Michael Fremer

This album was issued back in 2008 but gets reviewed here because though the name Nada Surf has popped through my consciousness for years, I’d never heard them. I know, I can go online and listen and probably even steal all of their stuff for free but I’m not wired like that, so I actually went out and bought this album on vinyl without hearing a note.

You won't find Roy Halee's name on many great sounding records. Not because the veteran recording engineer hasn't made them, but because Columbia Records' policy for many years was to not credit the engineer on the jacket. So, aside from the few that do credit him, the others require you to know who they are. That's one reason I tracked Roy down through Sterling Sound's Greg Calbi who has mastered many of Halee's recent projects. But more importantly, as with Bill Porter, I just wanted to sit down face to face with someone who has consistently provided us with great sound, and find out why and how he managed to do it, when so many others failed.

Some of Halee's recording credits are well known:all of Simon and Garfunkel's records, the best sounding Byrds albums (Notorious Byrd Brothers and Sweetheart of the Rodeo), and of course, Paul Simon's two fascinating and extremely successful projects (both commercially and artistically) Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints.

I’m not comfortable writing about classical music. I’m not an expert, and I can’t tell you how this performance of Schumann’s music compares to others. According to the liner notes Mr. Lill is a world-class concert performer who has toured with the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony and many others, and performed with the New York Philharmonic and more than a dozen others. He was the joint winner of the prestigious Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1970.