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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Nina Simone’s Enduring Artistry Evident on Two Verve/Acoustic Sounds Series Philips Reissues
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 18, 2020  |  9 comments
As a value proposition the 2016 “The Philips Years” seven LP box set covering all of Nina Simone’s recorded output between 1964 and 1967 can’t be beat. Digitized at 96/24 resolution at Abbey Road using the original master tapes and well-pressed at Record Industry, the seven LPs sound very good. However!

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
On Almost Blue   Elvis Costello Explores His Inner Country Self
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 02, 2015  |  5 comments
No doubt Elvis Costello knew he was no George Jones or Merle Haggard when, in the spring of 1981 he stepped before the microphone in CBS's Studio A in Nashville under the direction of veteran producer Billy Sherill (who passed away this past August), but he wanted to record an album of country covers in Nashville and following the cleansing craziness of the Trust sessions, this probably seemed like the right time.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
One of Bill Evans' Final Live Concerts Gets Double 45 ORG Treatment
Michael Fremer  |  May 03, 2017  |  7 comments
While a great deal of attention rightly gets paid to Bill Evans' legendary Village Vanguard recordings early in his career, this superb set recorded in Paris, France shortly before his passing is equally worthy both musically and sonically.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Oscar Peterson In Your Living Room Via Six LP Box Set
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 30, 2015  |  7 comments
Back in the late 1990s Speakers Corner released the 180 gram LP Oscar Peterson The Lost Tapes (MPS 529-096-1) featuring ten tracks recorded between 1965 and 1968 in the Black Forest villa of MPS Records owner and recording engineer Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Pianist/Composer/Arranger Michael Weiss’s Long Soul Journey to Vinyl
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 24, 2020  |  8 comments
Suave, swinging and exuberant, Michael Weiss’s self-produced Soul Journey sounds something like a big band playing on a Blue Note Records date, but it’s really a small ensemble making like a big one thanks to Weiss’s deft, harmonically-rich, rhythmically neck-snapping arrangements and free-spirited yet tightly drawn, well-meshed performances by the three man veteran horn section of saxophonist Steve Wilson, trumpet and flugelhorn player Ryan Kisor and trombonist Steve Davis.

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AAA VinylShort Cuts
Review Explosion, Short Cuts Edition, Vol. 15, RSD 2024 Roundup, Part 2: Parliament’s 2LP Expanded Inaugural 1970 Album Osmium and Gandalf’s All-Analog Self-Titled 1969 Debut are Holy Grail Finds
Mark Smotroff  |  May 04, 2024  |  4 comments

Part 2 of our RSD 2024 Short Cuts roundup focuses on a pair of Holy Grail releases for reviewer Mark Smotroff — Gandalf’s self-titled 1969 debut and Parliament’s own 1970 debut, Osmium, the latter of which is now expanded into a 2LP Deluxe Edition. Read on to see if either or both of these RSD offerings are worthwhile additions to your own collection. . .

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AAA VinylNews
Rhino Hi-Fi Takes 2024 by Analog Storm With a Slate of Six New AAA 180g 1LP Rock and Jazz Releases Through April 5
Mike Mettler  |  Feb 28, 2024  |  1 comments

Rhino High Fidelity (a.k.a. Rhino Hi-Fi) is tackling the first quarter of 2024 head on by serving up a half-dozen new AAA 180g 1LP offerings in their acclaimed series of limited-edition vinyl reissues. Read on to see which six albums — a combination of rock and jazz classics — made the 2024 Q1 AAA Hi-Fi cut. . .

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AAA VinylALBUM RELEASE NEWS
Rhino’s High Fidelity Series Continues to Sizzle Here on August 2 With ZZ Top’s From The Top: 1971-1976, an AAA 180g 5LP Box Set Available Exclusively at Rhino.com
Mike Mettler  |  Aug 02, 2024  |  0 comments

Have mercy! Rhino High Fidelity (a.k.a. Rhino Hi-Fi) does it again with today’s special box set release — namely, ZZ Top’s From The Top: 1971-1976, a limited-edition vinyl reissue collection containing the first five LPs from that little ol’ band from Texas — ZZ Top’s First Album (1971), Rio Grande Mud (1972), Tres Hombres (1973), Fandango! (1975), and Tejas (1976). Read on to learn about the source materials, the SRP, and where you can get From the Top exclusively. . .

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AAA VinylALBUM RELEASE NEWS
Rhino’s Rightly Acclaimed High Fidelity Series Continues Today, January 10, With a Pair of AAA 180g 1LP Releases, Television’s Adventure and Faces’ Ooh La La
Mike Mettler  |  Jan 10, 2025  |  4 comments

The listening glory is all ours with the latest pair of top-shelf releases from Rhino’s High Fidelity (Hi-Fi) series. Television’s potent April 1978 sophomore effort Adventure and Faces’ March 1973 swan song Ooh La La both get the patented AAA Hi-Fi 180g 1LP treatment and are being released today, January 10, 2025. Read Mike Mettler’s combo review to see why you need both of these fine Hi-Fi LP reissues ASAP. . .

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AAA VinylBeatlesNews
Ringo Starr's No. 0000001 Copy of "The Beatles" On the Auction Block
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 10, 2015  |  16 comments
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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Round Robin Review: Your Ears Can’t Go Wrong With UMe’s Stellar AAA 180g 45rpm 2LP Set or the AAA 180g 45rpm-and-33 1/3rpm Combo 3LP Limited Edition Honoring the 50th Anniversary of Frank Zappa’s Over-Nite Sensation
Mike Mettler, Mark Smotroff, Ken Micallef  |  Dec 22, 2023  |  6 comments

That’s right folks, don’t touch that dial — it’s another tag-team album review, just in time for that last-minute holiday push. This time around, AP editor Mike Mettler, along with ace reviewers Mark Smotroff and Ken Micallef, are combining forces to proffer a three-man review of the new 50th anniversary 180g AAA 2LP 45rpm edition of Frank Zappa’s top-shelf September 1973 release, Over-Nite Sensation, an album all three of us regard with great affinity. We also review the limited-edition 3LP version of ONS too, which contains an extra LP of bonus tracks. Read on to see how this Zappa-loving triumvirate of Mike, Mark, and Ken get reety-awrighty with their analysis of a stone-cold classic LP in its new 45rpm incarnation. . .

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AAA VinylNews
Run Out Groove Releasing Kevin Gray Cut AAA More of The Monkees
Michael Fremer  |  Jul 19, 2021  |  31 comments
Run Out Groove Records Announce today the upcoming release of More of The Monkees (Deluxe Edition) cut by Kevin Gray and Andrew Sandoval from the original analog tapes, complete with gatefold "tip on" jacket, expanded to a double LP with the addition of "debut vinyl" rarities.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Saft, Swallow, Previte and.... Iggy Pop?
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 04, 2017  |  5 comments
Pianist Jamie Saft's trio recorded a well-received, sonically superb 2014 album called New Standard. If you need a group or individual backgrounder, please hit that hyperlink.

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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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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Samantha Crain's Hardscrapple Tales Mesmerize
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 12, 2015  |  13 comments
The golden gatefold cover art of Samantha Crain's Under Branch & Thorn & Tree makes clear that this is not a collection of "good times" tunes, but one is still left unprepared for the relentlessly bleak stories of betrayal, despair and desolation Crain delivers in an often pain-wracked voice that's somehow wrapped in a soothing, mesmerizing balm.

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