What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XI)

Lovely album, one of my favourites. The Music Matters mastering/pressings are superb, I have a subscription and received all the 33rpm titles to date. One slight caveat with this pressing though is the print through echo most noticeable on Mule. MM tell me that it is present on the master tape. Have you noticed?

Latest version of Amused to Death arrived today, the AP version on 200gm vinyl. Hard to reconcile that the CD I have had for many years and used to sound fantastic now sounds like an MP3 sampled at about 2 bits/second. 

On Bandcamp..., too ambient for me...

On bandcamp, have already an album from this guys, quite good on 1st run...

CD rip AIFF:-

Streaming | FLAC

(1977)

This double album featured live tracks from a Hammersmith Odeon gig and new studio material; playing the CD 1 rip for now.

"The Latin infused blues rock era is caught live on tour in Europe in 1976, while the soul/funk tight song oriented direction is heard for the 1st time with all new studio cuts. Both styles are scattered across all 4 sides and melded together seamlessly" - An Amazonian

On CD:-

Ok, but not excited..., on bandcamp...

Billy Joel - Millenium Concert.

I was fortunate to be at the Hammersmith gig Steve as I was visiting friends who were studying at Middlesex Poly at the time. 

In 2007, on one of his first discs for Decca, Kaufmann recorded the two Puccini aria's that are noticeably absent from his new Puccini album: Che gelida manina, and the best of all: E lucevan le stelle, from Tosca. His technique was already as good as it is today, his voice liquid, not quite as baritonal in timbre as it is today, and with thrilling top notes. This record set impossibly high standards.

EJ

Streaming | FLAC

Because I have been absolutely gagging to hear this superb album again at full volume.

I envy you that one ewemon, I was out in Libya at that time.

I was there too.  It was an excellent concert but the best time I heard them was in a small concert venue in Exeter about six years earlier. 

The hi-res file of this album is pretty good as well, it doesn't have the bonus tracks though.

I noticed as well, it's annoying as it wasn't present on my '80s Blue Note LP or on a hi res file I have.

Superb album though.

Streaming | FLAC

(2006)

Playing it for exactly the same reasons as I did  for their other one "Fallen" earlier.

Always pleasant some Liszt...

Dylan's Blood On The Tracks on vinyl. The first Dylan album I really got into as a teen. Record must  be 40 years old but still sounds good.

The Kings of Leon, Youth and young Manhood, their debut album from before they were trendy.  Not as all round brilliant as Only By The Niht but more original in some ways and the second half of the album is excellent.  Flac via audirvana//hugo

First spin. Kaufmann's long-awaited Puccini album is very classy, with Pappano and the Santa Cecilia orchestra and Kristine Opolais and other singers engaging in duets and various bits to add necessary colour to a recital of bleeding chunks that could sound monotonous in lesser hands.

Kaufmann tries and fairly achieves characterisation within the excerpts, but the most important thing is that he is just at home in much of this music. I think he is a bit plain in the arias from Tosca and Il Tabarro, but the more tender sections from La Boheme (where he dials down the power appropriately and colors his voice to Opolais) and La Rondine are very well done, and best of all are the excerpts from La Fanciulla del West and Turandot. Kaufmann's voice is in great shape. 

EJ

Bit of an odd selection tonight, but it's working for me!

Followed by

then

CD.

Intimate and well-recorded.

DB.

Trying to see if I can come to terms with her vibrato. No.  Still too wide and wallowy. Orchestra are great though and can't help but be swept along by the finale coda which is like a great entrance from a ballet.