Month: May 2020

Count Basie – April In Paris

  • April in Paris makes its Hot Stamper debut with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound fon this vintage mono pressing
  • This pressing showed us the sound we were looking for – big, bold, full-bodied mono, the kind they knew how to record in 1957
  • Here is the MIDRANGE MAGIC that’s surely missing from whatever modern reissue has been made from the 60+ year old tapes (or, to be clear, a modern digital master copied from those tapes)
  • 5 stars: “April in Paris is one of those rare albums that makes its mark as an almost instant classic in the jazz pantheon… The title track has come to define elegance in orchestral jazz… Recorded in 1955 and 1956, April in Paris proved Count Basie’s ability to grow through modern jazz changes while keeping the traditional jazz orchestra vital and alive.”

(more…)

The Greatest Jazz/Rock Fusion Album of Them All

Hot Stamper Pressings of Jazz Rock Fusion Albums Available Now

In 2011 we discovered a White Hot pressing of Romantic Warrior and just had to share our enthusiasm for the album, It’s been a personal favorite of mine since I first played it back in the 70s, as well as a record I had been obsessed with trying to get to sound better for a very long time.

This is the story of that breakthrough pressing we discovered more than ten fifteen years ago.

Romantic Warrior is my favorite JAZZ/ROCK FUSION album of all time. As good as the music is, the sound is even better. This is the Jazz/Rock Demo Disc that stands head and shoulders above the rest. In my experience, no record of this kind is more DYNAMIC or has better BASS. Not one. Demo Disc doesn’t begin to do this kind of sound justice.

Simply put, not only is this one of the greatest musical statements of all time, it’s one of the great recording statements. Few albums in the history of the world can lay claim to this kind of POWER and ENERGY.

But the Super Sound has a purpose, a raison d’etre. This is the kind of music that requires it; better yet, DEMANDS it. In truth, the sound is not only up to the challenge of expressing the life of the music on this album, it positively ENHANCES it.

Those monster Lenny White drum rolls that run across the soundstage from wall to wall may be a recording studio trick, but they’re there to draw your attention to his amazing powers, and it works! The drums are EVERYWHERE on this album, constantly jumping out of the soundfield and taking the music into the stratosphere where it belongs.
(more…)

Sade – Love Deluxe

More Sade

More Titles Only Offered on Import LP

  • A SUPERB copy of Sade’s 4th studio album with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides 
  • The import sound here is richer, fuller, more musical and more natural – Sade’s breathy voice is reproduced with a kind of natural, relaxed, effortless quality that, in our experience, is only available on vinyl
  • 4 stars: “Sade’s fourth album, Love Deluxe, included the hit “No Ordinary Love” and marked a return to the detached cool jazz backing and even icier vocals that made her debut album a sensation.”
  • This is an album we simply cannot afford to do shootouts for these days –original import copies are currently selling for two to three hundred dollars, which means it has been tagged as never again, a record you, dear reader, will have to find for yourself.

By 1992 records like this were only released on import vinyl and typically went out of print soon after they started their descent down the pop charts. I used to sell them back in the day. Supplies were extremely limited and unpredictable – they went out of print without warning and never came back. Once they were gone they were virtually never reissued, although Simply Vinyl took a crack at filling that gap, with mixed results as I’m sure you know.

All of those factors conspire to make the cost of acquiring the mintiest pressings from overseas fairly high. It’s the main reason you have never seen the album on our site before. I’m sure we paid more than $100 for this very copy; rarely can they be found for less. And most of the pressings that came in had condition problems the way this one does.

Be that as it may, we have this copy available and it is not only wonderful sounding but the music is every bit as good as I remember it. (more…)

Fairport Convention – The Bonny Bunch of Roses

  • Superb Super Hot or better sound for both sides
  • Quiet vinyl too – a true Mint Minus with one minor issue
  • This British Vertigo Spaceship pressing is going to be very hard to beat
  • Make no mistake: this is a Demo Disc Quality record on this pressing 

AMG commented about the followup album that Fairport was “doing what the band members do best – taking some fine old traditional English jigs, reels, and traditional narratives and putting their own distinctive folk-rock stamp on them.”

We think those comments apply to this album equally well.

The first track is very Proggy with rich solid bass and tons of Tubey Magic. Transparent and tonally correct from top to bottom. It may be As Good As It Gets (AGAIG)

Side two was every bit as good. Here are two sides that are just plain Hard To Fault (HTF).

If only more records sounded this good!

But then again that would put us out of business, so, truth be told I guess we’re glad more records don’t sound this good. (more…)

Fear of Music / Our First White Hot Stamper – 2015

The Talking Heads and producer Brian Eno certainly weren’t shy about adding multiple layers of effects and processing, and the average pressing of this record turns some of the more complicated parts into grainy mush. The material here is darker than the songs on the first two albums, so a copy that lacks any extension up top will have trouble bringing the music to life. The texture of Eno’s synthesizers gives the music depth and character, and a copy with smear issues forsakes much of that. It takes a special pressing to make this music really work, but this one really gets it right.

Much like Remain In Light, this is a brilliant album but a typically problematic record. The Talking Heads and producer Brian Eno certainly weren’t shy about adding multiple layers of effects and processing, and the average pressing of this record turns some of the more complicated parts into grainy mush. The material here is darker than the songs on the first two albums, so a copy that lacks any extension up top will have trouble bringing the music to life. The texture of Eno’s synthesizers gives the music depth and character, and a copy with smear issues forsakes much of that.

