You Should Own
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 26, 2017  |  43 comments
Pictured are three percussion records you should own—especially if you feel like banging your head against the wall. One is an "oldie" Living Stereo novelty that's back in print, one was originally released in 1984 thanks to a grant from The National Endowment For the Arts (today an endangered species) reissued in the 1990s and one is a current release.

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Album Reviews
Erroll Garner's "Ready Take One" Turns Heads and Taps Toes
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 24, 2017  |  9 comments
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Album Reviews
Taj Mahal's "Labor of Love" Is A Field Recording Your Ears Will Like and Your Heart Will Love
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 24, 2017  |  4 comments
We think of "field recordings" as vital ancient musical history, primitively captured. These "field recordings" dating from the 1990s were recorded using a pair of Bruel & Kjaer 4165 microphones and B&K power supply, Cello preamp, Apogee 1000 ADC and a Nagra D digital recorder given by Mark Levinson (the man) to producer Timothy Duffy .

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Two Laura Nyro Classics Reissued AAA By Analog Spark
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 03, 2017  |  10 comments
There was a period in '60s record history when you could buy "by the label" and pretty much be assured of a great listen. It was true of Elektra and later, after it got off its "high horse," Columbia, which for a while wouldn't touch rock.

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Album Reviews
"The Ultimate Roy Orbison" All Your Roy On Two LPs?
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 29, 2016  |  14 comments
This is the first Roy Orbison collection that includes material from all of Roy's excellent recorded adventures. There are twenty six tunes in all, culled from Sun, Monument, MGM, Virgin and The Traveling Wilburys.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
The Berlin Philharmonic's Direct-To-Disc Brahms Symphonic Cycle Conducted By Sir Simon Rattle
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 23, 2016  |  21 comments
The just released (November 18, 2016) six LP box set of the four Brahms symphonies recorded direct-to-disc performed by Sir Simon Rattle and The Berlin Philharmonic before a live Philharmonie audience is as meticulously produced and presented as its existence is unlikely.

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Album Reviews
Digging Into the Liturgy of the Phonograph's First Eleven Years
Tristram Lozaw  |  Dec 21, 2016  |  1 comments
We make a seasonal exception to our vinyl-only review policy and publish Tristram Lozaw's review of the double Grammy Nominated (Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes) three CD plus harcover book set Waxing the Gospel: Mass Evangelism and the Phonograph, 1890-1900.

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Album Reviews
"A Capitol Christmas" Double LP From the Vaults Worth Owning
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 11, 2016  |  3 comments
Producer/annotator Jay Landers has pulled from Capitol's rich vaults some of the label's best Christmas music that the label has issued as a double LP set complete with excellent liner notes (they are back.

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Album Reviews
2007 Never Before Released Jazz Album Made For These Times
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 11, 2016  |  3 comments
According to the liner notes for this record that's guaranteed to knock you out in a good way, both musically and sonically, the aggregate known as "The CO-OP" began as an "ad-hoc" backing band for the Swedish singer-songwriter Malin Johansson, A/KA Blue Utopia. The more you search online for information about Ms. Johansson or Blue Utopia, the less you'll find, not that it really matters.

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Album Reviews
Angel Olsen's "My Woman" Is Her
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 10, 2016  |  7 comments
Angel Olsen's third album reminds me of Elvis Costello's first even though she's mostly vulnerable whereas Costello was angry and snarly. The similarity is in how both make fresh older rock conventions like power cords and '50s era rhythms.

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Album Reviews
Unboxing David Bowie's "Who Can I Be Now?" Box Set
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 30, 2016  |  18 comments
The second David Bowie box set covers but two years—1974-1976—but for David Bowie that timespan leaped across a few musical universes.

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Album ReviewsNews
Newvelle Records Completes First Year and Funds Second
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 27, 2016  |  13 comments
The subscription-based, vinyl-only record label Newvelle Records is an audacious project on many levels—a “closed loop” system wherein jazz enthusiasts pay an annual “membership fee” of $425 (includes shipping) and receive six Newvelle-produced records—all performed by mostly familiar “world class” artists— over the course of the year.
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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Kult of Kogan Kontinues!
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 20, 2016  |  21 comments
By now you know the drill: The Electric Recording Company finds a collectible and music-worthy title to reissue and does its fanatical-attention-to-details thing, both in the mastering from the original tape on a lovingly restored all-tube cutting system to a meticulously produced record sleeve and jacket that are in most ways difficult to distinguish from the original as described in previous ERC reviews.

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Album Reviews
Ravi Shankar's At Home Performance Led to The Concert For Bangladesh
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 01, 2016  |  6 comments
This fascinating Record Store Day release last spring probably got lost in a crowd of LPs so you may have missed it. I did. it was recently sent to me for review by Northern Spy Records (NSPY).
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Album ReviewsFeatures
The Rolling Stones in Mono Box Set Reviewed
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 28, 2016  |  73 comments
You don’t have to be Phil Spector or Brian Wilson to appreciate mono sound, as anyone who’s purchased the recent mono Beatles box can attest. When these records were originally produced, they were meant to be heard in mono both because they were played on the AM radio, which was mono and because the young people buying the music mostly had monophonic record players. Plus that is how The Rolling Stones wanted to be heard, which is the most important reason of all.

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