Album Reviews

Sort By: Post DateTitle Publish Date
Album ReviewsShort Cuts
Short Cuts, Vol. 21: Space Is The Place — Four New & Recent 180g Sun Ra LPs, Plus One From an Artist He Inspired, Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids
Mark Smotroff  |  Feb 14, 2025

The name Sun Ra and the term “free jazz” can conjure up all manner of strange musical imagery, especially amongst those unfamiliar with his music. Alternate identifiers such as “free improvisation” and the more umbrella-like “modern jazz” might ease those anxieties, but the reality is, a lot of Ra’s spirited music is not as random and difficult as some might think. Read Mark Smotroff’s Short Cuts combo review that focuses on five new and recent 180g Sun Ra-centric vinyl releases that we hope will intrigue listeners to explore this fascinating artist’s music with fresh ears and open minds. . .

Continue Reading »
AAA VinylAlbum ReviewsShort Cuts
Short Cuts, Vol. 22, Beaucoup Blues Edition: Four Great 180g 1LP AAA Blues Reissues From John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt & Lonnie Johnson With Elmer Snowden
Mark Smotroff  |  Mar 14, 2025

Original blues vinyl pressings are cousins to jazz and soul LPs in terms of scarcity and availability in super-clean condition, just a few of the reasons why they are often super-expensive propositions in the collector’s marketplace. That all makes these four truly outstanding Acoustic Sounds-pedigreed reissues from Verve/UMe and Craft Recordings’ Bluesville series all the more important — in effect, bringing a quartet of classic LP rarities back into more widespread availability in a high-quality manner. Read Mark Smotroff’s Short Cuts combo review to see which of these four 180g 1LP AAA releases from John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi John Hurt, and Lonnie Johnson With Elmer Snowden belong in your collection. . .

Continue Reading »
Album ReviewsShort Cuts
Short Cuts, Vol. 23, Garage-a-Rama Edition: Enjoying the Endless Pop Possibilities With New LPs From The Remains, Ron Dante, Michigander & Guided By Voices
Mark Smotroff  |  Mar 21, 2025

In our latest Short Cuts LP review roundup, Mark Smotroff catches up on some fun rockin’ albums from artists past and present, including Boston’s The Remains; Staten Island, New York’s Ron Dante (i.e., the voice of The Archies!); Kalamazoo, Michigan’s Michigander; and Dayton, Ohio’s Guided By Voices. . .

Continue Reading »
Album ReviewsShort Cuts
Short Cuts, Vol. 25: Rhino High Fidelity Series Strikes Again With a Pair of 180g 1LP Winners From Alice Cooper & Black Sabbath
Mark Smotroff  |  May 02, 2025
The prospect of reviewing two new Rhino High Fidelity reissues featuring seminal recordings by hard-rockin’ proto-heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper is both exciting and daunting. Read Mark Smotroff’s combo review of the new 180g 1LP versions of Cooper’s 1971 classic Love It to Death and Sabbath’s pivotal 1970 release Paranoid to see if they both make the (up)grade. . .

Continue Reading »
Album ReviewsShort Cuts
Short Cuts, Vol. 26: Craft Recordings’ Most Excellent Bluesville Series Continues With a Pair of 180g LP Reissues From Two Different But Highly Influential Blues Artists, Buddy Guy and Scrapper Blackwell
Mark Smotroff  |  May 16, 2025

The two latest releases in Craft Recordings’ ongoing, and quite superb, Bluesville reissue series sing the joys electric and acoustic blues from two generations of legendary blues artists. The 180g 1LP Bluesville editions of Buddy Guy’s 1968 live Vanguard debut This Is Buddy Guy! and Scrapper Blackwell’s 1962 Prestige Bluesville classic Mr. Scrapper’s Blues are both being released concurrently today, May 16, 2025, so read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if either/both of these blues albums should be instant purchases for your collection and listening pleasure. . .

Continue Reading »
Album ReviewsShort Cuts
Short Cuts, Vol. 27: Elemental Music’s Fine Motown Reissue Series Continues With More 140g 1LP Gems From Jackson 5, Four Tops, The Undisputed Truth, Diana Ross and The Supremes, The Temptations, Gladys Knight & The Pips, and Marvin Gaye
Mark Smotroff  |  May 23, 2025

Today, we continue our deep dive into reviewing seven more compelling, affordably priced, and generally well-made reissues of classic 1960s and early ’70s Motown LPs released by Elemental Music and UMe. Read on to see Mark Smotroff’s Short Cuts takes on the latest round of 140g 1LP reissues from Jackson 5, Four Tops, The Undisputed Truth, Diana Ross and The Supremes, The Temptations, Gladys Knight & The Pips, and Marvin Gaye. . .