… But This One Sure Does!

As huge fans of this band, it was a major thrill for us to finally hear a copy that sounded as good as this one. Both sides really have the goods here: wonderful transparency, meaty bass, big time energy and lots of top end extension.

Drop the needle on the opening track “I Zimbra” and listen to how clear and correct the percussion sounds. On the average copy they might as well be banging on cardboard, but on a Hot Stamper like this you can clearly hear the sound of the skins.

Many copies make a mess of David Byrne’s voice, leaving him sounding pinched and edgy, but here the vocals are full-bodied, smooth, and present. There’s dramatically less grit and grain here than on most pressings, and the synths and effects all sounded just right to us.

One Of Our Very Favorite Bands Of This Era

We’re huge fans of late ’70s / early ’80s art-rock and new wave music, and these guys are obviously some of the best in the biz. I’d be hard pressed to name another act from the era who put out so many good records. Along with this album, More Songs About Buildings And Food, Remain In Light, and Little Creatures are all works of genius.

’77 is full of good ideas, but it doesn’t sound like a fully realized work of art the way the next four albums did.

Speaking In Tongues has some nice material, but doesn’t quite rank up there with their earlier stuff. (more…)

The Supremes / Sing Rodgers and Hart – This Is a Motown Record?

What an amazing find! You could have knocked me over with a feather when this record started playing. Where was the awful Motown bright, gritty, distorted sound I’d been suffering through all my life? Certainly not on this copy.

The Tubey Magical richness is off the charts on this side one, with a healthy but not quiet equal dose on side two (hence the grade). As everyone knows by now (everyone who comes to our site at least), not every copy has the magic. Having access to a big pile of pressings is the only way to figure out just how much magic the grooves can contain.

This side one is proof that the grooves can indeed contain huge amounts of richness, sweetness, smoothness, naturalness and, above all, Tubey Magic.

Listen to how tight and note-like the string bass is on the second track of side one. What a sound! (more…)

Dave Brubeck – Jazz Impressions Of Japan

More Dave Brubeck

More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Piano

  • A KILLER sounding copy and the first to ever hit the site! Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound or very close to it on both sides
  • These sides are incredibly clean, clear, spacious and full-bodied with tons of Tubey Magic and a solid bottom end
  • “Thirteen years into their tenure, the Dave Brubeck Quartet was still able to mine the creative vein for new means of expression… The sketches Brubeck and Desmond created all invoke the East, particularly the folk melodies of Japan directly, while still managing to use the Debussian impressionistic approach to jazz that kept them riding the charts and creating a body of music that, while playing into the exotica craze of the moment, was still jazz composed and played with integrity.” 

(more…)

Isaac Hayes – Chocolate Chip

  • Hayes’ 1975 release finally arrives on the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • Smoother, more musical, with more top end extension and more weight down below, this is the way to hear Isaac Hayes in his prime
  • Forget whatever dead-as-a-doornail Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – if you want to hear the Tubey Magic, size and energy of this wonderful album from 1975, this is a great way to go
  • “A fine mid-’70s album on which Isaac Hayes adapted to the disco era. His productions were already ideal for dance floors, and he now updated his charts to include some stomping segments with horns and layered beats, while maintaining his soulful vocals on both up-tempo tunes and ballads.”

(more…)

The Rite of Spring – Our Four Plus Shootout Winner from 2013

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Stravinsky Available Now

The ULTIMATE Rite of Spring has arrived. This early pressing takes the sound of the recording to a place we never thought it could go. With Four Pluses (A++++) it’s more than a full grade better than any copy to ever make it to the site. After hearing this copy we had to lower the grade on our supposedly White Hot (but too noisy to sell) reference LP. 

The space and dynamic power of the sound of this side one were something we had never heard before on Stravinsky’s groundbreaking work. Lush when quiet, clear and undistorted when loud, not one Rite of Spring in a hundred can do what this record can!

(more…)

Miles Davis – Jazz Track (Six Eye Pressing)

More Miles Davis

  • Davis’ superb 1959 release arrives on the site with Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound from start to finish
  • Davis partners here with jazz greats, including John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Cannonball Adderley and others
  • “… it should become clear why ‘Jazz Track’ is a vital Miles album as well as a testimony to the importance of the movies to jazz–as a medium for improvised soundtracks and, more importantly, as a source of theme music potentially as rich as the music of Broadway…”
  • “It’s doubtful that “On Green Dolphin Street” and “Stella by Starlight” would have caught on without Bill [Evans’] artistry (which is not to take anything away from Red [Garland], whose ballads simply lacked the intricate, delicately shaded beauty of Bill’s pensive voicings on the slow ballads).”

We had a number of original pressings on hand, some costing a pretty penny, but this is the only one that did not have serious scratches or inner groove damage.

The vinyl is not quiet, but the ticks stay mainly underneath the music. If for any reason you are not happy with the sound or condition of the album we are of course happy to take it back for a full refund, including the domestic return postage.

The nine minute plus long Green Dolphin Street that opens side two is nothing short of amazing, some of the coolest jazz you will ever hear, on any record, at any price. With Stella by Starlight and Fran Dance on the same side, that gives you about 20 minutes of great sounding jazz by Miles’ classic Kind of Blue lineup. (more…)