Monthly Archives: October 2019

“When I recorded my first album, I knew that I had one major goal and that was to get it pressed on vinyl. And it’s not because I grew up immersed in the format or even had a lot of history with vinyl, but it is because the times I have listened to vinyl have been my most precious music listening experiences. Because of that, I keep my personal record collection rather slim, but every piece of vinyl is something I have poured over religiously, and I revere the musicians that I have on vinyl, and feel in direct commune with their overarching vision as artists, and that is something I yearned to establish with my own foray into music.”

“Looking back at my first experience with vinyl, it had the feeling of an American archeological discovery. My parents had been hunting for a budget sound system, and after visiting various used furniture stores, they found a great deal on a unit that also had a record player as part of the setup. When the giant faux wood entertainment system was successfully moved into our home, my parents dutifully pulled together the records from their respective collections that had survived various moves over the years, and like any proper ’90s family, the unit was christened with Michael Jackson’s Bad.

The afternoon was one of those rare and joyous moments where the entire family was joined together in the living room dancing, and unlike while watching television, which was a passive entertainment experience, vinyl seemed to demand our active attention and interaction that was only rivaled by the jubilation of unwrapping presents on a Christmas morning.

A few months later, I tried to recreate the moment on my own when my parents had gone out for the evening. I chose Don McClean’s American Pie, and proudly setup the record player on my own, listening to side A over and over again. I danced, I sang, I felt inside the music and totally in command, and eventually, realizing I could drop the needle to any part of the song I wanted, opening up a whole new interaction.

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Nat King Cole’s enduring renown derives from his skill as a vocalist, but he’s also arguably the most underrated of jazz’ great pianists. The seven CDs or ten LPs comprising Hittin’ The Ramp: The Early Years (1936-1943) do a stellar job of highlighting Cole’s keyboard prowess while documenting the growth of his superb trio with guitarist Oscar Moore and bassist Wesley Prince first, and later Johnny Miller. There are also brief visits from the great saxophonists Lester Young and Dexter Gordon and a ton of singing, though the approach lands solidly in a hot and often vocal group zone. It’s out November 1 through Resonance Records in partnership with the Nat King Cole estate.

Back in 1991, Mosaic Records issued The Complete Capitol Recordings of the Nat King Cole Trio, an exhaustive limited-edition set spread across 18 compact discs or 27 vinyl records. It was obviously produced for hardcore jazz nut collectors, the kind of listener who would know that Cole had worked extensively as a musician prior to his career-defining move to Capitol (an association he would maintain throughout his superstardom until the end of his life) but with very few commercial records detailing said period.

Hittin’ The Ramp features jukebox-only discs, private recordings, and a slew of radio transcriptions along with the handful of sessions that resulted in discs that were available for retail purchase, with the vast majority of the selections here officially released for the first time. There is a smidge of overlap with the Mosaic collection, but it doesn’t arrive until LP eight (or CD six) with “Vom, Vim, Veedle” commencing a smattering of cuts for the small Excelsior and Premier labels which were later purchased by Capitol and serve as the kickoff to the Mosaic set.

This repetition isn’t likely to bother owners of The Complete Capitol Recordings one bit, as it’s a miniscule percentage, specifically ten tracks out of Hittin’ The Ramp’s 183. Yes, that’s a lot of music, but slim compared to the behemoth decades-of-discovery scenario presented by Mosaic’s presentation of Capitol’s holdings, though in its vinyl incarnation Resonance’s achievement is also a limited edition.

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SEATTLE, WA | Thom Yorke is living in a world that not a lot of us can truly understand. He’s a true disruptor in both a musical sense and as an industry pioneer. He did exactly what the music business SHOULD have done by embracing technology instead of fighting it. He broke the mold for releasing and promoting new music and continues to innovate.

Having seen Radiohead several times over the years, this would be my first-time seeing Yorke solo. The music is so different with its atmospheric overtones driven by electronic beats and offbeat electro-funk, one could ask the question, would he be selling out venues without Radiohead’s success on his resume? That’s the wrong question to be asking, though. While the solo music may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it does carry forward the complexity of Radiohead’s later records, even pushing them into new territory once again.

