Happy New Ear

Thanking Vincent Van Gogh

Cool News from Downunder - Copper®Harmony RCA Plug, a new Revolution by Keith Louis Eichmann (aka KL)

Copper®Harmony Plug Comparison and Improvements

The following are the improvements that Keith Louis Eichmann (aka KL) has made to the Copper®Harmony Phono/RCA plug design when compared to his previous Tellurium Copper Bullet®Plug design...

1.   Signal/Ground pins are pure Copper and >101% IACS (not Tellurium Copper (95% IACS) or Brass (28% IACS)).

2.   Signal/Ground pin optimization to enhance electron flow, in accordance with KL’s Copper Signal/Ground formula.

3.   Signal/Ground pins are now much stronger and shaped like a tag, which makes soldering small/large/multiple wires, very easy.

4.   Signal/Ground Anti-Short shield has been added between the Signal/Ground solder tags.

5.   Signal/Ground pins are arranged to maintain a maximised distance from each other, and the utilised foil technology ensures that Capacitive, Inductive, and EMF effects are minimized.

6.   The Head Assembly jaw structure has been redesigned and mechanically improved, to allow an easy snap-like connection to a Phono/RCA socket, ensuring the ultimate connection with easy removal.

7.   Ground pin includes thread teeth which ensures that a metal Housing is star-point grounded.

8.   The Housing Assembly uses 2 screws to retain and secure the Cable.

9.   Extremely high temperature melting point thermoplastic polymer has been utilized.

Will review them, soon...

Cunningham CX 310A glowing

Pure bliss... and this "C" logo... so classy!

Thanking Thomas Mayer for the nice pix and for... being Thomas Mayer;-)

... same gorgeous tubes which gloves in my studio... simply the best sounding 10-family triodes from the '20s!

How to Get New Friends Dept. - Marin Maris - Images (Mieneke Van der Velden - viola da gamba & Fred Jacobs - French Theorbo) - Ramèe/Outhere Music 2013

Easy task... just suggest such a beautiful disk;-)

Few words, here... just buy it,  pals...

It's a wonderful disk, full of wonderful music from a wonderful composer... and a wonderful recording to par!

Happy New Ear.

Claudio Rocchi

Claudio's documentary is, well... my musical background.

Thanks, forever...  also thanking RAI 5.

Teragaki Labo's turntables

Tetsuo's "Iron Man"-like turntables...

WOW!

That's ugliness as analog art or ugly analog art or the art of audio ugliness or... uncompromising search for the best by Teragaki-san!

R.I.P. Dept. - Jean-Michel le Cleac'h passed away...

A poorer world it is... 

R.I.P. and condolences to Jean-Michel's family and friends.

His ideas will survive him... like it happens to the best among us.

The beauty of shape & function!

(Don't) Buy it Dept. - Colores del Sur - Enrike Solinis & Euskal Barrokensemble (Glossa 2013)

... no, definitely it's NOT everything beautiful and amazing and awesome and...


Bought this and I found it to be a mess: musically I never, ever listened to Kapsberger performed like a pop arrangement (...) strongly reminding some Flamenco stuff and theorbo (and renaissance guitar and laute) with a string tension which only at the very beginning of ancient music praxis Julian Bream used...

It's like decades of care in original instruments building and the way of playing them get trashed!

Such a recoding, made in a studio, sounds coldish and anechoic and musicians, very clever, indeed, aren't able to express anything but some (ordinate) noise.

Nuff said!

Trombone Grande

WOW, folks... an amazing recording... Wim Becu and a Bass Trombone built after original sackbut dating early '600... and cornetto, theory, harp...

I've been an avid Accent's collector since early vinyls by Adelheid and Andreas Glatt's recordings and productions...

The music is seldom heard and beautiful and deep and celestial and recording, believe me, it's truly marvelous on Gotorama... the deep trombone raucous voice is incredible.

I invite everyone into Ancient music, usually ALL theorbos and harpsichords and viola da gambas, to dig this, as well... it will be a surprise!

The newbies will also enjoy, of course;-)

Sid Smith, the man who knows "The King Crimson" like no other!

He's the man behind "In The Court of Crimson King" on Helter Skelter Publishing... a 346 pages book devoted to Robert Fripp's creature.

A masterpiece.

Browse the whole site, as well: the "Links" part is awesome... thanks, Sid.

Captain Beefheart - A Documentary narrated by John Peel

A true hero of mine... his paintings intrigued me on same level as his music...

Deeply missed... and fast'n'bulbous!

Krautrock on BBC 4

A very interesting documentary on BBC, showing rare footages of Amon Duul, Popol Vuh, Edgar Froese, Klaus Schulze and many, many others... including Karlheinz Stockhausen!

BBC Four
Documentary which looks at how a radical generation of musicians created a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war.
Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal - a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany's gruesome past - but that didn't stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.

Music played
1. Popol Vuh — Aguirre I L'acrime de Rey
2. Jimi Hendrix — All Along the Watchtower
3. Richard Wagner — Siegfried's Funeral Music
4. Amon Düül II — Kannan
5. Amon Düül II — Luzifer's Ghilom
6. Popol Vuh — Wehe Khorazin
7. Popol Vuh — Aguirre II
8. Tangerine Dream — Phaedra
9. Cluster — Fur Die Katz
10. Tangerine Dream — Fly and collision of Cosmo Sola
11. CAN — Mother Sky
12. CAN — Vitamin C
13. Kraftwerk — Autobahn
14. Neu! — Hallogallo
15. Faust — Krautrock
16. Kraftwerk — Showroom Dummies
17. Kraftwerk — Geiger Counter
18. Kraftwerk — Radioactivity
19. Harmonia — Watussi
20. David Bowie — A New Career in a New Town

... and interviews to Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit... WOW!

