My most precious musical possession... EMI Reflexe Stationen Europaischer Musik - Folge 1-10

As I recently handled the discs, I wish to share with you all... maybe, this complete EMI Reflexe collection in ten box-sets, is my most precious and sought-after "disc"... actually 58 records (or so, not considering 2-records sets) with the "creme de la creme" of ancient music artists: Hopkinson Smith, Anthony Bailes, Thomas Binkley, Paul O'dette and many, many others I don't remember, right now... and so many composers, down to the MOST obscure, I cannot remember.

It was a dream purchasing it all, when I was a student... extremely expensive also in early '70s.
The alternative was buying as single discs, one at a time - the poor boy solution... buying one every month and... in "only" 58 months (!!!) completing the whole collection...

So, when, years ago, I found on a friend's shelf,  I asked him for "that"... and he replied "I never played them... I bought as a whole at a closing record shop sale... I liked the covers! Do you know it?"

I had to blink my eyes wide shut... "Yes, I know it..."

The deal was done swapping some audio parts, Cornell-Dubilier's caps, Allen-Bradley's resistors and the like... not crap (anyway)  vs. "the" vinyl treasure... but what I got was the Holy Grail for an ancient music scholar.

It's a an absolute masterpiece in EVERY sense: musical, sonic, bibliographic and... onanistic:-)

It's also available as a disks collection...


Look for it and BUY IT!


... and enjoy, as I did for most of my (musical) life.

Musings - Operatic singing... the secret unveiled!

Paolo Angeli's prepared guitar from Sardinia, Italy...

... to the World!

New and ancient... super!!!

Good luck!

Saturday Disc - "Pataphonie" on Tapioca label (France 1975)

... from "Mutant Sound Blog" _ "Before Pataphonie was unofficially “born” in 1973, the band members who were friends, played in several rock groups for the 3 previous years before that and mainly did covers. This trio consisted of Andre Viaud (guitars), Gilles Rousseau (drums and percussions) and Pierre Demouron (bass and contrabass). They then joined forces in a group without name that played a mixture of rock and jazz. Gradually they started opting for a more free-form rock. For a certain project they were joined by two other musicians; Bernard Audureau on piano and Alain Seve on saxophone. This group did this project which was inspired by contemporary compositors such as Bela Bartok, Eric Satie and Maurice Ravel and was reputed to have influenced Weather Report, Hugh Hopper and Henry Cow. The band chose their name at random using a dictionary, going first for Mussel and then Patagonie. The sound of Patagonie attracted them and they opted for a fusion of two words – Pata from Pataphysique (unclassified) and Phonie which stands for sound, making them unclassifiable sounding. The band was to be an instrumental guitar, bass and drums trio. Their sound appeared to appeal to music critics in several journals that said in 1975 that Pataphonie “could be the great European discovery of the year”. In 1976 the Pole records label collected their past recorded tracks from 1972 to 1976 and released them under “Pataphonie”."

Thanking the ALWAYS superb above mentioned Blog,  also for the a.m. extract, and... my friend Arnaldo who today gladly gifted to me of a mint copy of "Pataphonie" on Tapioca French label.

A lovely disc.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Grand Opening and Closing (2001)

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum are an American Experimental rock band, formed in 1999 in Oakland, California. Some of the strange and unique names of some of the following instruments are custom built by the band. All current members sing either lead or backing vocals.

Michael Mellender
Guitar, Lever-action Lever, Pancreas (electric), Percussion, Tangularium, Toy Piano, Trumpet, Valhalla, Vatican, Wheel, Xylophone, Accordion, Euphonium
Matthias Bossi
Drums, Glockenspiel, Percussion, Piano, Xylophone, Melodica
Nils Frykdahl
Autoharp, Flutes, 6 & 12 String Guitar, Percussion Guitar, Tibetan Bells, Recorder
Carla Kihlstedt
Autoharp, Bass Harmonica, Electric violin, Nyckelharpa, Organ, Percussion guitar, Pump Organ
Dan Rathbun
Autoharp, Bass guitar, Lute, Sledgehammer-dulcimer/Slide-piano Log, Pedal-action Wiggler, Roach, Thing, Trombone, Recorder

The above the  cold hard facts... for us, this is a superb disk, reminding some Art Bears and Henry Cow music, where Carla Kihlstedt's voice is slightly smoother and less Brecht-like vs. Dagmar Krause's...

They're someway folkier than the above daredevils and, on some tracks, more hard rocking as well, a' la Opeth...

I found this disk VERY enjoyable and pleasant... some solutions, instruments blending and arrangements are very, very nice, indeed.

Arcimboldo

A book is food for thought.

The Perfect Gift Dept. - The Tube Wringer

Once upon a time...

... there was a little dragon pup...

Understatement

Musings - after the "mouse", the "pig"...

... and its USB puppies.

Oink!

THE Perfect Gift Dept. - Fretlight Guitar and software

WOW! and WOWOW!!

THE music notation app we ALL were waiting for...

Cannot stand in my shoes, folks...

