So I Write

 

Sidsel Endresen’s “So I Write” on ECM was the disc I searched in some of my records-bins and when I finally found it… I already fully understood the character of the brand-new Analogtechnik’s VVS cartridge.

Nonetheless, after the search, I felt I had to honor my perseverance and gave a listen to this nice, nice record.

I played this disc countless times - i. e. timbre of instruments and Sidsel’s nose-y/throaty unique voice are superbly captured.

When I began listening to the above something happened: I recognized all the pieces going on, but it was like I was walking in a corridor in dimmed golden sunlight where the oblique sharpness of light was magnifying previously hidden humble details… imagine a carpet on floor where you see your wife’s blonde hair, gloriously lightening in sunlight.

Important or not… you notice something new, previously unnoticed, like a wooden-floor knot reminding your late dog…

Everything is so suspended in time and space…

Same listening to “So I Write”: a noise in the studio, other musicians breathing you never noticed… everything sounds so brand-new under the bronze sunlight… aehm: with this awesome cartridge which captured all my senses and changed my mood from feverish to meditative and quiet.

I defined the DST15 VVS a Stargate: no, I was wrong! It’s more a Godsend from the Outer Space, a Music of Spheres’ antenna.

On this ECM disc you experience a sense of tension and continuity due to the almost magical handling of notes decaying which brings you - the listener - not just into the studio as a spectator behind the control-room bullet-proof glass,  but seated in awe, mouth-watering, among the musicians, and jumping at every rhythmic or soloing changes… 

This sense of being part of the musical event isn’t hyped reviewer lingo, folks: I felt as a part of a “system”!

Room, chair, music, gears, myself ARE a System in modulating-mode… I recently experienced about 30 minutes of virtual reality with VR goggles and fluctuating chair… the experience I had yesterday in my Studietto was more like VR than conventional audio: same as I was captured by the 360* multi-sensory experience, listening to Garrardzilla and VVS on The Peak 13” arm with TdP’s The Head SUT captured  me at 100% of my attention capabilities, engulfing my senses, broadening the load on multi-layered informations emerging from the disc.

I’m so impressed… overwhelmed… surprisingly relaxed, yet attentive and vibrating, inexplicably: So I Write 😊

Breaking news - Analogtechnik’s DST15 La Scala Platinum (VVS) landed at my place…

 

… and it’s not just the top-of-the-line cartridge from an

awesome, skilled maker: it’s a Stargate 🥇

I already owned and enjoyed the mighty DMT25’s whose authority and lively, juicy, beefy sound was bringing great joy to my listening sessions since I got it…

A few months ago I began following the maker’s quest for his new no-compromise cartridge using - indeed - a magnetic material out-of this-world… 

A meteorite (yes! Used not for snobbery but to get a HUGE magnetic flux, measurable and seldom seen on any cartridge) is sliced and hand forged and beaten and thinned out… like a damask-blade.

The time consuming process and use of such an outer space material makes a great conversation topic and someway laughable… both for gonzo and open-minded musical bliss seekers… UNTIL YOUR VVS’ diamond touches one of your beloved discs!!!

What my old, trusty twogoodears heard is a miraculous blend of sweetness and power, detail and weight and authority.

Like we all do, I randomly choose a disc I know, to get the confirmation about how good the cartridge sounds, but… I didn’t find that disc… so got feverish and choose another disc, getting same feelings… needed more and more… after four discs, I found “that” disc I previously looked for and… KAPOOW!!!

The ECM disc I searched for… more to come 😏

I had a wave-like eargasm… layers of metal coming from outer-space, out-of-this world manufacturing skill and care for details gave to me one of the more intense music-generated goosebumps in many years!

Let me better explain and clarify the above random notes: every disc I listened to with the brand new cartridge represented a musical epiphany and an audio peak statement… left hand piano on a Grieg’s solo piano disc in Bis label, a Britten’s Prince of the Pagodas, a Fournier’s Bach cello sonatas, a Skip James disc on Vanguard… music sounded so pure and crystal-clear… but the blast was playing that Chinese Zheng/bamboo flute/voice and percussions disc I had as a gift a few weeks ago and that I listened a lot both for its sonic and musical merits: a disc I picked up in one box just before finding the ECM’s I searched for.

The new Analogtechnik’s cartridge sound was impressive after a few minutes… now, after about 3 hours, it’s still blossoming like a rose: I simply don’t listen to an audio system, anymore!

The Stargate digested all gears and speakers and ancillaries and I sort-of fluctuated in a limboing space of rarefied beauty and perfection: a place where money isn’t an issue, where no evil and wars exist, a place of ineffable beauty cocooning soul and mind.

I was so impressed I turned off my system thinking it was a psycho-acoustic seldom experienced moment.

Now, I’m still spinning this Chinese music disc and here I have this UNBELIEVABLE, UNIQUE music just in my tiny studio: notes decay, dynamics, the breathing of flute player, the overtones and harmonics, the thundering drums, the silky, sexy, beauty of female voice… music is appreciated as a whole, multi-layered experience.

Just pure pleasure… I “see” singer bosom palpitating when singing, a peacock outside in the garden… I “feel” the smell of the rain… wet, pure, poetic.

Kudos to Maestro Daniel Kim for succeeding vs. himself… the most difficult antagonist.