The Radiohead frontman was joined on stage by Nigel Godrich and visual artist Tarik Barr. The setup was quite small with a couple of digital turntables and a slew of synthesizers, but the sound was enormous. Yorke weaved in and out of the turntables, twisting and turning knobs with the look of confidence in his art, with a glimpse of a smile in between moments where he seemed to be in a trance with the music.

I looked around frequently at the capacity crowd at the beautiful Paramount Theatre. I saw a crowd completely immersed in not only the sonic landscapes echoing through the historic space, but also drawn to the laser-like light show interpreting the sounds by painting with light.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The 1979 soundtrack by Richard Einhorn released for the first time in any format on 2-LP 180 gram “steel and smoke” colored vinyl.

Waxwork Records is thrilled to announce the debut release of Don’t Go In The House Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Available for the very first time in any format, the complete soundtrack by composer Richard Einhorn (Shock Waves, The Prowler) come to vinyl as a deluxe double LP package. Don’t Go In The House is a 1979 American slasher / psychological horror movie that follows the character Donald Kohler who was abused by his mother starting from an early age. Donald become obsessed with fire, and after his mother’s death, he begins a killing spree by abducting women, taking them home, and burning them alive. The film is a chilling and gruesome grindhouse favorite that was regularly screened on the infamous early 1980’s 42nd Street movie theater strip in NYC.

The soundtrack by Richard Einhorn features the composer’s known minimal electronic scoring style which implements early, analog synthesizers fused with dissonant, haunting sound design. Waxwork’s debut soundtrack release to Don’t Go In The House features the complete film music composed by Richard Einhorn, and also includes additional and unused music scored for the film by Einhorn that has is previously unreleased. All sourced from the original 1979 master tapes.

Album features include 2xLP 180 gram “steel and smoke” colored vinyl, new art by Marc Schoenbach, deluxe packaging, old style gatefold jackets with satin coating, and re-mastered audio from the original analog master tapes.

“My first memory of vinyl is a vivid one.”

“If I’m honest I was actually going through a somewhat turbulent time back then. Family stuff. My father was spending long periods away from home with his work, without delving into the finer details there was an ‘atmosphere’ in the house put it that way. Me and my sisters were starting to notice the cracks forming between our parents. I remember being in bed one night, I hadn’t seen dad come home but I always knew he was when heard his record player.

I remember the song to this very day, “Sweet Thing’ by Van Morrison from—which subsequently became—one of my favourite albums of all time Astral Weeks. I remember the comfort it brought me hearing that sound, it felt like everyone was were they should be, it was like the floorboards of my bedroom would suddenly relax and the walls took a long sigh of relief. I felt a warmth around me. One that was missing for too long through my childhood.

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Leslie West is a heavy guy. He weighs like 1,000 lbs and plays heavy music and called his band Mountain because mountains are very heavy, and his song “Mississippi Queen” is so heavy it has to be carried from gig to gig in a specially made truck of the sort the U.S. Army uses to transport intercontinental ballistic missiles. And forget about vinyl. Mountain was so heavy they released their 1970 debut on concrete. It weighed 42 pounds and crushed a whole lot of record players.

Lots of folks dismissed Mountain (West on guitar and vocals, Felix Pappalardi on bass and vocals, Corky Laing on drums, and Steve Knight on keyboards) as Long Island’s answer to Cream, and on songs like “Theme for an Imaginary Western,” “For Yasgur’s Farm,” “The Laird,” and “Boys in the Band” the resemblance is striking. But on Climbing! Mountain escapes their Cream fetish to produce songs as humongous as the whale you keep expecting to show up in “Nantucket Sleighride,” except he never does.

Given Mountain’s reputation as the heaviest beast to ever slouch out of Long Island, Climbing! is far more diverse than you’d expect. Sure, you get some nifty Godzilla stomp along the lines of “Mississippi Queen.” But the band also flirts with acid-prog of the sort that won’t wreak havoc on your tweeters, and tosses in a couple of genre-benders that defy all known ethnomusicological definition. In short, Mountain was no one-trick mastodon.

