News

The Electric Recording Company (ERC) just announced a Prestige monophonic jazz reissue series sourced from the original master tapes licensed from label owner Concord Music Group.

The four titles are (in order of release date):

Hank Mobley: Mobley's Message ERC023 (9/30/16)
Tommy Flanagan: Tommy Flanagan Overseas ERC 021 (10/31/16)
The Jackie McLean Quintet: Lights Out ERC 024 (11/30/16)
Elmo Hope: Informal Jazz ERC 022 (12/16/16)

Electric Recording Company has replicated the analogue production process of the1950s using restored equipment from the era - including a rebuilt and restored Lyrec lathe cutter and a Lyrec SV tape machine.

ERC’s painstaking approach, which has included trialling numerous pressing plants around Europe and the USA to achieve the right vinyl weight and quality, extends to the look and feel of the sleeves.

To ensure the cover artwork is as crisp and as fresh as the original LPs, packaging material and paper stocks have been meticulously researched.

ERC employ artisan printers Hand & Eye in London’s East End to not only entirely re-typeset the sleeve text, but also to create new plates for the artwork. The covers are printed using a Heidelberg letterpress printer and folded by hand. As a result each album can take up to two years to complete.

This is first time the Prestige masters have ever left the US, such is the confidence in ERC’s approach. Echoing what industry experts have been saying about the quality of ERC’s classical reissues, Concord Music Group’s Sig Sigworth said: “The concept, the care and the quality were the things that first made me interested in The Electric Recording Company. But once I met Pete and saw the beautifully restored equipment I was sold.”