October 2018
JBL’s recent speaker updates recall David and Goliath. Last month we had the tiny Clip 3; this month it’s the brawny Xtreme 2 -- a loud-playing, 5.3-pound behemoth ideal for tailgate and pool parties.
October 2018
Wouldn’t you love to find a $205,000 pair of speakers that actually performed as expected? Not just some company that claims their drivers were pressed on the thighs of tow-headed Swedish virgins and connected with 25K gold wires terminated with eight-way binding posts of 99.999%-pure platinum. You know the advertising hype you see in the more obscure audio hangouts. But how about something real?
October 2018
Capitol B002842202
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
“With Music from Big Pink,” wrote musicologist Greil Marcus in his landmark 1975 book, Mystery Train, “the Band presented a rough moral drama. It had none of the mythic clarity of, say, John Ford’s movies; it came through a modern haze, something like Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, obscure in its plots, dialogue hard to catch, communicating with a blind humor and a cryptic intensity nothing in rock ’n’ roll has ever remotely touched.”
September 2018
The Criterion Collection 291
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
Extras
You’d think most people would try to avoid spending the afterlife in Hell, but Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche), after ruling out admittance to Heaven in his own mind, is afraid he won’t be accepted as a denizen of the lower depths. His Excellency the Devil (slyly played by Laird Cregar) asks him to recount his life on Earth, including the women Henry has known. And that’s the basic story of director Ernst Lubitsch’s Heaven Can Wait (1943): Henry Van Cleve’s birth, coming of age, and adult years. Scenes in Hell occur only at beginning and end, to frame a tale told as one long flashback.
September 2018
Some companies like to come up with all-new models every year; others continue to refine and upgrade successful basic designs. JBL, one of the latter, released the original Clip Bluetooth speaker in 2015. In 2016 came the Clip 2, which added waterproofing, and now we have the Clip 3, with a sturdier build, longer playing time on a full battery charge, and a rainbow of colors to choose from. JBL has eliminated a feature that some buyers might miss, but at $59.95 USD, the Clip 3 is still a legitimate choice in a very small Bluetooth speaker.
September 2018
When the Beatles entered Abbey Road Studios in October 1965 to record their sixth studio album, they had no other commitments to worry about -- no tours, no movies, no radio or television appearances. Over the next four weeks, the group would complete Rubber Soul, their second album to be recorded and released in 1965.
September 2018
ECM 2583
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Is music for the whole body or just your brain?
Depends on the day and your mood, I would argue.
August 2018
The Criterion Collection 939
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
Extras
Released in 1946 in the UK as A Matter of Life and Death and in the US as Stairway to Heaven, this postwar film is a unique jewel of cinema that operates on many different levels and succeeds on all of them. Its creators, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who together wrote, produced, and directed it, had been approached by Jack Beddington, head of the UK Ministry of Information’s film commission, to make a movie that would soothe the frayed feelings between the UK and the US at the end of World War II. This genius partnership came up with A Matter of Life and Death, which, below its surface of romantic comedy, explores more serious matters.
August 2018
Canadian Vincent Bélanger is a world-class cellist whose debut album, Là, was released in 2011. On Là is a haunting rendition of “Amazing Grace” in which Bélanger makes his cello sound like a hornpipe. In May 2018, we were able to meet with Vincent in Antwerp, Belgium, where he played the song for us and described how he creates this unique sound. (To contact Vincent directly, e-mail vincent.belanger@audionotemusic.co.uk.)
August 2018
Do you get tired of reading reviews with namby-pamby recommendations that sound as if the writers have worked full time to ensure that they can find a way out of their statements at a later date? It happens all the time in the world of wine criticism (my other job). For example: “This wine has a pleasing aroma of stewed plums and candied lychees with a hint of leather and Tellicherry black peppers. Rating 88.” What does that mean?
August 2018
Yep Roc 2587
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Scratch the surface of Americana music -- the top layer that includes Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, and Jason Isbell -- and you’ll find dozens of performers whose career paths have seldom-if-ever taken them to soft-seat concert halls. These are the hardcore singer-songwriters who spend most of each year driving up and down American highways to beer joints, small venues, and the occasional festival. Better-known musicians may cite them as core influences and industry treasures, but chances are the average fan doesn’t know a thing about them.
July 2018
Arrow Video AV-152-TM
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
Extras
Have you ever thought of Christopher Walken as a vampire, or of vampirism as an allegory for addiction? Renegade director Abel Ferrara, best known for Bad Lieutenant, had the idea back in 1995 when he created The Addiction, a black-and-white cult favorite.
July 2018
Canada’s Cowboy Junkies recorded the groundbreaking The Trinity Session in November 1987, then released it in November 1988 to worldwide acclaim. Produced and engineered by Peter J. Moore, The Trinity Session was recorded with a single Calrec microphone and a modified Beta videotape player converted into a digital audio recorder. In Part 1 of our series exploring the making of The Trinity Session, Cowboy Junkies drummer Peter Timmins and Peter J. Moore talk about what it was like to record The Trinity Session in the Church of the Holy Trinity, which is located in downtown Toronto, and describe how the church became an instrumental part of the sound of the album.
July 2018
By the early 1970s, rock music was firmly established as a cultural force, and the influx of cash from increased album sales gave record companies incentive to try new things. It was a time when musicians beyond category, such as Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, could have recording contracts with a major label. The ambition of bands both famous and obscure over the previous five years had opened the minds of listeners to all kinds of possibilities, and that willingness to permit and encourage experimentation extended to pop music of all genres. Stevie Wonder, to choose just one example, released some of his most ambitious and groundbreaking recordings in the early ’70s.
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