Continue Reading »
Album ReviewsShort Cuts
Short Cuts, Vol. 28, New Wave Edition: Catching Up on Cool New LPs From ’80s Icons The Vapors and Peter Holsapple of The dB’s, Plus a Key Of-Era LP Reissue From Violent Femmes
Mark Smotroff  |  Jun 06, 2025

Several iconic, pop-rockin’, punk-adjacent artists from the late 1970s and early 1980s new-wave era have new albums out now — and there are also a number of encouraging audiophile-oriented reissues as well. For this somewhat thematic Short Cuts installment, Mark Smotroff zeros in on a mixture of both by exploring a pair of fun new releases from The Vapors and Peter Holsapple, plus an AAA reissue of a Violent Femmes album we suspect many of us overlooked at the time of its original 1984 release. . .

Continue Reading »
Album ReviewsShort Cuts
Short Cuts, Vol. 30, Deep Funk ’n’ Soul Edition: Rare 1970s Classics From The Meters and Baby Huey Return Via Rhino Reserve 180g 1LP Series
Mark Smotroff  |  Jul 11, 2025

Two iconic pillars of fantastic, fast ’n furious funkified artistry are the focus for today’s deep funk ‘n’ soul edition of our ongoing Short Cuts review series: 1) Fire on the Bayou, the Allan Toussaint-produced, Reprise-released July 1975 sixth LP from New Orleans legends The Meters, and 2) The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend, the lone LP from James “Baby Huey” Ramey, an album that went on to become an influential, and heavily sampled, release for the hip-hop generation. Read Mark Smotroff’s combo Short Cuts review to see how Rhino Reserve has brought these two classic LPs new life on 180g vinyl. . .

Continue Reading »
Album ReviewsFeatures
Should You Sample DJ Format's Devil's Workshop and DJ Shadow's Endtroducing?
Mark Dawes  |  Oct 24, 2021
DJ Format (aka Matt Ford) is a hiphop DJ and producer from Brighton, England. DJ Shadow (aka Josh Davis) is a hiphop DJ and producer from Sacramento, California. Brighton and Sacramento; not the first urban centers you think of in relation to groundbreaking hiphop production. Format and Shadow, however, are at either end of a 25 year continuum of atmospheric instrumental beats. DJ Shadow’s 1996 debut Endtroducing….. which got a half-speed remastered 25th anniversary edition last month, was composed completely from samples, a methodology shared with DJ Format’s latest LP from 2021 Devil’s Workshop.

Continue Reading »
AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Sibelius Piano Trio Performs "The Korppoo Trio"
Michael Leser Johnson  |  Mar 20, 2022
Grammy award winning Yarlung Records out of Los Angeles California has been releasing classical music albums on CD, LP, and R2R tape since as far back as 2006, but they had somehow managed to escape my radar. Better late than never, as they possess all the ingredients necessary to delight readers of this website; including a dedication to minimalist analog recording techniques, and the curation of the finest up-and-coming classical talent working today. This label is run by people (primarily producer and engineer Bob Attiyeh) who care deeply about classical music, and are connected to first rate performers, particularly those who orbit the many concert halls of the greater Los Angeles area. In addition to running a record label, Yarlung also has an associated nonprofit called Yarlung Artists which focuses on getting promising new artists started on their touring career.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Simon and Halee Reunited Again Make Musical and Sonic Magic
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 13, 2016
Reunited with his old friend, producer and engineer Roy Halee, Paul Simon delivers an imaginative and vital record—his most fully realized since Graceland., though its musical complexity and mood more closely resemble Rhythm of the Saints”

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Sinatra Re-records Hits Set List For His Own Label
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 01, 2011

When Frank left Capitol to start his own Reprise label, his old label made a push to reap the old catalogue's financial benefits. Frank fought back by recording in April of 1963 this album of big Capitol hits with arrangements by Nelson Riddle. Sinatra knew the tunes well, laying them all down live with orchestra in two days.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Sinatra Swings Because He Can
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 21, 2013
Frank Sinatra recorded this album for Capitol in the summer of 1960—the same year he left the label and with a few hundred thousand dollars of his own money started Reprise Records. You can be sure plans for the new label were well underway during the production of this thirty three minutes and change long album.

Continue Reading »
AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Singaporean Black Funk Surprise
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 08, 2014
31 year old Singapore-based vocalist Vanessa Fernandez is well known at home as a former member of hip-hop group Urban Xchange, known later as Parking Lot Pimp. That was more than a decade ago. More recently she's been the disc jockey "Vandetta" or "Miss Vandetta" on Mediacorp Radio's 987FM.

Continue Reading »
Album Reviews
Slick Producer Wants to Meet Stoner: Make Beautiful Music?
Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2008

Say what you will about the slick, commercial Nashville sound that’s evolved from the fine “countrypolitan” one developed by Chet Atkins and crew at RCA Studio B back in the ‘60’s, at least they still have great studios, skilled engineers and teams of tasty lick players in Music City, all of which are on display here.

Continue Reading »

Pages

X