Unbelievable high quality music and recording 🥇

That’s most impressive and uniquely sounding cartridge I ever experienced and I won’t let it go 😏

Flea-market gem 🎶

 

Today’s find 🥇

Great disc in mint conditions ✅

Sad tubes

 

It’s so sad finding nice, vintage tubes used as display items…

… and pen-holders 😱

Let’s beware 😱

 

Dave Holland’s tools of the trade

 

I chatted a couple of times with Maestro Dave Holland, bassist extraordinary and every time he was humble and relaxed and not intimidating, he who played with - literally - everybody who counted.

I was amused when he told me, asking about his one of a kind cut-off double bass, as he (as a touring artist), was so worried about flying his precious instrument in huge flight-case spending a fortune, he hired a luthier to reduce the overall size of his cherry-wood instrument at lower-bout without loosing the feeling of a 4/4 double-bass.

… then, suddenly, grinning, with a quick movement, he separated the scroll 😱 kept in-place magnetically.

He then told me: “you cannot imagine how a difference makes just a few centimeters shorter for airlines companies when flying this bulky coffin 😄”. 

… and he laughed like a kid 😄!

That’s it… yesterday evening I enjoyed one more time Mr. Holland in trio with Zakir Hussain on tablas and percussions and Chris Potter on baritone and soprano saxes.

A nice concert.

🎶🎶🎶

 

The Iceberg

 

Herb and the best music, ever

 

One of most influential and - yes! - beloved souls on the Planet is Herbert Reichert from NYC: a painter, a writer, an audio reviewer and an Illuminati whose prose and visual artworks always are ineffable and  “right” in mood, texture and meaning.

I followed Herb for decades but only met him in person in Belleme, at that awesome lunatics gathering - i.e. ETF 2019.

Herb recently visited Devon Turnbull’s horn system at Lisson, a Manhattan gallery and he - in his very own words - stated “this (78) is singularly the best recording I've ever heard anywhere anytime” after listening to the above Blue Note 78 rpm disc.

After reading his statement, pronto browsed Discogs and eBay to source a copy of the old vax with no positive results.

Curiosity made me searching on Spotify Premium I use at home and I found the crackling Summertime rendition by Sidney Bechet and his quintet: the 78 rpm (maybe the same copy as it came from Blue Note’s vaults) was presumably used as master to digitally preserve this great music and I was able to enjoy this very piece of music which so much impressed Herb.

Someone will say I had a lesser epiphany than Herb himself because I wasn’t in a Gotham City gallery looking the 78’s spinning, played by a Dynavector arm with a SPU cartridge… but… BUT… let me say that the sense of HR’s statement - also if a personal hot-declaration - was clear also on my home background music system.

The music sounded lively and not electronically altered and, well, Gershwin’s immortal melody made it even more dramatic and true to life… I immediately reminded my first feeling  when listening to Nimbus’ Prima Voce disks, acoustic recordings digitally remastered from original 78s’ without compression and filtering: unbelievable clarity and presence.

So what?

I know for sure Herb’s integrity and enthusiasm were adamant in his statement, but let me say I could make several similar statements of the same content, once a week, for - say - a couple of months 😏 making people happier and richer, in the name of Music.

Our audio and music passion lives of personal and general hypes, emotional falling in love - temporarily or for the life - and I’d dare: exaggerating an intense emotion like the one Herb experienced a few days ago helps us all to broaden our knowledge and curiosity for new/old classics.

I humbly do myself, as well with friends and on a broader extent via my Blog and it’s a much welcome and common practice.

I don’t believe this elusive, sought-after 78 rpm disc will be played at next audio-fair as a demo, yet I learned about a great Summertime masterfully played.

… as a by-product the eventual, scarce copies of the disc which will appear for sale will possibly get an “audiophile disc” inflated price-tag.

Maybe…

Such a weird passion we choose (… or were we chosen by?)

Thanks to Herbert for candidly sharing his experience and feeling and kudos to Devon for his system demo 🥂

A short story

 

John Wood

 

This man is responsible of so many incredibly good recordings… 

… I cannot but love him dearly🥇

A DeadHead treasure

 

🥇🥇🥇

Nothing new, back then…

 

Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge over troubled Water on tape

 

In Roy Halee majestic sound 🥇

Concert reeling

 

Perfection

 

John: stop playing that guitar!!!

 

"My mother had to confiscate my guitar for months because I was playing it all day and I kept going even though my fingers were bleeding."

 - John McLaughlin -

Analog still-life

 

Almost X-ray 😏

The lighthouse

 

A Steve Tibbets’ anthology on ECM

 

I collected over the decades everything Steve issued on ECM or elsewhere… but if you don’t know him, here is the opportunity to get a compendium of his acoustic and electric production!

 

Hellbound Train is a double-album retrospective from Steve Tibbetts with music selected by the US guitarist from 40 years of recordings on ECM . Neatly divided into electric and acoustic chapters, the anthology juxtaposes pieces originally featured on the albums Northern Song, Safe Journey,  Exploded View, Big Map Idea, The Fall Of Us All, A Man About A Horse,  Natural Causes and Life Of. With its liquid melodies and textures and hypnotic patterns and pulsations subtly influenced by music of many cultures. it’s an ideal introduction to a unique body of work. At different times Tibbetts might seem closer to minimalism, alternate rock or ambient music, yet his artistic signature is unmistakable.

Buy it, folks !

It’s summertime: cassettes are the best!

 

You feel younger and the ease of cassettes is so convenient… sound quality randomly variable from average to sublime.