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
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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
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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.
July 2018
Andorfin ANDRF-007
Format: 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC download
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
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The world is now so hyperconnected that only those of a certain age can recall a time when essentially any commercially released music was not available at our fingertips. The world still held untapped discoveries, and it was up to stalwart explorers like ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax to open our ears to unknown possibilities by bringing obscure artists into the light.
June 2018
The Criterion Collection 921
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
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I seldom listen to music when driving my little bright-red 2008 Toyota Yaris. There, old-time radio is king, and for the past month I’ve been listening to The Chase and Sanborn Hour, with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. This variety show, broadcast from 1929 to 1948, ran the gamut from humor to drama to pop song to opera arias sung in their original languages. From 1937 to 1939 the show was hosted by Nelson Eddy, but listening today, I wonder what all the excitement was about: Eddy bleats his top notes, shamelessly ruins bonbons from Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, and sings the most racially insensitive rendition of “Shortnin’ Bread” ever. One day, when Eddy was on vacation, he was replaced by baritone Donald Dickson, whose voice was worthy of the Metropolitan Opera -- where, indeed, Dickson sang in the mid- to late 1940s.
June 2018
Legacy 19075827252
Format: CD
Musical Performance
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Overall Enjoyment
Here’s the thing: Willie Nelson is 85 years old, and I’ve given up on him making another Red Headed Stranger. That’s okay; one album like that 1975 genre-defying masterpiece surpasses what most musicians accomplish in a lifetime -- even one as long and productive as Nelson has lived.
May 2018
Arrow Video
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
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Extras
Maybe you’re not afraid of clowns, but you may be after watching Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988), a unique cult favorite that this year celebrates its 30th anniversary. Or you’ll appreciate this movie’s outright wackiness and dark humor. Or both. Written by the Chiodo Brothers -- Stephen, Charles, and Edward -- and directed by Stephen, it’s a skillful mix of stop-motion animation and live action -- the seams are hard to spot.
May 2018
Newvelle Records is a Paris-based label that offers jazz recordings on vinyl by subscription. For an annual fee of $400 (plus shipping), the subscriber receives a newly recorded LP every other month and, at the end of the year, a handsome, heavyweight slipcase to store them all in. This year is the third for this service, but you can buy each of the previous annual collections, while still available, for the same price as the subscription.
Columbia/Legacy 88985448392
Format: 4 CDs
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
At the dawn of the 1960s, trumpeter Miles Davis -- then 33 -- was on the cusp of reaching a new level in his career. Five years into a lucrative recording contract with Columbia Records, he was, along with Duke Ellington, the only black musician in the upper echelons of the prestigious label’s roster. His band -- featuring saxophonist John Coltrane, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb -- was a popular attraction throughout the US. Supplemented by saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and pianist Bill Evans, the band had released Kind of Blue four months earlier, and the album was already garnering the critical reception that would eventually make it one of the most respected recordings in the history of jazz. Outside of music, Davis was being cited by cultural observers like Playboy magazine as an icon of sartorial and behavioral style. He wore tailored Italian suits, drove a Ferrari, lived in a three-story brownstone on New York City’s Upper West Side, and was married to an equally fashionable former Broadway dancer.
Massdrop x NuForce EDC3 earphones measurements can be found by clicking this link.
April 2018
All by themselves, the Massdrop x NuForce EDC3 earphones tell the story of where the audio biz is headed in 2018. Although the EDC3s pack three balanced-armature drivers into each tiny earpiece, they cost just $99 USD -- about 25% of what three-driver earphones typically cost a few years ago. They’re sold not through retail outlets or even conventional e-tailers, but through Massdrop, a Web-only entity that sells products based on requests and feedback from its own online communities. Five years ago, no one would have believed you could get three-driver earphones for $99, and no one would have heard of Massdrop.
April 2018
The Criterion Collection 915
Format: Blu-ray
Overall Enjoyment
Picture Quality
Sound Quality
Extras
Today, Paul Whiteman (1890-1967) is mostly remembered as the man who commissioned and first performed George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. But in the 1920s he was a superstar comparable to such contemporaries as Babe Ruth (1895-1948). He sold a million copies of every new record, and his frequent diets were front-page news. Whiteman was on the portly side, and didn’t seem to mind critics and fans who called that to everyone’s attention. He was dubbed the “King of Jazz,” yet his music was more dance-hall pop spiced with some jazz elements -- Whiteman himself called it “symphonic jazz.” He and his band, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, led the way to the swing styles of the 1940s. Whiteman’s name was also descriptive of who he was and whom he worked with: although the musicians who created and led jazz itself were black, the faces of the virtuosos in Whiteman’s band were all those of white men -- no African-Americans, and women performed only as singers or dancers.
April 2018
The recent launch of Schiit Audio’s Loki equalizer, which I first saw at the 2017 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, inspired me to rethink some of the ideas I’ve long held about audio. The Loki provides a simple, affordable ($149 USD) way to alter the sound of the music you’re listening to. That the Loki is one of only a handful of equalizers ever marketed to audiophiles spotlights a paradox in high-end audio: It’s generally considered verboten to use an equalizer to change the sound of the music you’re listening to, but it’s perfectly OK -- and, in some camps, preferred -- to alter the sound of music through the use of speakers and electronics that add their own sonic color. Check out the comments sections on audio websites and you’ll see that many audiophiles shun the most scientifically advanced, sonically transparent speakers (PSBs, Revels, etc.) and embrace speakers with demonstrably colored sounds -- such as any model using a full-range dynamic driver.
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