Michael Fremer

Sorry about starting an "Analog" column with an HDCD recommendation, but I was going through a pile of new CDs when the sound of one---Evolution, from Modern Jazz Quartet veteran John Lewis on Atlantic---almost immobilized me. The sonic presentation on this solo-piano set, recorded in January 1999, is exceptionally natural: a well-organized, harmonically and physically convincing, three-dimensional picture of a piano within the reverberant field of a real performance space. Clearly, a minimally miked analog job, and spectacular in its simplicity.

Third Man Records today released three key Muddy Waters Chess singles originally released on 78rpm shellac. The three are "Rollin' Stone" b/w "Walkin' Blues", "She's All Right" b/w "Sad, Sad Day" and "Mannish Boy" b/w "Young Fashioned Ways".

Bassist, group leader and composer Stephan Crump assembled Rhombal, a two-horn, bass and drums quartet to explore a series of compositions he’d written for his late brother. “…it’s a commemoration of a death well-confronted, of a spiritual evolution I witnessed in my brother during out last days together, and of how close we left each other after what had been, for many years, a very troubled relationship.”

+Audio introduced its +Record Player at High End Munich 2017. Now the company has initiated a Kickstarter project to self-fund the +Record Player "Kickstarter Edition.