🎅 🎄

 

Christmas Eve music 💫

 

An ESL bas-relief 💫

 

Merry Christmas 💫

 

Spinning Studer B62 (after storage) 💫

 

I love this compact Studer’s 

A Soft Machine day in the studio 💫

 

L > R - Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt, Mike Ratledge, Daevid Allen and an unidentified technician… plus very interesting studio stuffs, including Lockwood Studio Monitor and on-top Quad ESL.

Much better than those ubiquitous Yamaha’s shoe-boxes still used in most recording studios.

💫

Zeff 💫

 

This very disk was introduced to me by Jean Hiraga who used it - beyond the listening pleasure - to evaluate audio systems, many years ago.

It aged quite well (I talked about it in the past) and both music and recording are truly awesome: the record contains very, VERY impressive sub bass sounds, truly building shaking.

🙃

The Thompsons’ 💫

 

Richard & Danny in their handsome Scottish attires.

💫

Telefunken M15A is back and spinning, again 💫

 

After storage… 

🍀

A

 

For Giuseppe Pinelli as… ACAB 

💣

Chet 💫

 

Gibsender 🤟🤪🤟

 

The (AI) guitar which ends the battle between the two iconic brands.

😎

Lowther Hegeman 💫

 

What a beauty 💫

A Goto kind of Christmas 💫

 

TdP 💫

 

Often remembered, never forgotten 🙏

!!!Époustouflant!!!

 

Long legs from Sweden are mounted: awesome building quality and material and sound is EXACTLY what I was looking for: fast, dry, superbly modulating low-end and razor-like yet musical precision. 

Superb imaging, too.

This is cabinet making, not just carpentry. 

Thanks to Kalle Gustavsson, Anastasios Argyropoulos and Massimiliano Manca.

🫵💫🙏

The Audio Elf 💫

 

Let me introduce you to Partridge, the audio elf.

💫

La Rotonda by Andrea Palladio 💫

 

This chilly morning, in all its frozen beauty 💫

Paniagua’s XRCDs 💫

 

… again and again: find and buy a copy while (scarce) supplies last 🤟

Better owning a spare: yes, I’m a bit compulsive about these disks, but once you’ll listen to them you DO understand!

Two factory-sealed copies (just in case) and two ready to listen to…

💫

Primavera 💫

 

I today attended to a movie premiere of a film which will be in the cinemas on December 25th, on Christmas day… it’s highly recommended for the content, amazing actors, the accuracy of historical correct details, soundtrack and overall beauty…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Review by Paola Casella

Thursday, December 11, 2025

Venice, 1716. Cecilia is an orphan whose mother has entrusted her to the Ospedale della Pietà. Like the other inmates of the institution, she has learned to read, write, and, most importantly, play a musical instrument—in her case, the violin. The orphanage's most gifted musicians perform in public behind bars because they cannot be seen, and are effectively prisoners until they are married off to a suitor willing to pay the institution a substantial dowry.

When their musical offerings face competition from a parallel group, the girls are entrusted to the guidance of a highly talented priest who has failed as a musical impresario. This priest is Antonio Vivaldi, ill and fallen from grace, but still capable of profoundly moving audiences. And Vivaldi senses in Cecilia a talent similar to his own, and a similar passion for music.

Let's immediately dispel any possible comparison between Primavera and Gloria!, despite some similarities: they are both first cinematic works that tell the story of a group of female musicians in an era when female artistic talent was considered inferior. But Primavera is very different.

The film differs from Gloria! in its development, especially because the debut film by Damiano Michieletto, a theater director renowned in Italy and Europe, especially for his operatic productions, brings together the figures of Antonio Vivaldi and Cecilia, creating an irresistible musical connection between them.

Vivaldi, a priest by necessity, reawakens in the girls, and in Cecilia in particular, a long-dormant passion and anger at their subordinate status, whose value is only given by the possibility of generating income for the hospital, primarily through marriage. Once married, the musicians will have to abandon their instruments forever. It's no coincidence that the first Vivaldi composition entrusted to them is titled "La follia": there's something feverish and dangerous about Vivaldi's music, a desperate romantic inspiration that cannot fail to appeal especially to Cecilia, the only musician who plays not for the audience's applause but for her own expressive need. And in this, she is unique even compared to Vivaldi, who, unlike the girls, is sensitive to praise and opportunities accessible to him.

Primavera also reveals, through its musical score, the genesis of "The Four Seasons," Vivaldi's masterpiece, composed precisely during the period in which this story takes place. The melodic composition that accompanies the film is exceptional in supporting the narrative and occasionally acting as counterpoint: a dance scene set among noblemen and noblewomen in makeup and wigs, grotesque and primal in the right degree, is an anthology-worthy one. "You are ruining our peace," Cecilia will tell Vivaldi, but that's exactly what music is supposed to do, and it's partly true that the instruments were given to the girls "to curse their situation."

Michieletto knows music well and understands its power, and he also understands the power of spectacle. He creates a film that is cultured yet accessible, classic yet contemporary, aided by a solid screenplay, co-written with Ludovica Rampoldi, which never makes the mistake of distorting the past to suit contemporary sensibilities, while also clearly addressing the injustice of women's condition.

~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks to Paola Casella for the above review.

A cool idea as a foreword to the movie has been a string trio playing live “La Folia”, a timeless and immortal melody which have been played for centuries, now… and a personal fave of mine, too.

