Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
IGOR, Tyler, the Creator's True Masterpiece, is Essential Listening
Malachi Lui  |  Jun 24, 2019  |  21 comments
Hours before its release, Tyler, the Creator tweeted a set of listening instructions to anxious fans about to hear his new magnum opus IGOR. “This is not Bastard. This is not Goblin. This is not Wolf. This is not Cherry Bomb. This is not Flower Boy. This is IGOR. Pronounced eee-gore. Don’t go into this expecting a rap album. Don’t go into this expecting any album. Just go, jump into it. I believe the first listen works best all the way through, no skips. Front to back. No distractions either.”

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Vinyl Me, Please Reissues Buddy Guy's "Left My Blues In San Francisco"
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 05, 2019  |  2 comments
Buddy Guy’s 1967 Chess release—his first— has nothing to do with San Francisco, nor was it recorded July of 1967 though the jacket says it was. No big deal. Someone (probably Leonard Chess) chose to reference San Francisco because “flower power” was happening and it seemed like a good way to grab the white kids’ interest. The recording date was chosen close to the original release date so it would sound current but in fact, this is a compilation that includes tracks recorded between 1962 and 1967.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Dexter Gordon’s “Doin’ Allright” Reissued For Blue Note’s 80th Anniversary
Malachi Lui  |  May 25, 2019  |  14 comments
Following a turbulent decade battling personal demons in the 1950s, tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon had mostly faded from the jazz scene by the end of that decade; after all, he only recorded three sessions (two of which he led) in the second half of it. By 1961, however, he began a successful relationship with Blue Note that commenced that year with Doin’ Allright. The Los Angeles-native moved back to New York City for the third time, got rediscovered by jazz listeners, and led a quintet on this album that included Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Horace Parlan on piano, George Tucker on Bass, and Al Harewood on drums.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Craft Recordings Succeeds with RSD Mono Albert King Reissue
Malachi Lui  |  May 06, 2019  |  10 comments
Wouldn’t pairing a highly talented bluesman with one of the best house bands in the world result in a great record?

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Album Reviews
Aretha Franklin "Amazing Grace The Complete Recordings" On Vinyl For the First Time
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 23, 2019  |  12 comments
It seems appropriate to review Rhino’s sumptuous 4 LP set Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace The Complete Recordings, her enduring gospel album recorded in a Los Angeles church and released in June of 1972 on Atlantic Records, two days after Kanye West’s Easter morning “gospel service” at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival before 50,000 fans.

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Album Reviews
Which Beethoven?
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 13, 2019  |  54 comments
AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer is not a classical music authority. If you didn't know that before watching this frantic, somewhat shallow video, you will after!

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
"What's Going On" One-Step Long Ago Souled Out But....
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 22, 2019  |  36 comments
Mobile Fidelity's One-Step reissue of Marvin Gaye's groundbreaking album What's Going On is long out of print but still deserving of a short review.

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AAA VinylAlbum Reviews
Blue Note "Tone Poet" Series Launches With Wayne Shorter's "Etcetera"
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 21, 2019  |  6 comments
Blue Note's new "Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Reissue Series" is part of the company's 80th anniversary celebration. Wayne Shorter's Etcetera is the first release in the series. Joe Harley, well known among audiophiles for his work with AudioQuest both as a press liaison (among other tasks) and especially for the series of all-analog AudioQuest LPs he produced back when vinyl was "dead", "hand picked" these "Tone Poet" titles and oversaw their production.

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Album Reviews
Linda Ronstadt Live in Hollywood
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 16, 2019  |  9 comments
The boomer generation is firmly out of cultural control and rock is pretty much dead—not in terms of interest but in the same way big band music is dead—though back in 1980 when this Linda Ronstadt concert was produced and recorded for an HBO special, boomer power peaked.

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Album Reviews
Anthony Wilson's "Songs and Photographs" Takes Listeners (and Viewers) to a Protected Space
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 11, 2019  |  22 comments
One of the Anthony Wilson-shot photographs in the coffee table quality photobook housed within Songs and Photographs’s handsome, textured paper slipcase— along with the jacketed 180 gram LP (Goat Hill Recordings GHR-005)—is of a church’s red brick back wall, in front of which are three gravestones. The late afternoon sun casts against the wall three long offset shadows.

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Album Reviews
"Lachesis/Clotho/Atropos" Spells Mind Blowing Musical Pleasure
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 06, 2019  |  5 comments
You know those records that “got away”? The ones you saw in the bins when they first were released that you mean to buy but somehow didn’t? One for me was Peter Walker’s Rainy Day Raga on Vanguard. I’ll pick up a copy eventually (I said that before, back in the ‘60s, but this time I mean it!) but for now there’s this old-time/modern psych-drone fest with the recently resurfaced Walker, now in his 80s, collaborating with Harmony Rockets (better known as Mercury Rev along with Wilco’s Nels Cline, Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley and Martin Keith.

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Album Reviews
Sam Records Releases "Nathan Davis The Hip Doctor"—Live in Paris 1966-67
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 28, 2019  |  8 comments
Sam Records just issued a never before released series of absolutely rocking live performances by the under appreciated American-born tenor/soprano saxophonist and flutist Nathan Davis (1937-2018).

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Album Reviews
The Alternative Universe of Wayne Shorter's "Emanon"
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 25, 2019  |  4 comments
Darkness into Light, Evil into Good, Ugliness into Beauty, Ignorance into Knowledge, Confusion into Certainty, deliverance from oppression (and the other way around) and simultaneous alternative realities are familiar transformative comic book and biblical themes (Shorter is a known comic book fan; not sure about his biblical proclivities).

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Album Reviews
The John Lennon "Imagine" Box Set On Deluxe Blu-ray (Also Double LP)
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 24, 2019  |  16 comments
Former N.Y.C. Deputy Mayor Edward Morrison's obituary appeared in today's New York Times. Morrison was instrumental in helping John Lennon remain in America at a time when Richard Nixon was trying to deport him. Lennon's anti-war political agitation bugged Nixon. The deportation was going to based on an old pot bust. Morrison intervened and helped Lennon to remain in America by having him declared a "valuable cultural asset to New York City".

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Album Reviews
The Raconteurs Return With New 7" Single!
Malachi Lui  |  Jan 02, 2019  |  5 comments
On August 11 of last year, I had the amazing opportunity to meet Jack White and his band at their Portland, Oregon concert after the publication of my Boarding House Reach review. White read my review, loved it, and through his tour manager and a few other connections, invited my family backstage. We got to stand right behind the sound engineers and lighting controllers, and I even got to view the show from the side of the stage next to White’s guitar technician. Needless to say, I’m a fan; we purchased concert tickets prior to his invitation (and in February 2016, we even made the trek from New Jersey to his Third Man Records headquarters in Nashville).

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