LATEST ADDITIONS

It’s never too late to reclaim your legacy on vinyl. British guitar icon Steve Howe knows this concept quite well, in fact, and it’s the main impetus for what you see here —namely, the full revamping of his pre-Yes 1960s band Tomorrow’s debut February 1968 LP, now duly recast and retitled Permanent Dream, which was released in its new, 140g 1LP form by Spirit of Unicorn Music/Parlophone on April 28. In a recent Zoom interview with AP editor Mike Mettler, Howe discusses his “psychedelicized” impetus for revamping the original Tomorrow album, why the Permanent Dream tracklisting needed to be both revised and resequenced, and why the song that takes up the entirety of Side 1 of Yes’ iconic December 1973 double LP Tales From Topographic Oceans is actually shorter than it was intended to be. Read on to found out how Howe decided to bring Tomorrow into the vinyl world of today. . .

Welcome back for Part 2 of our AXPONA 2023 show report! Furthering what we did in Part 1, we continue to dive even deeper into our reporting on some of the truly amazing turntables and other cool analog gear we saw and heard in some of the listening rooms and expo-hall booths alike at this truly great Chicagoland event. Read on to see what our Julie Mullins found during Part 2 of her in-person AXPONA adventure. . .

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson has been on a deeply entrenched spiritual quest of late. On Tull’s latest and 23rd studio album overall, RökFlöte, which was released on vinyl via InsideOut Music on April 21, he addresses the tenets of Norse paganism. In a recent Zoom interview with AP editor Mike Mettler, Jethro Tull’s once and future leader discusses the inner workings of RökFlöte, when he finally felt like Jethro Tull had gotten the right mix of their music on vinyl, and how the act of breathing is vitally important when it comes to both his singing and his flute playing. Read on to glean all of Ian Anderson’s earthly vinyl proclivities. . .

Last week, AXPONA ruled large in Chicagoland, and we tasked our main product reviewer Ken Micallef to shoot as much video footage as he could of all the cool turntables he came across at the show. Check out the videoclip that’s embedded within this story to see a cavalcade of great turntables, as well as some interesting cleaning products in action, a few new cartridges and tonearms — and some choice vinyl too. . .