***** 

Capt. Beefheart’s reel to reels 🤟🍀🤟

 

The only existing 4 tracks reel to reel tapes of the Captain 💫

💫

Flea Market’s gems 💎 - The Deviants (1969)

 

An original M/M copy of The Deviants on Transatlantic TRA 204 (1969) is a truly rare find 🍀

Mick Farren’s masterpiece 💫

SMOG

 

Thanks to my pal Arnaldo… this seldom seen B-movie OST contains great music and Chet Baker’s trumpet and Helen Mirrel’s beautiful voice… orchestra directed and arranged by Piero Umiliani.

A dream-team 😎

What a disc! 

💫

🤟

Freedom ❤️‍🩹

 

If a doctor told you:

"You have an incurable disease and you don't have much time left to live, but we could make a hole in your belly (gastrostomy) to feed you, then we'll make a hole in your neck (tracheotomy) to allow you to breathe, we'll insert a tube into your urethra (vesical catheter) to allow you to urinate, and a nurse will empty your bowels daily. Of course, we'll have to give you antibiotics to contain the infections caused by the tubes, and you'll inevitably have to endure bedsores, painful sores that eat away at the flesh right down to the bone.

But you could live a year or more!"

And if a doctor told you:

"You have an incurable disease, but we could minimize your suffering and, at your request, grant you a painless death. Unfortunately, science has its limits"...

Which doctor would you prefer to be treated by?

At night, sometimes I can't create the mental vacuum that allows me to ignore the sound of the ventilator, and then that hoarse panting of a mortally wounded beast invades my brain, paralyzing my neurons, blocking their synapses, transforming sensations into terror. It's not the fear of dying; I've already died once, and it was like turning off the light, turning the page, closing a door. There's nothing metaphysical or transcendental about it...there's no reward or punishment, pleasure or pain, above or below, high or low. So it's not having to die that torments me, but having to live.

Euthanasia isn't the product of an absurd omnipotence that would push man to want to control death; this omnipotence is already present in intensive care units and is called technology. Euthanasia is, in many cases, the only way to counter the omnipotence of technology, returning death to death.

[…]

I love life, Mr. President.

Life is the woman who loves you, the wind in your hair, the sun on your face, a nighttime walk with a friend. 

Life is also the woman who leaves you, a rainy day, the friend who disappoints you. I'm neither melancholic nor manic—dying horrifies me, unfortunately, what's left of me is no longer life—it's just a stubborn and senseless determination to maintain biological functions. My body is no longer mine... it's there, spread out before doctors, assistants, relatives. Montanelli would understand me. If I were Swiss, Belgian, or Dutch, I could escape this extreme outrage, but I'm Italian, and here there is no mercy.

Piergiorgio Welby ❤️

Listening 💫

 

After several years - decades, maybe - of audio peregrinations, I arrived at a Zen-like conclusion: I’m happy to be wrong every day, so I’m able to correct myself, learn more… sleep well, and discover to be wrong, again, tomorrow.

My humble, fragile humanity isn’t designed for self-satisfaction but for endlessly searching for that emotional seed which makes life worth to be lived.

I’ve not The Truth about stuffs and life: I’m just a scholar, not a master.

Audio-wise, I’m sincerely happy and satisfied (for awhile) only at home and at two/three friends’ places… otherwise, I’m truly feeling a deep sense of boredom when visiting this or that audio fair, this or that demo: nobody is listening to music, as everybody is too busy in chatting about the hideous, justified or not, cost of this or that.

People is just listening to expensively reproduced noises, a loud background mess of bangs & barrooms.

Prices fetched a zenith, maybe… and this makes a social gap of sort, as everyone’s judged not for his personality, knowledge, skills but on an invisible scale where the total cost of a stereo system is a source of self-celebration and emancipation; any boastful talk from the biggest spendthrift is taken as gospel.

… or so.

A recent trending concerns compulsive changing phono equalizations to “optimize” any disc, but always doubting a Decca is… a Decca eq. and not an EMI or a Teldec… an RCA Shaded Dog as a Blue Note or an Impulse or… a syndrome which severely worsened the already feeble musical attention of these wannabes sound engineers.

I fondly remember and miss when, as a poor as a church-mouse teenager, a radio was enough to enjoy music, late in the night; later, chatting with friends about a record or an artist was a matter of empathy and pure joy, at the core of the emotional content and significance of any music.

A stereo system - cheap or more expensive, as every family budget allowed - was in almost every house and music was a common, cultural good... a record was like a book: a medium that allowed you to enjoy art and beauty, to grow and feel part of a community… not a “collector’s item” or an investment.

What happened at some point is something which will perhaps be the subject of study in the future: audio magazines, audio fairs, reviews and reviewers, rankings .

The disaster, the end, a short circuit, but I’m over-simplifying.

Where is the sheer musical enthusiasm and enjoyment, these days?

Audio industry - more and more -  became a luxury playground for the happy few!

… but… BUT: I’m still that (maybe slightly wealthier) church mouse, now an old kid of-sort, who feverishly browse discs bins at flea-markets and shops, searching for “that” emotional seed, seeking the elusive joy and insightful pleasure of discovering and understanding what an artist wished to share with the world.

Wherever the world is and will be going, I’ll walk my path made of small pleasures, music-induced goosebumps and random rants about the worrying vilification of music at audio fairs where packs of zombies “listen” to the holographic image and the depth of the soundstage, without even recognizing a C major chord… or the art instead of the far too common auto tune shit!

Hopefully, I’m not alone 😉

Music is Best! (Frank Zappa)

Three Blind Mice 🤟

 

Always in browsing-mode… I have the feeling of living in a record-shop 😉

💫