A couple of years ago a family member gave me a burnt disc of a band called Tricky Pixie. This was their first release under this band name, album is Mythcreants. I have listened to this disc a ton, and really enjoyed the music, and always thought it was well recorded. But I had lost track of it since its not in a normal CD case with cover art, and therefore not filed in my library. But I found it the other day....
Now I never listened to it on this Pass DIY amp and pre I bought this year, and I wanted to give it a spin as I enjoy this music. While it sounded great before, this time around it is outstanding!! As good as anything I have heard on my system, and a ton better then a lot of other stuff. Now I like modern folk music, and I tend to buy discs from bands and artists at our local festival. In general I find I get excellent music and recordings this way. It seems that these small bands probably record their music in a semi live take...with all the band playing instead of some kind of multi track arrangement as a commercial recording can be. There is just a liveness and immediacy to the sound that so many other recordings don't get. I don't know the particulars of how this disc is recoded, but I can't argue with the end results. There are some studio tricks mixed in, like rain in the background and a few animal sounds, but even those blend in seamlessly.
It just goes to reinforce all that we think in terms of recording quality. You can have the finest gear in the world, but if the source material sounds like a cat and a chicken stuffed in a burlap bag the stereo is going to suck(no cats or chickens were harmed during this post). As much as I like classic rock and roll that I grew up with, I cannot think of a Led Zeppelin or Aerosmith recording that would ever approach this disc in terms of sound quality. Now the funny thing is "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" by AC/DC seems to be pretty well recorded, and I can appreciate what is done with it. So go figure. And that probably is a slick multi track recording, and it sounds good.....so there are no absolutes it seems...even in this subject.
So if you like folk with a bit of an Irish texture to it, Mythcreants might be worth listening to for ya.
Regards
Mister Pig
