MUSIC NEWS: Kit Downes / Petter Eidh / James Maddren – Vermillion

THOM JUREK writes … Vermillion is the third ECM leader date by classically trained British pianist and organist Kit Downes. He began his tenure with the label on 2018’s Obsidian, a collection of mostly solo pieces recorded in churches on pipe organs. His follow-up, 2019’s Dreamlife of Debris, showcased him playing piano and organ in […]

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HOWLIN’ WOLF

“…Wolf migrated to the Windy City and thereafter recorded directly for Leonard and Phil Chess. Within another year, Willie Dixon was brought in as studio bassist and contributing songwriter. The result of these musical interactions was Wolf creating a litany of masterworks throughout his first decade of recording, a stellar songbook that ranged from his […]

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BENCHMARK MEDIA DAC: Into Meridian G08

Hello Howard. I have read HFA now for some months, deriving great pleasure and stimulation from it’s diverse contents… around the pursuit of the art of listening to music. Interested in recent exchange around the benchmark dac1. I currently have a meridian g08, along with a range of meridian pre power equipment of varying ages […]

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CHICK COREA: Hiromi – Duet

    John Fordham writes ………. “This is the kind of venture – with two flying-fingered virtuosi trying to out-magic each other – that can generate a lot more heat than illumination. But this effervescent double-set of acoustic-piano exchanges on a dozen pieces balances virtuosity with mutual respect, and suggests the encounter was a ……” […]

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Xhadow Corp?

Hi Howard, what can you tell me about Xhadow Corp please?  Iain. Hi Iain, this is all that I have been able to find online – so far. Neil M. Company founded in 2004 by Chris Sommovigo of The Signals Collection and Stuart Marcus of Sound Connections and was based at the latter company’s headquarters […]

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LENNON: Learning Lennon: Guitar Master Bill Frisell

Originally published December 2011 Robert Baird writes ….. For the musically prolific, releasing too many records too close together can be problematic or worse. Just because you can make a record every week in your home studio doesn’t mean you should. The impulse to commit every golden thought and performance to tape without self-editing or […]

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CAN – The Lost Tapes 1968-1975 (Spoon/Mute) Classic krautrock collection makes for a real find

Andy Gill writes ….. Culled from some 50 hours of tapes retrieved from their former studio near Cologne, this 3CD set is a fantastic collection of unreleased material from one of the most important bands of the last century. Can were the archetypal “krautrock” group – ironically, given that much of their best work featured […]

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Monteverdi: Madrigali Vol 3: Venezia CD review – a joyous celebration of the composer’s range

Andrew Clements writes ….. After discs devoted to the madrigals that Monteverdi wrote in Cremona and Mantua, the final part of Les Arts Florissants’ anthology includes pieces from the Seventh and Eighth books. Published in Venice in 1619 and 1638 respectively, they were the last such collections to appear in the composer’s lifetime, and the […]

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BONNIE RAIT: I Thought I Was A Child

LIVE IN-HOUSE RECORDING FROM CLOVER STUDIOS 1976. In 1976, Bonnie Raitt made an appearance on Warren Zevon’s eponymous album alongside Jackson Browne, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. She also performed the set included on this CD at the The Clover Studios in Hollywood on 29th February before a tiny invited audience. And while the recording […]

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The Great Modern Blues Artists

by Reverend Keith A. Gordon Updated March 08, 2017 As rich in talent as the early blues era was, artists like Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Son House set the stage for bluesmen in the 1940s and ’50s to succeed commercially, thus bringing the blues to a mass audience. It’s tough narrowing any list of […]

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NOSE HARVESTERS: ‘Launched some years ago and were very popular amongst the high-end crowd’

Paul McGowan: Noise Harvesters were launched some years ago and were very popular amongst the high-end crowd.  Many are still used today and we get continual requests to bring the product back – which we have. I thought it might be interesting to do a short little series on how the product developed – describing […]

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DIGITAL ROOM EQUALISATION: Is it a gimmick or does it have some application in domestic situations?

Neil, regarding digital room equalisation, is it a gimmick or does it have some application in domestic situations? I have heard these things in operation and I suppose that if you are prepared to spend any time experimenting and moving loudspeakers then it’s a good shortcut to a sort of middling performance. But by and […]

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