Album Reviews

Compilations are an ugly concept on vinyl. Either analog copy tapes have been strung together to create a cutting master or digital copies of masters are electronically assembled to produce the same cutting master. Once in a black and blue moon, original masters are removed from their reels and strung together to produce cutting masters made from original master tapes, but those are few and few between and almost impossible to make. They’re rare because few companies allow precious masters to be cut up and because unless the tunes were recorded in the same studio on the same impeccably maintained recorder, it’s very difficult if not impossible to cut a lacquer where the record/playback head’s azimuth changes from track to track.

True to the label’s intentions and name, Zane Musa is a muscular-toned, “straight ahead” alto sax bopper, accompanied on this superb sounding disc by like-minded Southern California jazz musicians on a set of well worn but always comfortable jazz standards.

The latest Sigur Rós album is yet another soundtrack to an imaginary movie you’re asked to create in your own head. The swelling orchestral resolves mostly corral you into thinking goodness and heavenly inspiration with singer "Jonsi"’s high pitched child-like (and sometimes cat-like) vocals sung either in a language of his invention and on some tracks for the first time actual Icelandic, making it easier for your personal invention as you’ll have no idea what he singing about. Not that it matters. The group’s music wears its mostly uplifting emotional heart on its sleeves.

Never mind that the tape has some occasional serious dropout, never mind that the legendary performance of the title track “One Down, One Up” commences mid way through the tune during a Jimmy Garrison bass solo, never mind that these performances are station dubs from live radio broadcasts, never mind Alan Grant’s radio announcements sprinkled throughout, and never mind that this treasure trove is probably not in the same league historically as the Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane Carnegie Hall concert unearthed at the National Archives and issued by Mosaic on vinyl recently (MQ1-231).

When this arrived I stated the obvious to myself “Why would I want to hear Dion sing the blues?” I can hear Robert Johnson do his own tunes, I can hear them “rock-a-fied” to great effect on any number of albums from the 1960’s, I can hear other blues greats, from Mississippi John Hurt to Howlin’ Wolf to Lightnin’ Hopkins, singing their originals and covers, some superbly recorded, and generally I was so down on this disc that I played it more to see how awful and/or pointless it was.

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And also, bravo to you for remastering something PRIMARILY FOR ITS MUSICAL VALUES that could by no means be considered an “audiophile favorite,” but is so much more essential as music than any number of cheese “audiophile” reissues.” No doubt you’ll field a few silly complaints from people who don’t understand the limits of these master tapes. (Classic showed the same good attitude when they reissued the Munch “Saint-Saens Organ Symphony” [LSC-2341], which “has distortion on the master tape”… but hey Audio World, it’s the BEST PERFORMANCE of a great work, and sounds thrilling!)

This most popular of Green Day albums, a swell kiss off to Bush and his rogue administration is now so old it’s grown whiskers, but it hasn’t lost any of its punch. In fact, cut to wax it intensifies into a category five musical and political hurricane.