The band’s division of vocal duties further lent diversity to Mountain’s sound. West’s rhino snort contrasts nicely with Pappalardi’s Jack Bruce, and the duo delegates lead vocal chores accordingly–West sings the speaker-busters, Pappalardi the more Cream-influenced tracks.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Throbbing Gristle announce the next phase of their reissues series with the release of Part Two: The Endless Not, TG Now and A Souvenir of Camber Sands, out on CD and limited edition vinyl December 13. Pre-order the reformation years reissues here.

In 2004, Chris Carter, Peter Christopherson, Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti reformed—23 years after their mission was originally terminated. Between 2004 and 2007, the band released 14 new studio tracks and a live album of their appearance at ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas in Camber Sands, England. TG Now, originally released in 2004, was the sound of Throbbing Gristle testing the waters, seeing how it felt to work together again. The 4-track limited vinyl and CD release was available originally to attendees of the RE-TG Astoria event in 2004, their first performance together since 1981’s US tour.

With Part Two: The Endless Not, the band returned to the studio after deciding they had unfinished creative business outside of the live arena. Released in 2007, over 25 years after their last studio album, the album was, as Tiny Mix Tapes put it, “…more of a rebirthing than a reunion.” Several live documents followed the album’s release, but the untimely death of Peter Christopherson in November 2010 meant that this would become the final Throbbing Gristle album. 15 years since the reformation, all the albums included in this phase of the remastered reissues, Part Two: The Endless Not, TG Now and A Souvenir of Camber Sands, stand proudly within the influential catalog and legacy of TG.

Part Two: The Endless Not and TG Now will be packaged together as a limited edition triple clear vinyl and poster box set. It will also available on double CD and digital platforms.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On December 6th, 2019, American heavy metal group Iced Earth will finally release the classic 1999 live opus Alive in Athens as its first proper vinyl edition to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this monumental recording.

Originally released as a 2CD, 3CD and picture LP set, Alive in Athens came out slightly flawed two decades ago yet turned into a gigantic success for Iced Earth and was certified Gold in Greece, where the more than thirty different songs spanning set had been recorded on two nights at Athens’ Rodon Club in January 1999. The original release lacked the live version of “Colors” and the picture LP was a fairly careless CD to vinyl transfer interrupting Matt Barlow’s stage banter several times and split up tracks that had been performed back to back (for example the “Something Wicked (Trilogy)”). Together with Jon Schaffer, this anniversary edition was created, offering a partially revised sequencing and fully dynamic vinyl mastering by Patrick W. Engel / Temple Of Disharmony as well as many additional extras, Jon Schaffer states:

“Alive In Athens has been called one of the greatest heavy metal live albums of all time. For me, it was one of the high points in a long and eventful journey that carries on to this day. I’ve experienced some of the best memories of my musical and personal life in Greece and these two nights in Athens are certainly no exception. I am honored and humbled by the passion of Iced Earth fans in Greece and all over the world and hope you will all enjoy this ultimate edition of Alive in Athens!”

Alive in Athens (20th Anniversary Edition) includes five 180gram LPs, a 12-page LP-sized booklet with liner notes by Jon Schaffer and Matt Barlow as well as Hakos Pervanidis (Metal Hammer Greece) who also contributed additional visual content, and 60x60cm poster.

“I fell in love with music in the age of CD listening. Vinyl felt like something my parents were into, it was archaic. I liked making mixes… picking and choosing what I thought was cool and burning it onto a disc.”

“It wasn’t until after college I started getting into vinyl. I remember the first record I sat and listened to start to finish was Daniel Lanois’ Shine. I was cat sitting in Connecticut and had a huge house to myself, an incredible sound system, and glass of whiskey.

I just sat and let the whole thing wash over me—and did nothing else. All of its beautiful ethereal ambiance. That listening experience was the first time I really allowed myself to hear a piece of work like that in its entirety.

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