Michael Fremer

Album Reviews
Two Albums In One Package From Long Running Rev
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).

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Album Reviews
Sarah Plus Soul Plus Standards
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2009  |  0 comments

Recorded at L.A.’s famed United Recorders June 6th and 12th 1963 and arranged by Gerald Wilson (Anthony’s dad) for the spare and daring combo of organ, trumpet, tenor sax and drums, this Sarah Vaughan set of mostly familiar standards will confound your expectations with every note.

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Album Reviews
Must Have Miles From Speakers Corner
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2009  |  1 comments

Miles Davis’s major label debut, recorded with his quintet in the fall of 1955 and late summer of 1956 while he was still under Prestige contract and released early in 1957, was not particularly well-received at the time, though it has grown considerably in stature since then.

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Album Reviews
Much Sought After Blue Note From 20 Year Old Trumpeter
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2009  |  0 comments

Lee Morgan’s 1959 solo debut recorded when he was just 19 is aptly named. It’s an album of standards in a quartet setting designed to show off the prodigy’s ability to wrap his big, warm tone around familiar melodies.

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Album Reviews
Neil Comes Home to Adoring 1971 Canadian Crowd
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2009  |  3 comments

As soon as Young walks on stage and you hear the applause, you’ll know you’re in for a sonic treat. The audience has been carefully miked, which is not always the case with live recordings, even when the stage sound is good. The applause captures the hall space well too.

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Album Reviews
Rare Orchestral Psych Boettcher Masterpiece on Sundazed Vinyl!
Michael Fremer  |  Apr 01, 2009  |  0 comments

Psychedelic music may have originated as a raw, disorienting art form in the streets of Haight-Ashbury, or in L.A. crash pads, but as with all raw art forms, it was only a matter of time before it got sanitized, commercialized and made non-threatening for middle-brow Top 40 consumption.

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News
Mosaic Returns to Vinyl Box Sets With New Monk Set
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 09, 2009  |  0 comments
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Album Reviews
Speakers Corner Produces Cold, Icy Songs....The mastering engineer responds!
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 01, 2009  |  0 comments

Editor's note: this review has caused quite a dust-up, in part because of the sonic description and in part because of this, which you'll find further down in the text:

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Album Reviews
Band Takes the Sound "Deep Inside"
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 01, 2009  |  0 comments

Deerhunter opens Microcastle with a Pink Floyd-like grand musical flourish taken at midtempo lysergic trail speed. The floating, vibrating textures give way to an insistent, deliberate, Wire-like beat that the group rides for a while before switching to dream-like reverie resplendent of Eno’s ambient projects merged with moodiness the late Syd Barrett might be proud to call his own.

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Album Reviews
Professor Delivers Tough Assignment
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 01, 2009  |  0 comments

In a 1991 book called The Worst Rock’n’ Roll Records of All Time, music critics Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell declare Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle the 23rd worst rock’n’roll album of all time.

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