Album Reviews

Album Reviews Short 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

The name Sun Ra and the term “free jazz”

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

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. . .

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Album Reviews Short 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

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. . .

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Album Reviews Short 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. . .

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Album Reviews Short 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

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. . .

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Album Reviews Short 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

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. . .

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Album Reviews Short 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

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. . .

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Album Reviews Features

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.

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AAA Vinyl Album 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.

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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”

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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.