spiritwelv

For Rock and Pop, 1970 Might Just Be the Best Year of Them All

Hot Stamper Pressings from 1970 Available Now (All Genres of Music)

1970 turned out to be a great year in music. I wouldn’t want to be without any of the 17 albums listed below.

Cat Stevens Tea for the Tillerman,

Bridge Over Troubled Water,

Moondance,

Alone Together,

Tumbleweed Connection and the Self-Titled Album,

Sweet Baby James,

After the Goldrush,

Paul McCartney / McCartney,

Stephen Stills / Self-Titled,

Van Morrison / His Band And Street Choir,

Deja Vu,

Workingman’s Dead,

Tarkio,

Stillness,

Let It Be,

Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

and there are surely many other Must Owns from 1970 we could name if we simply took the time to list them.

When it comes to Rock and Pop, the best of the best from 1970, numbering less than 30 titles, can be found here.

Here is a more complete list of our favorite albums from 1970.

The list of titles from 1970 that we’ve reviewed to date can be found here.

Note that on any given day we do not have a single Hot Stamper pressing on the site of more than a few of the albums you see listed.

All of them are getting very hard to find, with the right stampers, in audiophile playing condition.

The book Fire and Rain tells the story of four of these albums well, and comes highly recommended.

(more…)

Spirit / Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus

More Spirit

Hot Stamper Pressings of Psychedelic Rock Recordings Available Now

  • A stunning copy of Spirit’s 1970 Trippy Masterpiece – Triple Plus (A+++) or very close to it on both sides – exceptionally quiet vinyl too!
  • Huge, lively and dynamic – this legendary Psych album creates a wall to wall, three dimensional psychedelic world of its own
  • Nature’s Way, Animal Zoo and Mr. Skin all sound amazing on this copy – there’s really not a bad track to be found
  • “Spirit’s crowning moment and one of the era’s great underrated albums … enriched by meaty horn arrangements, imaginative vocal harmonies, and a structured approach to psychedelic studio trickery such as stereo panning and tapes run backward.”

The soundfield is huge and transparent, there’s real richness and body to the instruments, and there’s no edge at all to the vocals. Believe me, it’s the rare copy that has all of these qualities, the only one in our shootout as a matter of fact.

This and Spirit’s first album are absolute Rock Classics in my book, records that belong in any popular music lover’s collection.

(more…)

Which Epic Labels for 12 Dreams Have the Best Sound?

More of the Music of Spirit

Here is some moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win shootouts.

Don’t bother with the black label Epic reissues. In our experience they are consistently awful.

Yellow is the original label and orange the first reissue; both can be good.

The reviews reproduced below tell the story of the album far better than I can. If you like Pink Floyd, The Beatles (circa Revolver and Pepper), and the myriad other bands who took off in the direction of Psych Rock and Art Rock, you should find much to like here.

And if you don’t we give you your money back.

(more…)