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Wednesday, March 29, 2017

The springtime blogger's attitude







Friends, loyal and occasional readers of my humble, little Blog asked to me about my recent silence...


... writing, suggesting, sharing is a quite natural activity for yours truly: I write when I've something to say or hint... I write when I'm relaxed or when I'm really busy...


I don't write when I'm down or bluesy... or when I'm really happy...or when I've nothing to say!


Montruglio, yesterday...


When not working or writing, well... I live: enjoy springtime, listen to music randomly, almost sparingly, record live music at the local Conservatory of Music, read, gather with friends and family, go biking and motorbiking or walking at the park enjoying the trees blossoming... when I'm in the mood, I also play my guitar(s).


A boring life?


Maybe: sure a simple life... I'm such a quiet man.


An audiophile is just a man... and I enjoy my oblomovism a lot;-)


I wish you to enjoy life at your pace, as well.





Monday, March 20, 2017

Go Johnny, go!




Indeed.




R.I.P. for Chuck Berry...



Elbow cassette player





A cool project, maybe slightly nostalgic, but the idea behind this gizmo is worth following its future incarnation.



I like it.




Friday, March 17, 2017

Mr. Sennheiser's cool dude...




Such a dude...





A dummy dude!



I love double-bass!







Bottesini rules, folks!


Listening to a 140 years old double-bass played by a true master, maestro Gergely Járdányi - who studied with great, late Ludwig Streicher - is such a blissful joy!










... and re-listening to the actual concert recording from Sound Devices 722, captured with Neumann USM69 in Blumlein-pattern is... well... audio zenith.






Thanking Tom for 722 and maestro Gergely Járdányi for his music and kindness.





Sunday, March 12, 2017

Disc of the Day - Heinz Holliger - Siebengesang - Der Magische Tänzer



A Japanese pressing masterpiece...



Thundering!



WoW!




Flea-market gems... from Hungary with love.




The King is naked!





Gyorgy Ranki?

Yes!

His composing skill reminds me some movies soundtrack with a tad of Respighi and Bernard Hermann... let's not forget the like of another Hungarian composer, Miklos Rozsa, wrote for Hollywood truly remarkable OSTs.

Lovely disc and music, with a recording of seldom heard quality: on side one there are some great passages were unison bassoons, tuba and double-basses shake the building!

Hungaroton really knew its business!





Thursday, March 9, 2017

Mr. Sennheiser goes partying!





... women are truly a one-of-a-kind-breed;-)


My wife, after seeing the unattended vintage Neumann mike-boom and Sennheiser Dummy head at home, shortly after I finished recording, put on the blue head a nice feathers-adorned hat she used for a party during just-over carnival.






Must say the result is eye-pleasing... and the demonstration my wife (and most of women;-)) hate audio and related... and every attempt will be made to change any gears final destination - i.e. making music.






I love my wife;-)






P.S. - Mr. Sennheiser looks cool and elegant, exotic indeed.








Saturday, March 4, 2017

Tandberg of Norway



Mysterious stuffs, folks...

I owned Tandberg's gears for most of my life: TL 5020, Studio Monitor, Tandberg 114/116-8 coaxial speakers... and TD20A, 3500 and 9200 XD reel to reels.

I recently bought for cheap a pair of Hi-Fi System 11 speakers... a truly unassuming, humble shoes-box sized speaker which I connected to my trusty Partridge 300B mono blocks, just out of curiosity.







The sound I enjoyed so much most of the day is so right... hard to believe: or my 300B amps are so incredibly good to make virtually everything to sound heavenly or... these speakers are amazing...

... not sure which of the above.

Hi-Fi is such a funny hobby: a cheap, unknown speaker is able to give more music of many hideously expensive piece of gear I'm aware of!

Funny... so funny I'm almost worried;-)




Friday, March 3, 2017

EMI/Pink Floyd's console for sale!




For sale... in NYC, soon...





At Bonham's




Glenn Jones & Matthew Azevedo's Waterworks on limited-edition vinyl



On new live album Waterworks, digital and acoustic experimentation bring sparkling new depths to Glenn Jones’ emotive guitar virtuoso.  Waterworks was recorded binaurally at the Waterworks Museum in Boston, MA on June 24, 2015 through 20 speakers.  Glenn Jones plays guitar and banjo and is joined by Matthew Azevedo on synthesizer, harmonium, soundscapes, and signal processing.
The LP includes an insert with an essay about the performance and free download card.

A former pumping station in Boston’s Chestnut Hill is not the first place you’d expect to encounter one of American Primitive Guitar’s finest exponents. But with shared reputations for meticulous execution, innovative engineering, and stories on tap, Glenn Jones’ attraction to the Metropolitan Waterworks Museum stands as an unassumingly natural fit.

“I discovered the place when I attended a performance there in 2013,” Jones reminisces. “Even though the hall didn’t appear to be particularly friendly to acoustic instruments, one of my first thoughts was, “How can I get in on this?!””

Recorded a month after the sessions for his 2016 album FleetingWaterworks captures Glenn Jones at the forefront of modern solo guitar playing. Combining a highly skilled fingerpicked style with mesmeric tunings and custom-crafted partial capos, Jones delivers an array of lyrical compositions that quietly regale past adventures and personal reflections with masterful proficiency.




 The Waterworks’ Great Engine Hall – depicted in the album artwork - is a unique setting for Glenn Jones’ intimate vignettes. Its lofty redbrick columns and vaulted ceiling makes for an intensely resonant space, whilst further acoustic considerations had to be made for the large amount of reflective machinery stationed in the room. Sumptuous glissandi seem to drip from every cavernous corner, whilst rhythmic bass lines gainfully slip across brass, steel and stone. Put on record, it makes for a consuming stereo experience.

To best navigate this space Jones turned to Matthew Azevedo – his mastering guru of fifteen years – for guidance. “What had been conceived as a solo show quickly turned into a collaboration,” Jones laughs. Whilst Jones’ untreated guitar and banjo take the forefront throughout Waterworks, Azevedo’s addition brings thrilling new depth to Jones’ ruminative compositions. Toying with the room’s unique acoustic, Azevedo unleashes an arsenal of field recordings, sonic manipulations and harmonium drones, through strategically placed speakers hidden in gangways high above the audience.

Whether it’s cacophonous crow caws bleeding into “Close to the Ground”, or the echoed schoolyard cries underpinning “Across the Tappan Zee,” Azevedo’s sonic additions frame both Glenn Jones and Modern Primitive Guitar music in a whole new light. When Azevedo’s synth onslaught swarms Jones’ sumptuous cover of John Fahey’s 1964 song “The Portland Cement Factory at Monolith, California,” it transports the genre to pummeling industrial territories as yet undiscovered.

Brilliantly captured through Ernst Karel’s immersive binaural (yes!) recording, Glenn Jones & Matthew Azevedo’s Waterworks closely approximates the experience of hearing Jones’ works performed on this almost unique of stages.



Read more/order here.