Michael Fremer

Rhino releases on June 25th a box set containing re-mastered versions of Joni Mitchell's first four Reprise albums (1968-71). The date is the 3 days after the 50th anniversary of the original release of Blue, which many fans consider a pivotal album in her recording career and one of the most thoughtful musical expressions of love lost ever. It was also her final Reprise release. Blue, like albums by Nick Drake and a few others from that era continue to be rediscovered by succeeding generations of fans and musicians alike.

Hagerman Audio Lab’s 3rd generation fully balanced from input to output 3 pound Trumpet MC combines a differential JFET input front-end with a more conventional 6 dual-triode vacuum tube (4X 12AX7, 2X 12AU7) gain/ phase-splitter/driver/output (if I misread the schematic, which is possible, Hagerman will correct me!). Each tube came fitted with a damping ring.

The first AnalogPlanet video in months is an hour plus worth of weird and unusual records in the editor's large collection. What makes an album "weird" or "unusual"? A wide variety of possibilities as you'll see in this amusing and entertaining video in which the website's editor literally lets his hair down.

At least I think there's humor here!

Los Angeles—April 26, 2021 — Verve/UMe’s Acoustic Sounds series celebrates Impulse!’s 60th anniversary, releasing May 14 two of the four titles that originally launched the iconic orange and black label:

• Ray Charles – Genius + Soul = Jazz
• Gil Evans Orchestra – Out Of The Cool