Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
"Heigh Ho"—Blake Mills Goes to Work
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 26, 2016  |  4 comments
Though he's but thirty years old, guitarist, record producer, studio session and touring band member Blake Mills has had already had a dizzying career. He's toured with Jenny Lewis and Band of Horses and Lucinda Williams. He's done session work for Norah Jones, Weezer, The Avett Brothers and Andrew Bird among many others and he produced Alabama Shakes' Sound & Color for which he received a producer of the year, non-classical, Grammy nomination.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
The Monty Alexander Trio Live! at the Montreux Festival
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 02, 2016  |  1 comments
Jamaican-born pianist Monty Alexander still tours at age seventy two. He was but thirty two when this live album was recorded at The Montreux Jazz Festival.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Mobile Fidelity Reissues Love's "Forever Changes" at 45rpm
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 02, 2016  |  31 comments
One of the great albums of the 1960s—for me an essential album— gets the double 45rpm treatment from Mobile Fidelity. Rhino reissued this a few years ago mastered by Chris Bellman and Bernie Grundman Mastering from the original tape.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
"Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook" Coming Soon From Analog Spark
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 15, 2016  |  14 comments
Originally released as a double LP back in 1956, Ella Fitzerald Sings the Cole Porter Song Book was both the first of her "songbook" albums and the first release on Norman Granz's then brand new Verve Records (MG V-4001/2).

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Sam Records Reissues Miles Davis's "ascenseur pour l’échafaud" Soundtrack in its Original 10" Format
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 18, 2016  |  18 comments
Best known to American Miles Davis fans as side one of the twelve inch Columbia Records LP release Jazz Track (CL1268), Ascenseur pour l’échafaud (“Elevator to the Scaffold”), the jazz soundtrack to the Louis Malle film was originally released in France in 1958 on the Fontana label as a 10” LP.

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Album Reviews
"American Tunes" Is Allen Toussaint's Most Generous Posthumous Musical Gift
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 26, 2016  |  5 comments
The late Allen Touissant preferred working in the background for most of his long career. He got his start playing piano in the 1950’s, when his Dr. Longhair-influence rollicking style caught the ear of Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino’s producer.

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Album Reviews
The Moody Electronica of Apple Rabbits' "Oberkampf"
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 26, 2016  |  0 comments
Jay Fisher, in his mid-forties is Apple Rabbits. He writes and arranges, sings, plays guitar, bass, piano, keyboards and percussion. He also likes to experiment with electronica. The strings and flutes on this record are real though, and very convincingly recorded .

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald Performed By Clare Teal Recorded Direct-to-Disc
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 26, 2016  |  15 comments
Recording direct-to-disk is difficult enough. The entire side has to be cut in one long take. Consider a big band vocal album like this, which has four songs per side. The orchestra and singer have to be ready as soon as the cutting stylus hits the lacquer and then they have to perform flawlessly on each track, pausing but a few seconds between songs.

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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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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
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
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
"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
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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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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