LATEST ADDITIONS

AP editor Mike Mettler asked ace reviewer Mark Smotroff to come up with a list of his Top 10 vinyl releases of 2022, and it was a much harder task than Mark imagined it would be. “Paring down all the vinyl releases I’ve reviewed in 2022 into a list of just 10 choices?” was Mark’s initial reply. Nonetheless, Mark soldiered on, and got his list in fine order. Read the first 5 of his 10 choices — archival releases, in this case, plus a few bonus extra selections — here. . .

All I want for Christmas is . . . more vinyl. Just ask Smithereens drummer Dennis Diken, who got his first real taste for wax during Christmas as a wee lad, when he received a literal cavalcade of 45s under the tree. In the spirit of the season, Smithereens vinyl fans can rejoice with the news that the four-man New Jersey-bred band’s October 2007 holiday-themed album Christmas With The Smithereens is out now in limited-edition 140g 1LP form, courtesy of Sunset Blvd. Records. Diken got on Zoom with AP editor Mike Mettler recently to discuss all those special 45s he got for Christmas back in 1962, the fine art of album sequencing, and why having Smithereens music on vinyl remains vitally important to the band’s legacy. . .

It’s a constant internal struggle we analog audiophiles face on a daily basis in terms of balancing our lofty hi-fi listening goals, system performance expectations, and overall playback aspirations with our concurrent desires to bring as many new converts into the analog fold as we can. Often, we find it downright difficult to manage these proclivities when it comes to separating the ideal from the real without giving off an air of superiority that leads us to appear to others as, well, a bit too exclusionary — all the more reason why a burgeoning new company like Dum Audio has arrived at the exact right place at the exact right time to help bridge that gap for us. Read on to find out how Dum Audio seeks to do just that with what they quite austerely call The Turntable and The System. . .

Two often overlooked albums by The Beach Boys are the main focus of a fantastic new 180g 5LP+1EP box set, Sail On Sailor – 1972, which features the band’s landmark 1973 album Holland plus 1972’s under-appreciated and much misunderstood Carl And The Passions – “So Tough” to form the heart of this excellent new collection buttressed by a previously unreleased, complete, of-era 1972 live performance from Carnegie Hall. Read Mark Smotroff’s thorough review of this truly special box set-cum-document of an artistically transformative, often powerful, and at times remarkably hard-rocking period for a quintessential Southern California band looking for — and ultimately reaching the summit of — some creatively fruitful new horizons. . .