Rhino Entertainment's High Fidelity Premium Vinyl Series continues with a pair of classic LP reissues from influential country rock performers Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, both of whose lives and music were inseparably entwined. Included are Gram Parsons' second and final studio album (and his undeniable masterpiece), Grievous Angel (Reprise Records, 1974), along with Emmylou... Read More »
Craft Recordings' revival of the Original Jazz Classics (OJC) series continues with another pair of exciting new 180 gram LP reissues. Including The New Miles Davis Quintet's classic 1956 session Miles (Prestige Records), along with a noteworthy collaboration between trumpeter Clark Terry and Thelonious Monk, 1958's In Orbit (Riverside Records). Both are landmark recordings of... Read More »
I've been working with John Soriano of Apos Audio on a number of recent equipment reviews, and through our regular contacts, I discovered a few months ago that Apos would soon be marketing their own line of self-branded premium vacuum tubes. That news excited me to no end, especially when I learned that among the... Read More »
Craft Recordings' latest noteworthy release of classic jazz has just arrived, and it's a compilation of some of the finest recorded works by legendary alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. Ornithology: The Best of Bird features a selection of classic studio tracks from Parker's mid-1940's sessions for Savoy Records; the studio sessions are supplemented with a group... Read More »
Rhino Entertainment is heralding jazz guitarist and vocalist George Benson’s return to the Warner Music Group with the release of his long lost orchestral album, 1989’s Dreams Do Come True: When George Benson Meets Robert Farnon. The orchestral tracks for the album were recorded in London during a fertile and prolific period while Benson was... Read More »
Rhino Entertainment is celebrating the 30th anniversary of cheeky and eclectic alternative icons Ween and their classic fourth studio album, Chocolate and Cheese, with an expanded, 180 gram, 3-LP Chocolate and Cheese (Deluxe Edition). The elaborate gatefold LP jacket contains the remastered original album spread across two LPs, which was necessary to accommodate an album... Read More »
Craft Recordings' and Acoustic Sounds continue their partnership with the second title in the Bluesville Series reboot, this time featuring Mississippi Delta bluesman Skip James' seminal 1966 Vanguard recording, Today! The LP was pressed by Acoustic Sounds' Quality Record Pressing (QRP) on 180 gram vinyl; Craft and QRP are also collaborating on the Contemporary Jazz... Read More »
Rhino just pulled out all the stops with a surprise new release: the Rhino High Fidelity Premium Vinyl Series inaugural box set, ZZ Top's From The Top: 1971-1976, which shines a light on the raucous boogie ‘n blues rockers first five albums. No advance press release was issued, there were no product shots, and zero... Read More »
Jazz Dispensary is one of the specialty imprints of Craft Recordings that's dedicated to mining the riches of Concord Music's vast catalog of labels. Jazz Dispensary employs "sound sommeliers" to comb the archives, looking for the finest original sources there for less well-known masterpieces of funk, soul, jazz, fusion, and all the related genres they... Read More »
When my review for Vera-Fi Audio's Main Stream™ went live a few weeks ago, Vera-Fi mainman Mark Schifter was only able to supply me with a single device for evaluation. Which according to Mark was at that point the only alpha unit presently in the field! I was really keen to first check out its... Read More »
Rhino continues their High Fidelity Premium Vinyl Series with a pair of classic new reissues of albums that were both released within the same year, 1974. Including Yes' seventh studio album and their first in the aftermath of Rick Wakeman's departure, Relayer (Atlantic Records), along with Bad Company's hard-rocking eponymous debut, Bad Company (Swan Song... Read More »
Craft Recordings' continues to crank out new releases in the second group of reissue titles for 2024 in their Original Jazz Classics (OJC) franchise reboot. This time, featuring their latest, The John Wright Trio's 1960 neglected classic, South Side Soul on Prestige Records. When I originally saw the list of the four albums being made... Read More »
Early this year, Vera-Fi Audio main-man Mark Schifter messaged me to gauge my interest in a new product line he was then representing from Thai manufacturer Puron. I'd told Mark that even though I had a pair of AudioQuest Niagara Low Z, AC power conditioning units in place at the new home in South Carolina,... Read More »
Rhino Entertainment has just launched their Sounds of the Summer LP series, which features a slate of 24 limited edition LP releases, with most of them being offered in deep sea blue colored-vinyl versions. The multitude of releases traverses a broad range of genres and artists, and includes catalog album reissues, greatest hits packages, and... Read More »
Rhino Entertainment has just released the Super Deluxe Edition of progressive rock titans Yes' fourth studio album, 1971's Fragile. Now available in an expansive multi-disc box set, Fragile: Super Deluxe Edition (SDE) offers media choices that will satisfy all listeners. The unusual package design features an LP-sized gatefold jacket that matches the band's recent SDE... Read More »
Rhino Entertainment continues the superb Joni Mitchell Archives Series with their latest installment, The Asylum Albums (1976-1980), which presents newly remastered versions of Joni Mitchell's final four albums for David Geffen's Asylum Records. Including the studio recordings Hejira (1976), the double album Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977), and Mingus (1979), along with Joni's double live... Read More »
Impex Records is well known for their extraordinary reissues of albums that are perhaps underappreciated, but nonetheless quintessential. Their latest is Duke Ellington's seminal 1958 session, Ellington Indigos, which Impex has just taken to the next level with a new 65th anniversary, 45 rpm two-LP edition. A relatively neglected jewel in Duke Ellington's catalog of... Read More »
David Bowie: Rock 'N' Roll Star! is a new box set from Rhino Entertainment that chronicles the iconic star's journey from the formulative beginnings of the Ziggy Stardust era through its conclusion. The heavy box contains a plethora of wonders, not the least of which are the contents of the 5 CDs and the BluRay... Read More »
Craft Recordings is partnering again with Acoustic Sounds for a reboot of the classic Bluesville Series. The LPs will be pressed by Acoustic Sounds' Quality Record Pressing (QRP) on 180 gram vinyl; Craft is already collaborating with QRP on their Contemporary jazz reissue series. And those LPs have been excellent so far, so there's no... Read More »