LATEST ADDITIONS

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 09, 2020  |  29 comments
At the 2019 Rocky Mountain Audio Show, "Cynthia, the Audio Belle" asked if she could interview me. Of course I said "yes" and that turned into 47 minutes worth that she's edited and split into two parts. I'm posting before watching so I hope it's okay!

Malachi Lui  |  Jan 07, 2020  |  34 comments
I honestly suck at keeping up on new music. Sure, I’m shoving out another mostly negative Review Explosion every three weeks when some artist past their prime pushes out another hour of dreck (or when Earl releases a stupidly annoying, half-baked 15 minute “album”) but I still don’t feel that I spend enough time covering what actually matters. As in, what’s actually good and worth talking about. Unfortunately, one music critic with their own taste and near-daily spins of IGOR can only do so much; no matter how hard I work, there are always a dozen supposedly great albums that I’ve fallen behind on even hearing.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 05, 2020  |  10 comments
For every reason, from mastering to pressing to packaging and annotation—and pricing, Craft’s 5 LP Chet Baker Riverside box scores the highest marks.

The recent RSD mono release of It Could Happen to You—Chet Baker Sings signaled what this set might and turned out to be. For those fans who might have some of these albums on original or OJC reissues, you can be sure the audio here soundly beats those.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 03, 2020  |  10 comments
Bob George The Archive of Contemporary Music's founder and director was scheduled to participate in a "Making Vinyl Hollywood" panel discussion I moderated last fall, so to prep for it I called Mr. George and proposed a visit to the Archive during which we'd discuss his participation. As you'll see in the video, by the time I visited last September I'd forgotten the reason for the visit!

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 02, 2020  |  6 comments
Six years have passed since the original review here of the Record Doctor V a $199.95 manual-turn vacuum based record cleaning machine (RCM). At some point since then it went out of production but it's back now at $199.95 and there's a new upgraded 20th anniversary Model VI priced at $299.95.

priced at $299.95

Malachi Lui  |  Dec 30, 2019  |  22 comments
(This year, contributing editor Malachi Lui launches an annual segment covering the year’s 10 worst albums. And boy, are there some bad ones this year. Now let’s dive into The Year-End Garbage Can…)

Michael Fremer  |  Dec 30, 2019  |  6 comments
Neil Innes, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band co-founder, Rutles member and writer of all of that group's hilarious Beatles parodies and Monty Python member/contributor died suddenly and unexpectedly Sunday night, December 29th. According to his family, he'd not been sick and the cause of his passing has of yet not been determined.

Michael Fremer  |  Dec 29, 2019  |  7 comments
This is the final video from AnalogPlanet's Spring 2019 European "factory tour" trip that began after "Making Vinyl" Berlin. It began in Geneva, Switzerland with the CH Precision tour, followed by darTZeel and Hi Fiction (Thales) and then it was on to GZ Media in the Czech Republic, followed by this Optimal tour, which took place the day before the beginning of Munich Hi-End 2019. Thanks to Optimal Media Sales Manager Andreas Kohl who picked me up in Berlin and drove me the two plus hours to Optimal and then back to Berlin.

Malachi Lui  |  Dec 23, 2019  |  6 comments
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an AnalogPlanet playlist, mostly since I’ve busied myself with many other projects. But because it’s the holiday season, it’s only appropriate to bring, with a selection of my Christmas favorites, some holiday fun on here. There’s a mix of the normal picks (Nat “King” Cole’s “The Christmas Song” and the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas) and some seasonal tracks from a couple of my favorite artists (Tyler’s “Lights On,” the White Stripes’ “Candy Cane Children,” and the David Bowie/Bing Crosby collab) as well as some “how did anybody let this happen?!?!?!” Christmas songs (Dylan’s “Must Be Santa” and Eilert Pilarm’s rendition of “Blue Christmas”). Below are Tidal, Spotify, and YouTube playlists (sorry, Apple Music users) followed by commentary on each song. (Note: David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy” isn’t on the Tidal playlist. The record label made every effort to delete the song’s original version from streaming services in favor of the far inferior “modernized” London Symphony Orchestra-overdubbed version.)

Michael Fremer  |  Dec 22, 2019  |  10 comments
Gideon Schwartz's "Hi-Fi" is a sumptuously produced "Coffee Table" style book published by Phaidon, a self-described publisher of "creative arts" books including art, photography architecture, food, travel and fashion.

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