Album Reviews

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Album Reviews
M A Recordings Issues a "Two-Fer" LP Set of Renown: "Será Una Noche" and "Segunda"
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 05, 2014
This new double LP pairs Será una Noche with the appropriately titled follow up Segunda two of M A Recordings’ most popular releases, first on CD then on XRCD and later available as high resolution files. Será una Noche was previously released on vinyl and reviewed on musicangle.com. Naturally vinyl cut from high resolution digital sounds better than the same files decimated to 16 bits. Todd Garfinkle’s simply miked, spacious-sounding 24 bit recordings have earned him a following among audiophiles, even though most of the exotic “world” music Garfinkle prefers to record is anything but traditional audiophile fare.
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Album Reviews
Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica Quartet: "Where Here Meets There"
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 05, 2014
"Mr. Ho" otherwise known as Brian O'Neill has a passion for "exotica" but it would be wrong to call him a trader in nostalgia. Yes, he's clearly a fan of Les Baxter, Martin Denny and especially of the Mexican arranger extraordinaire Esquivel. While I bet he'd be comfortable downing a Mai Tai or two at Trader Vic's, Mr. O'Neill is a thoroughly modern multi-instrumentalist.

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Album Reviews
"The Beatles Live at the BBC": Should You Buy This (Again)?
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 04, 2014
The BBC did not preserve the master tapes of any of The Beatles BBC appearances. The tape was considered more valuable than the performances recorded therein. That's not exactly a secret. The audio used for the original edition of this set first issued in 1994 came from BBC Transcription Service vinyl, tape copies and radio broadcast tapes provided by fans.

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Album Reviews
What's Up With Experience Hendrix's Mono "Are You Experienced"?
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 03, 2014
Comments following the review of the mono reissues of the American version of Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold As Love indicated some dissatisfaction with the reissue of the U.K. version of the album, also mastered by Bernie Grundman.

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Album Reviews
Rosanne Cash's "River & the Thread" Drives South
Michael Fremer  |  Feb 03, 2014
Though she's lived for decades in New York City, Rosanne Cash remains connected genetically, spiritually and otherwise to her southern roots. Cash was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1955 but in 1961 her parents moved to California. Rosanne remained there with her mother Vivian Liberto Cash and three sisters after the couple divorced in 1967.

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Album Reviews
"Uncle Meat"—Frank Zappa's Soundtrack Album to a Movie He Correctly Predicted You Would Never See
Michael Fremer  |  Jan 03, 2014
Frank Zappa’s sprawling 1969 soundtrack from a movie (he correctly supposes in a speech balloon) “….you will probably never get to see”, has ripened beautifully with age.

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Album Reviews
Ensemble HD "Live at the Happy Dog"
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 13, 2013
Chamber music at a corner dive? Not likely, but this Kickstarter financed double LP set bears witness to the unlikely success of what sounds like an impossible combination of Beethoven and beer at an ex-polka bar located in the recently gentrified but once less than savory area now known as Cleveland, Ohio's Gordon Square Arts District.

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Album Reviews
Analogue Productions "Goes to the Dogs"—Its "Scheherazade" Living Stereo Reissue Sounds Best
Michael Fremer  |  Dec 12, 2013
This ravishing beauty, originally released in 1960 or fifty three years ago, has been a long-time audiophile classic. It's also considering to be among the finest if not the finest performance on record or any other format.

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Album Reviews
Deptford Goth's "Life After Defo" Will Make You Happily Sad
Michael Fremer  |  Nov 18, 2013
I don't know what "defo" is, but judging by this record, life after it is achingly melancholic. Actually after writing that I did web search and learned that "defo" means something like "certainty". So who can argue that life after certainty would leave you anything but melancholic or worse?

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Album Reviews
"Nilsson Sings Newman" Issued By Speakers Corner on Quiet Vinyl For the First Time
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 24, 2013
Warner Brothers put Randy Newman on a college tour in 1969 with Ry Cooder and Captain Beefheart. The idea was to familiarize college kids with the label's eclectic artistic mix.
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Album Reviews
"Tapestry" at 45rpm Forty Plus Years Later Sounding Better Than Ever
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 24, 2013
In 1972 and '73 you'd hear this classic album playing in every hippie crash pad and college dorm room in America. It was a "chick" album guys could dig. Her friend James Taylor had encouraged the veteran song writer to sing her own songs.
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Album Reviews
Mobile Fidelity's "The Band" Reissue Produces Shock and Awe
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 17, 2013
What would Mobile Fidelity do without a master tape? It doesn't exist. Or at least it can't be found. A Mo-Fi person asked me what I knew. I told them I knew the tape's been missing for years but that I'd check with the late Levon Helm's people to see what they might know. A search of Levon's tape library didn't produce it and a someone else I know checked with Robbie Robertson's people. No master.

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Album Reviews
"Blonde on Blonde" 47 Years Later On 45rpm Triple LP Box Set Sounds Better Than Ever!
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 25, 2013
How to follow up Highway 61 Revisited released in the summer of 1965? Dylan had an impending nine-month world tour to deal with and a band to assemble. He hooked up with an outfit called Levon and the Hawks and after a few weeks of rehearsing and well-received live performances in Texas, he took the group to Columbia Studios in New York.

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Album Reviews
Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" Monophonic Reissue From Sony/Legacy: An Analog Planet Exclusive!
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 24, 2013
Over the past few Record Store Days Sony/Legacy has been slowly rolling out on 180g vinyl, much of the Miles Davis catalog mastered from original analog tapes. This coming Record Store Day, November 29th, the label will release on vinyl Miles and Monk at Newport, Jazz Track and Kind of Blue. At that point, all nine mono vinyl titles will have been released. The same nine mono titles will debut on CD in a new box set MILES DAVIS: The Original Mono Recordings to be released on November 11th of this year

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Album Reviews
Cyndi Lauper's Debut Sounding Better Than Ever on Mobile Fidelity's Reissue
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 15, 2013
Like Marshall Crenshaw’s debut, Cyndi Lauper’s first album would be difficult to top and neither she nor Crenshaw managed to do it. Better to peak early than not peak at all—not that either of them didn’t release some very good follow-ups.

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