Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
Bill Evans The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 09, 2014  |  9 comments
If you already own Sunday at The Village Vanguard and Waltz For Debby you have two album's worth of material from that magical afternoon and evening of June 25, 1961 that the producer Orrin Keepnews deemed worthy of releasing.

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Album Reviews
Bruce Springsteen: The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984 Reviewed
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 10, 2014  |  26 comments
On the analogplanet we greet with great enthusiasm news of a carefully considered reissue project like this, but clearly that’s not the case elsewhere. While poking around the Internet looking for background information I came upon a bizarre and surprising series of comments on, of all places Rolling Stone magazine’s website.

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Album Reviews
Potions  Takes Lyn Stanley Higher
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 23, 2014  |  11 comments
Second albums make or break pop artists. If the first one was a smash the second one had also better be or you risk the "one hit wonder" label. That's what happened to Christopher Cross, Marshall Crenshaw and more recently James Blunt, even though Cross and Crenshaw followed up their debuts with many good records—or at least good tunes. They just didn't produce chart hits.

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Album Reviews
Music Matters' Somethin' Else   Is Somethin' Else!
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 23, 2015  |  27 comments
While this much-loved Blue Note lists Adderley as the group leader, this pick-up session—recorded in 1958, just before Kind of Blue—sounds, for the most part, as if Miles Davis is in control and was labeled as an Adderley session due to contractual issues.

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Album Reviews
The New Standard   Is Rock Hard Jazz
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 28, 2015  |  20 comments
You could produce a jazz record today using ProTools at 192/24 or lower resolution, create a CD master, have it manufactured and then release it. To get in on the “vinyl resurgence”, you could use that 16 bit/44.1k master to cut lacquers and press records at a commercial pressing plant. It’s done all too often, I’m sure.

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Album Reviews
Devilish Sonics From Reference Recordings' Mephisto & Co.
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 02, 2015  |  5 comments
Previously only available on CD, this double 45 rpm set of classical music sonic spectaculars provides both demonstration quality sound and a fun ride even for those professing to not like classical music, courtesy of a world-renowned orchestra and conductor.

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Album Reviews
Shadows In The Night :  Another Side of Bob Dylan (corrected)
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 05, 2015  |  53 comments
Though Bob Dylan pays tribute here to Frank Sinatra who recorded for Columbia, Capitol and Reprise (which he founded), the record label is a Blue Note facsimile. The cover art also draws from a Blue Note: a blue tinted variant of Freddie Hubbard’s album Hub Tones (BST-ST84115). The back cover is a photo of a tuxedoed Dylan perusing with a masked woman an unidentifiable Sun 45rpm single.

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Album Reviews
Dylan and The Band's The Basement Tapes Raw  Presents The Authentic Document
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 21, 2015  |  7 comments
The further you get in time from this story the more focused, three-dimensional and confounding it becomes. How deep do you want to dig and how far down have you already dug?

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Album Reviews
Alvin Brothers Unlock Key to Big Bill Broonzy
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 22, 2015  |  6 comments
What can these two tow headed little brothers pictured on the cover know about Big Bill Broonzy? Obviously plenty as you'll hear on this inspired collaboration—the Alvin brothers' first together in almost thirty years.

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Album Reviews
Electric Recording Company Unleashes Mighty Mahler's 9th Symphony
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 25, 2015  |  36 comments
If you think audio reviewers can be grouchy, search opinions of this performance of Mahler's 9th Symphony, his final complete work before passing away at age 51.

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Album Reviews
Brothers In Arms  at 45rpm From Mobile Fidelity (updated 3/7/15)
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 06, 2015  |  61 comments
Born out of desperation (hence the name), with the release of its eponymous debut album containing "Sultans of Swing", Dire Straits was an instant commercial success. Cynics at the time said the tune made Dylan safe for average folks. The album was eventually certified double platinum.

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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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Album Reviews
D'Angelo's Black Messiah  Took Fifteen Years To Produce
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2015  |  6 comments
Squishy, sticky, elastic beats, some so slow and off-kilter that they threaten to fall apart, ghostly falsetto harmonies, cavernous empty spaces between the rhythmic wah-wah pulses and a distant, almost other-worldly sonic perspective announce D’Angelo’s singular sinewy yet gentle vision.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Storytone A Twice Told Neil Young Album (Revised Mastering Info)
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 05, 2015  |  8 comments
On Storytone Neil Young wears his heart on his sleeve and splattered on his windshield, serving it up both straight and backed by orchestral and big band arrangements. All of the performances are recorded live, with no overdubs.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
"Tea For the Tillerman" at 45 rpm From Analogue Productions
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 12, 2015  |  27 comments
Analogue Productions has just released Tea For the Tillerman on a double 45rpm 200g, numbered, limited to 3500 copies edition, mastered by George Marino. What? Didn't he pass away a few years ago? Yes. The double 45s were cut when the tape was available "just in case". And it's "in case" time. Especially since AP's license on the title is about to expire, so it's also "get it while you can" time, "in case" you really like this record.

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