Month: April 2018

R.E.M. – Murmur

  • For the first time ever — a stunning sounding copy with Triple Plus (A+++) sound on the first side and Double Plus (A++) on the second
  • Both sides here are big and full yet still clean, clear and open with a punchy bottom end
  • 5 Stars: “R.E.M. may have made albums as good as Murmur in the years following its release, but they never again made anything that sounded quite like it.”

This is certainly one of the best sounding copies of Murmur that we’ve ever had the pleasure of playing. Fans of the band’s music will have a hard time finding better sound for the album than this very copy, that’s for sure. We guarantee it will murder anything you have ever heard. And if you own the ridiculously thick and opaque MoFi pressing from the ’90s then you are really in for a treat! (more…)

Unhalfbricking – Simply Vinyl Reviewed

More of the Music of Richard Thompson

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Richard (and Linda) Thompson

Sonic Grade: B

One of the better Simply Vinyl recuts. We haven’t played a copy of it in years, but back in the day we liked it, so let’s call it a “B” with the caveat that the older the review, the more likely we are to have changed our minds.

Not sure if we would still agree with what we wrote back in the ’90s when this record came out, but here it is anyway.

This 180 gram LP comes recommended, with very good English sound (smooth, rich) for this early Richard Thompson folk music, with the wonderful Sandy Denny on vocals. Happily, not your standard audiophile fare.

A 5 Star Rave Review in the All Music Guide!

Unhalfbricking was, if only in retrospect, a transitional album for the young Fairport Convention, in which the group shed its closest ties to its American folk-rock influences and started to edge toward a more traditional British folk-slanted sound. That shift wouldn’t be definitive until their next album, Liege & Lief. But the strongest link to the American folk-rock harmony approach left with the departure of Ian Matthews, who left shortly after the sessions for Unhalfbricking began. The mixture of obscure American folk-rock songs, original material, and traditional interpretations that had fallen into place with What We Did on Our Holidays earlier in the year was actually still intact, if not as balanced.

Sandy Denny’s two compositions, her famous “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” and the far less celebrated but magnetically brooding “Autopsy,” were among the record’s highlights. So too were the goofball French Cajun cover of Bob Dylan’s “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” (here retitled “Si Tu Dois Partir,” and a British hit) and the magnificent reading of Dylan’s “Percy’s Song.

(more…)

Counting Down to Ecstasy and Singing Along with My Old School

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Steely Dan Available Now

We’ve found that two songs are especially helpful in challenging your setup and playback: Razor Boy on side one, and My Old School on side two.

Countdown to Ecstasy shares top honors with Katy Lied as the toughest Steely Dan album to reproduce properly.

It’s a positive shame that most copies are such sonic let-downs. They’re often congested, bass-shy, veiled, compressed and grainy. There’s a good reason we don’t do this album but once a year [make that once every two years these days], and it’s not because of a lack of demand. It’s because so many copies are mastered and pressed so poorly.

What to Listen For

Side One: Piano and Vibes

On Razor Boy listen especially to how clear and solid the piano and vibes are underneath the vocals. On the best copies their contributions are easy to follow and really provide support in the lower registers for the vocals above them. If your copy they’re a murky mess don’t be surprised; that’s pretty much the way they sound on most copies. (They’re a good test for the quality of your reproduction from the mid-bass up through the lower midrange.)

Side Two: the Chorus

The female background singers who make up the chorus on My Old School sound different on every copy you play. When they sound right you’ll know it immediately. The copies with clarity and energy always seem to also have a wonderful “sing along” quality that lets the music really come to life. We didn’t hear it happen too often but when it does it’s a THRILL, one you can buy.

(more…)

Listening in Depth to Let It Bleed

Hot Stamper Pressing of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now

Glyn Johns is one of the Five Best Rock Engineers who ever lived. Ken Scott, Stephen Barncard, Alan Parsons and a few others are right up there with him of course. We audiophiles are very lucky to have had guys like those around when the Stones were at their peak. 

This copy does not have the typical warned-over, smeared sound I’ve come to expect from bad import pressings of this album, which are the norm, not the exception.

Side One

Gimme Shelter
Love in Vain

One of the best sounding Rolling Stones songs of all time. In previous listings I’ve mentioned how good this song sounds — thanks to Glyn Johns, of course — but on the best Hot Stamper copies it is OUT OF THIS WORLD.

This is our favorite test track for side one. The first minute or so clues you into to everything that’s happening in the sound.

Listen for the amazing immediacy, transparency and sweetly extended harmonics of the guitar in the left channel.

Next, when Watts starts slapping that big fat snare in the right channel, it should sound so real you could reach out and touch it.

If you’re like me, that tubey magical acoustic guitar sound and the rich whomp of the snare should be all the evidence you need that Glyn Johns is one of the Five Best Rock Engineers who ever lived.

Country Honk
Live With Me
Let It Bleed

Side Two

Midnight Rambler
You Got the Silver
Monkey Man

On the best copies this song will have Demo Quality Sound. The piano should have nice weight to it without sounding hard and there should be lots of ambience around the vocals.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

The intro to this song is a great test for transparency. On a Hot Stamper copy you’ll be able to pick out each voice in the choir. When the music comes in you should hear rich, full-bodied acoustic guitars. On the best pressings they sound every bit as rich, tubey, sweet, delicate and harmonically correct as those found on Tea For the Tillerman, Rubber Soul, Comes a Time or any of the other phenomenal recordings we rave about on the site. (Our Top 100 is full of others if you want to check them out.)

(more…)