P.S. - thanking Hartmut's precious hint, this is the link for German pals...

• .

Ho, ho, ho!

Merry Christmas, folks...

Please notice the "horn"...

Musings

Folksangere 1967 - Martin, Dave, Bert, John at their VERY best

When world was a better place... much less TV, no computers and MUCH more time for music;-)))

In 1967, a Danish film crew went to London to document the folk music scene. Amongst the artists that were filmed and interviewed were Bert Jansch and John Renbourn before they formed Pentangle.

Impressive and cute and enchanting and illuminating listening at the shiny beauty of Martin Carthy (flatpicking!!!) and Dave Swarbrick's Gibson mandolin playing and those voices...

Bert in 1967

And a looong nice interview to Bert Jansch, shy and straight as an arrow also when younger... and rehearsing with John Renbourn.

A lovely YouTube find, as I only had some footage on an old VHS.

Thanks for posting, folks...

Cello da spalla

Yes... this seldom seen and heard instrument will play, again... 

A small-scale cello that sits against the shoulder and is played like a violin will make its London debut as part of a programme from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) on 25 March at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre.

The Belgian violinist, violist and conductor Sigiswald Kuijken (pictured above), who rediscovered and revived the instrument a decade ago, will direct and perform the solo part. Kuijken’s instrument was made for him by the luthier Dmitry Badiarov in 2004 and based on historical models and documents.

TGE vs. Shazam

... ah, ah, ah... cannot properly express myself and explain "why", but... when Shazam - the cool mobile App the youngsters (and others, as well) use when listening to some music track around, at a party or at the radio... - fails in recognizing a piece of music I smile, satisfied...

vs.

It's Man against Machine... or simply a stupid, technically flawed middle-aged lunatic who loves his weird, private musical world and cherishes it?

It happens.... ohhhhh, how it happens... three times only in the last half an hour... Robert Miles & Trilok Gurtu, Max Richter's 24 Postcards in Full Colours and Library Tapes' Like Green against a Blue Sky...

... but happened sooooo many, countless times... just tried again with Hopkinson Smith's theorbo and J.S. Bach's Prelude from Suite BWV 1007 on Naive... nothing, zut, the void...

... ha!

TGE wins;-)... at least this time.

Josè Pepe Mujica - the president of Uruguay - Man of the Year

Yes... much more than the (new) Pope!!!

An humble hero!

Jonathan Wilson - "Fanfare" (BellaUnion 2013)

Yes, pals... Santa arrived early, this year... he brought a gorgeous copy of last Jonathan Wilson's disc in Deluxe edition - i.e. a double pale blue 180 grams vinyls AND disk and fold cover with a very strange, dadaist studio picture, some naked girls, with hairy armpits and bushes à la Tina Modotti (of Edward Weston's fame;-)) and a Masked Magician using his magic stick on them... weird, yet pleasant (... ahem, the nice girls... not the magic stick;-))

Symbolism isn't so obscure, don't you?... or am I and my Freudian background;-)?

The disc exists also in not foldable cover and black vinyl, with no disk enclosed... but you'll miss the above...

... but stop kidding... the disc is WONDERFUL,  ALL analog multi tracked on Studer A80 24 channels and mastered on Ampex ATR-100 1/2 inch 2 tracks tape machines... lathe was a Neumann VMS 70 at GoldenMastering in Ventura, CA... superbly engineered by J.J.Golden, as well.

Echoes of Jerry Garcia's liquid solos and David Crosby and Graham Nash and Jackson Browne's voices give shivers - like 40 years didn't pass from my love affair with California and CSN&Y and P.E.R.R.O. Sessions and Jefferson Airplane and Crosby alone and the Deads and Quicksilver Messenger Service - and Jonathan's simply exquisite taste for '70s sounds, which sound both old and brand new... maybe because unheard in decades, but on Memory Lane shelves of my discotheque...

Acoustic guitars inter-woving are echoing Crosby's Guinnevere and The Lee Shore, but without sounding copycatting or hi-jacking them... it's respect and music made DNA...  also some early Pink Floyd's hintings (from Ummagumma or Meddle)

The recording is also IMPRESSIVE and gorgeous... Jonathan and his cohort proved 100% analogists as the record two inner sleeve shows some Kodak 400 ASA contact proofing sessions pixies... clever and classy.

The vinyl is crisp and seldom seen, a clear blue, fresh as a springtime Sunday morning sky.

... like the music.

Don't be fooled by too many words... just buy it.... talking to the music-lovers and to the audiophiles, as well.

The Ultimate Vacuum Tube

Here a gorgeous example... the Mother Of All The Vacuum Tubes...

(no) Musings

Wise man!

Sound Design - Classic Audio & Hi-Fi Design - an illustrated book by David Attwood

A cool coffee-table book and a nice audiophile Christmas' gift...

... old but still available and nicely done.