Album Reviews

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Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2004  |  0 comments

Who producer Kit Lambert flew to New York Spring of 1969 to supervise the mastering of Tommy for American Decca’s 2 LP release (Decca 7205). With the lacquers cut, Lambert declared the results a “masterpiece” and celebrated by incinerating the tapes. So the oft-repeated story goes. Fortunately, it’s not a true story, for during the tape research for this special edition, the original 2 track master tape was discovered in a storage vault. That leads one to wonder what Mobile Fidelity used a few years ago for its “Original Master Recording” gold CD issue, but why cry over spilt polycarbonate and gold sputtering when this superb edition is now available?

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 08, 2022  |  11 comments
First their Woodland Studio took a direct hit from the tornado that tore through Nashville March of 2020, and then came the Covid lock down.

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 01, 2007  |  0 comments

If you buy this and just hear some moldy old monophonic Dixieland you deserve to spend the rest of your life listening to Aqualung and Patricia Barber, not that there’s anything wrong with either that album or that artist. I don’t mean to insult anyone but the audiophile “pop charts” are depressingly mundane and predictable.

Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2005  |  0 comments

I don't have kids. Didn't happen. We've dealt with it. They say if you play Mozart for your kid in the womb it's good for his or her development. I wouldn't know.

Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2005  |  0 comments

Duke Ellington in a hard charging trio session may surprise some listeners expecting the Duke's usual light touch. Spurred on by Charles Mingus's angry plucks and Max Roach's polyrhythms, Ellington hits the keyboard harder than usual, punctuating his flourishes with greater dynamic gusto than one hears on his big band recordings.

Michael Fremer  |  Feb 01, 2007  |  0 comments

Krauss and company’s tuneful, crossover bluegrass-pop may not be pure enough for the dogmatic, but for the rest of us, the smooth-to-the-touch instrumentals and lilting, lockstep harmonies bring mountain-sense and countrified order to a chaotic world however far into the pop arena the group occasionally strays.

Michael Fremer  |  Aug 07, 2014  |  25 comments
Yes, it's a horrendous conflict of interest, I suppose, for me to be reviewing this double LP TRON soundtrack reissue since I originally supervised it back in 1982, but I was there, so who better qualified to do it?

Michael Fremer  |  Aug 01, 2007  |  0 comments

If you’re not familiar with Modest Mouse’s brand of jumpy/shouty, guitar driven music, if you’re a fan of XTC or The Talking Heads, you actually are.

Michael Fremer  |  May 01, 2010  |  0 comments

While two of the three previous jazz records guitarist/arranger Anthony Wilson made with producer Joe Harley were guitar/drum/organ sessions, this one also featuring those instruments is much different.

Michael Fremer  |  Jun 01, 2006  |  1 comments

Clearaudio couldn't have gone into the record business to provide software support for its line of turntables. There’s no shortage of new vinyl in 2006. Perhaps the album’s producer is a friend.

Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2009  |  0 comments

The long running outfit known as Mercury Rev (first album, Yerself Is Steam issued 1991 on the UK Mint Films label and 1992 on U.S. Columbia) didn’t take its name from the liquid element. The first album’s back jacket offers a clue: with or without permission, it reproduces the ‘Stereo 35MM’ logo found on cloth-spined Command Classics LPs and that’s fine with me. “Fine”&#151get it? Fine? It even reproduces the part of the logo that says the recording was on 35MM magnetic tape, but I doubt that album really was. (Hint: those Commands were recorded by the legendary Mercury Records engineer (and mastered by George Piros for that matter).

Mark Smotroff  |  Jan 06, 2023  |  4 comments

Never one to sit idle, even after a debilitating physical injury he sustained in late 1971, Frank Zappa pushed onward to make some of the most creative music of his entire career. The resultant two albums — July 1972’s Waka/Jawaka (official Zappa album No. 15) and November 1972’s The Grand Wazoo (official Zappa album No. 16) — are two sides of a coin now duly feted in a pair of new, 50th anniversary 180g 1LP editions sporting all-analog mastering by Bernie Grundman. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to find out why you need to get your hands, and ears, on both LPs. . .

Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2005  |  1 comments

The Concord catalog is filled with great sounding recordings made by top tier artists in the later phases of their careers. There's nothing wrong with that. It's to label founder and producer Carl E. Jefferson's credit that he had a jazz label vision and saw it through at a time when jazz was on the decline commercially.

Mark Smotroff  |  Mar 08, 2024  |  6 comments

Plangent Processes is again at the center of a pair of new Grateful Dead reissues that were released by Rhino back in January: a) July 1977’s Top 30 hit LP Terrapin Station and July 1987’s Top 10 smash In the Dark — and now we’re finally getting around to reviewing them here together. Read Mark Smotroff’s review to see if either or both of these new LP editions of Terrapin Station and In the Dark — supervised and produced by noted Dead archivist David Lemieux, and mastered for vinyl by David Glasser — belong in your collection. . .

Michael Fremer  |  Jan 03, 2017  |  10 comments
There was a period in '60s record history when you could buy "by the label" and pretty much be assured of a great listen. It was true of Elektra and later, after it got off its "high horse," Columbia, which for a while wouldn't touch rock.

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