What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XII)
Posted by: Richard Dane on 01 January 2016
2016 has arrived today, so time to start this thread afresh.
Last year's thread (and links to previous years) can be found here;
Slim68 posted:Fate The Juggler, Set In Stone.
Found on Tidal, interesting bunch of musicians playing a mix of Folk, Rock, Country etc. Enjoying this very much.
Enjoyed Set in Stone, so playing this now via Tidal. A few tracks in and I like it.
Jackson Browne. Eponymous debut on vinyl from 1972. Running through my JB LPs in chronological order. Well developed music for a debut album.
This young lady just continues to impress me:
Jackson Browne. For Everyman (1973). An Asylum blue label re-issue from the early 1980's. The album is a nice successor to Browne's debut. No sophomore slump here. This re-issue SQ is poor relative to the other original-issue LPs of Browne's I have. He's an artist that has nice SQ to his albums. Any Elektra/Asylum re-issue LPs I have from the early 1980's sound pretty crappy.
Jackson Browne. Late For The Sky. On original vinyl from 1974. Browne's third album and probably my favorite. He's developing a more involving musical style and sings with a stronger, more confident command. As usual for a JB album, nice SQ and a great cast of musicians.
Jackson Browne. The Pretender. On original vinyl from 1976. His fourth album shows JB developing a stronger commercial sound. The title track begins in typical Browne and piano fashion and progresses into a heavy production, string-embellished ending. I find it one of Browne's signature songs and among his better albums.
On CD:-
Start of the nice additional Sunday....
The weater is less shiny as one should expect at this time of year, so perfect conditions for listening music.
A good friend stopped by over the weekend dropped off bunch of his MM45s so that I can finally start comparing with my MM33.
The first up is Grant Green's Matador.
MM33 loses a quite a bit of instrument presence making the guitar laid back and far. Also apparent is a loss of colours. The palette is not rich and deep and rather sounding a bit washed out particularly on cymbal decays. On this album there is no loss of speed or dynamics detected on the Kenny Drew Undercurrent 45 where I clearly preferred the MM33. 45MM excels at the dynamic impact and speed of Elvin Jone's drum work.
A lot more of inner details and improved micro dynamics on the 45 almost like a R2R spooky real. Comparatively 33MM sounds pale and flat.
Grant Green isn't particularly my favourite and I start to lose interest in the tail end of 'My favouite thing' as the tune starts to sound a bit monotonous and repetitive. Not so with the 45MM because there are so much more life and colours, the performance actually keeps me focus to the tunes much better.
This is the second volume of this wonderful recording by Isabelle Faust.
Really enjoying this one -
joerand posted:
Jackson Browne. The Pretender. On original vinyl from 1976. His fourth album shows JB developing a stronger commercial sound. The title track begins in typical Browne and piano fashion and progresses into a heavy production, string-embellished ending. I find it one of Browne's signature songs and among his better albums.
When this came out I sold Hi-Fi in Oxford Street for a box-shifter (Laskys). I used Here Come Those Tears Again as a demo track, and it was an absolute killer. When I hear it, I'm 24 again!
Streaming | WAV | CD rip
(1969)
Pink Floyd ~ More
Recently acquired and ripped this film soundtrack was released between Ummagumma and Atom Heart Mother, unsurprisingly it has a very sixties sound and sports thirteen tracks, not something that they would do again on a single album.
On vinyl...
Followed by...
First play, on vinyl...
Streaming | WAV | CD rip
(2003)
Trying to get that feeling of desert vistas, heat and big skies, this album goes a long way to help that.
On CD:-
Must be something in the air, just logging in to post this one and see more Marvin above
I only have What's going on in my collection so doing some discovering through Tidal.
SJB
The Cox Family - "Gone Like The Cotton" - produced by Alison Krauss. Nice article about this recording in the May/June issue of "The Absolute Sound". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awWf04nPT74