More of the Music of Rickie Lee Jones
- Seriously good sound throughout this original Warner Brothers EP, with both sides earning solid Double Plus (A++) grades – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- Superbly rich, warm and full-bodied – all things considered – with excellent presence and remarkably dynamic vocals
- The piano sounds tonally correct, with real weight and heft, a key quality we look for in the records we sell
- “Given the quality of her first two LPs, Jones certainly was entitled to take some extra time in fashioning her next one, [and] Girl at Her Volcano made for a tasty snack and a reminder of her abilities”
We’re big fans of RLJ’s self-titled debut, a longtime member of our Top 100 list. I think this one is probably the next best thing she’s done. It may only be an EP but it’s a consistently good EP in which every track is good and some are amazing.
This vintage Warner Brothers pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What the Best Sides of Girl At Her Volcano Have to Offer Is Not Hard to Hear
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes even as late as 1983
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We’re Listening For on Girl At Her Volcano
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
Side One
Lush Life
Letters from the 9th Ward/Walk Away Rene
Hey, Bub
My Funny Valentine
Side Two
Under the Boardwalk
Rainbow Sleeves
So Long
Something Cool
Amazon Rave Review
Great recording from Rickie Lee Jones. Her cover cut “Walk Away Rene” is an audiophile tour de force. With such a quirky little voice, awesome dynamic shifts and the way she attacks the piano, moving between powerful and delicate, ranks this record as one of my standard demo recordings.
Also there are very subtle things going on underneath the melody on the vinyl that are lost in the CD version. Highly recommended.
-Antos