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"Electric Ladyland" Box Set Panic! Calm Down, Please!
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 28, 2018  |  59 comments
During last fall's "Blues Masters at the Crossroads" concert weekend at Chad Kassem's Blue Heaven studios, attendees were invited to tour Quality Record Pressings where workers were busy assembling the just-released Electric Ladyland box set containing a Bernie Grundman all-analog remastering from the original analog tapes of the double LP set, a double LP of early takes, a double LP of Jimi Hendrix Experience Live at the Hollywood Bowl, a Blu-ray disc containing a 96/24 high resolution version of the original double LP, a 5.1 channel Eddie Kramer mix at 96/24 resolution and an expanded documentary including interviews with the late Chas Chandler, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding and in-the-studio footage. There's also a full-sized 46 page booklet in the box. I'm working my way through the box for a review.

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Italian Speaker Manufacturer Sonus Faber Breaks the Mold Celebrating Its 30th Anniversary
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2014  |  25 comments
Worldwide distributors, key retailers, representatives of Fine Sounds Group-associated companies McIntosh and Audio Research as well members of the audio press gathered at Sonus Faber’s Vicenza Italy factory March 26th throu the 29th to celebrate in grand Italian style the speaker company’s 30th anniversary.

The celebration’s focal point was the all new X3ma loudspeaker, which was developed over the past year and a half by Sonus Faber’s design team using as its inspiration the original 1991 Extrema, a legendary stand mounted design that extracted maximum and at the time seemingly impossibly performance from a two-way loudspeaker.

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John Lennon's “Imagine” Re-imagined For New 2 Audio Blu-ray + 4 CD Box Set and Double Vinyl Edition
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 03, 2018  |  10 comments
Imagine, the follow up to John Lennon’s raw, at times vitriolic and still packing a punch Plastic Ono Band 1970 solo debut—an album heavily influenced by primal therapy and coming to grips with personal childhood issues—is considered by many observers today to be his most enduring, though when originally released some of the overt and impossibly idealistic political posturing was wrongly thought by many critics to doom the album’s long term artistic viability.

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Just Released: 2 LP and 4 LP Editions of The Art Ensemble of Chicago's We Are On the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 08, 2019  |  7 comments
Last April, the iconic, innovative and internationally renowned force in avant-garde music The Art Ensemble of Chicago released their 50th anniversary celebratory album We Are On The Edge. Erased Tapes just issued two vinyl editions of this release, one a double LP studio session featuring a newly assembled group of musicians performing new versions of works spanning the past 50 years, some never before recorded, plus new compositions. The second set is a 4 LP special edition that also includes a live set recorded at Ann Arbor, MIchigan's Edgefest, the annual experimental jazz and creative new music festival.

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Pat Metheny's 11 LP ECM Album Catalog Available For Streaming and Downloading July 31st
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 28, 2020  |  9 comments
This just in: Pat Metheny’s complete ECM catalog of 11 albums, which includes Bright Size Life, Offramp, and 80/81, will be available for the first time on July 31st as high-resolution masters for download and streaming.

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The Rolling Stones Mono Box Set From ABKCO Coming September 30th (Updated again)
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 10, 2016  |  20 comments
ABKCO today announced the long expected Rolling Stones16 LP MONO box set, due September 30th.

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Third Man Pressing Plant Party Was a "Ya'Alta" Like Event
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 26, 2017  |  15 comments
Jack White marked the opening of his new Third Man Pressing plant in a reinvigorated Detroit neighborhood by throwing a grand, festive, sometimes rowdy rock'n'roll (semi-formal attire requested) party. Among the invited "F.O.V.s" (Friends of Vinyl) were most of the owners of America's major and minor pressing plants. The gathering was probably the first time all of these once battered, now thriving survivors of the fading CD era assembled in one place to celebrate the unlikely resurgence of vinyl records.

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"A Night For Austin" 6/10 Benefit Promises Two Hours of Great Music For A Good Cause
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 05, 2020  |  0 comments
The lineup is like "Austin City Limits" on steroids for this two hour live video and audio stream organized by Paul Simon, Edie Brickell, Willie and Annie Nelson and their organizations in conjunction with Luck Reunion to support and celebrate hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic Austin, Texas.

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"All Things Must Pass" The Tower Records Story Coming to DVD September 13
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2016  |  21 comments
"All Things Must Pass", the must-see documentary on the rise and fall of the Tower Records chain, comes to DVD September 13th through MVD

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"All-Star" Live "Kind of Blue"/UHQR Panel Discussion Saturday, May 8th Noon CST!
Michael Fremer  |  May 05, 2021  |  23 comments
Join Acoustic Sounds' "All Star" live panel discussion Saturday May 8th at 12:00PM CST (Central Standard Time, 1:00PM EST, 10:00AM PT) with Acoustic Sounds/Analogue Productions/QRP's Chad Kassem, Mastering Engineer Bernie Grundman, Classic Records founder Mike Hobson, 45 RPM Audiophile's Michael Ludwigs, QRP Plating Wizard and Finebuilt press operator Gary Salstrom and AnalogPlanet Editor Michael Fremer when we discuss "all things Kind of Blue and UHQR followed by a Q&A.

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"American Hustle" OST Double Vinyl Has Great Playlist
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 11, 2014  |  5 comments
No doubt it was digitally sourced and resolution unknown, but sometimes tunes trump source format. The 2 LP American Hustle-Original Motion Picture Soundtrack album from Madison Gate Records and Legacy Recordings (the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment) includes six songs not included on the CD version (there's a switch).

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"Bang!, The Bert Berns Story" Documentary Starts Streaming Today on Apple Music
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 24, 2017  |  1 comments
Cross "Goodfellas" with the hippest Ken Burns PBS mid-sixties New York music business documentary you've never seen and then anchor it with a songwriter, producer, record label executive biography that were it not true would have been difficult for any fiction writer to invent. That's the heart of "Bang! The Bert Berns Story".

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"Bang, The Bert Berns Story" Documentary Coming to Apple Music October 24th
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 06, 2017  |  1 comments
Sometimes the press release says it all. This is one of those times:

"Music meets the mob in this biographical documentary, narrated by Steven Van Zandt, about the life and and career of Bert Berns, "the most important songwriter and record producer from the ‘60s that you’ve never heard of."

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"Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes" Documentary Set For Blu-ray and DVD Release
 |  Jul 25, 2019  |  1 comments
How many times has the Blue Note label risen from the ashes over its 80 year history? It's been revived and resurrected more than a few times by various owners (not counting founders Alfred Lion and Max Margulis), the first of which was Liberty Records in 1965, which In turn was bought out in 1969 by United Artists Records. In 1979 EMI bought United Artists and put Blue Note out to pasture. Say what?

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"But Wait! There's More!" Department: Dylan Bootleg Series Vol. 11, The Basement Tapes Complete
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 26, 2014  |  10 comments
Original tape sources, including "many found only recently" of Bob Dylan's legendary "Basement Tape" sessions have been meticulously restored and will be released on November 4th by Columbia Records/Legacy Recordings in a complete 6 disc CD set (The Basement Tapes Complete:The Bootleg Series Vol. 11 and in a 2 CD/3 LP 180g highlights edition (The Basement Tapes Raw: The Bootleg Series Vol. 11.

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