Les Percussions de Strasbourg's 15 disks box-set arrived!

... and it's incredibly intriguing, beautiful and entertaining.

It isn't something you'll whistle under the shower, but...

A just released limited edition and a sure collector's item.

It's a must-have!

Reinhard, Klaus, this is for you: disk # 11/15 is that "Entente Prealable" on MFA, a nice, NICE recording!

Track # 2 - You know what I mean... you'll recognize it.

Virtually all,  ALL composers who wrote for percussions are superbly represented... the list is really long and impressive... just have a look to a previous, recent post about this box-set.

Buy it... you won't regret... only, be careful to do NOT overdose you...  i.e. - listen to disk # 1... take a week long breath, then approach disk # 2 and so on and on...

Happy New Year from Wien's Musikverein Hall

Like every year since my boyhood, enjoying the Wien's New Year superb concert... on TV:-)))

At 00.00 this forthcoming night will open the tickets drawing for 2014's concerts, the December 30th, 31st, 2013 and January 1st, 2014... Daniel Baremboim conducting!

Let's hurry up:-), hoping to, finally, get two tickets for 2014!

Happy New Year...

... everyone!

... and Happy Listenings!

Panzer Kong vs. Garrardzilla

... I apologize for my silliness on posts titles, folks... yet, I love experimenting on materials and aethetics solutions for my beloved turntable(s), bearings, platters, arms and plinths... it's passion in the passion and added pleasure... so being deadly serious isn't that necessary.

During 2012 I developed the bronze platter, a big improvement vs. the stock, original, strobo or strobo-less, extruded aluminium alloy platter.

After visiting Serge Schmidlin, on last September, I listened to his battery-operated turntable, using a plywood platter and the sound was, also considering the ancillary equipment and the whole turntable... well, I felt and heard a great sense of smoothness and "rightness" from discs I know VERY well...

My fiddling around the concept of a (generic) plywood platter was already in the making,  but I choose to purchase a Delignit's Panzerholz 330 mm disc (a VERY expensive material, indeed) - as,  after listening at Serge's I hadn't more doubts - and only few hours after being back home, I brought the disc to the machinist workshop... to became after careful lathing and bronze insert for added precision and bearing matching... a Panzer Kong platter: here is the finished look and finish, enamelled outside and natural underside, mirror polished on inner rim for smoothest idler-wheel running.

I've been asked if I hear differences among platters... well, YES, definitely!

Is Panzerholz better than bronze?

What's better?

It depends on tastes and what you're looking for,  as for different timbres in musical instruments are salt-to-life - i.e. different nuances in violins and all stringed instruments are so well-known to be lapalissian...

Same different behaviour happens in our audio systems and we're all aware of this... someone prefere a cold sound, others a warm, forgiving, romantic, whatever sound... I'm more into natural and detailed.

Incredibly, a 13 kilos bronze platter sounds quite similar to a 3,5 kilos Panzerholz platter and both sound - you'd bet it - so different from original alu alloy platter, which seems to lack - after direct comparison - that slam, ooomph and guts, and the greatly improved decay...

Sounds stupid?

Vibes taming can be reached in several different and sometimes contrasting ways... lightness, honeycomb-like materials, super heavy mass, different materials taming each others, but also the dominant material vibration frequency is PARAMOUNT...

In audio literature, always highly hyped, you often finds "3 hz frequency isolation" or something... BUT, every material - like also every luthier is well aware of, has its own resonance and definite frequency; in audio, resonance is as important as isolation!

So, it's not only a matter of isolating - say - a turntable from subway or lorries, BUT, more and more, reaching a sort-of  a "friendly frequencies matching" among different parts of a turntable.

The above is valid for almost any part of an audio system... or of a musical instrument: let's think about an acoustic guitar, the same AAA grade spruce soundboard sounds VERY different if the body, back and sides are made out of maple, mahoganny or Brazilian or Indian rosewood... tuning machines on a solid or slotted peghead also sounds different, a neck truss-rod made of graphite, aluminium rod T or square shaped sounds VERY different, to do NOT name body shapes and sizes.

Same is for a turntable... a plywood or a slate plinth sound VERY different, and it's not ONLY a matter of vibes taming, but of matching resonances and obtaining the most fluid and natural to the ear overall sound...

Same as it happens while cooking... blah, blah, blah...

Different theories are advocating heavy mass, period... I found - not alone, of course - that (let's call it) a pleasant, almost "musical" feeling while tapping, knocking a slab of this or that... works.

A lead sheet doesn't play nicely, yet, some lead can do.

A spruce platter... a lead platter... a rubber platter... maybe, who knows, never...

I remain open-minded and positive... in my limited experience, the Panzerholz platter for the 301/401 sounds really pleasant, deadly silent background of a different "colour" from bronze or stock platter... silence and pauses sounds more woolly (as warm, not dead), rich, beefier than stock platter.

Yesterday I went to New Year's Eve concert at "Teatro La Fenice" in Venice and the sound of the orchestra was reminding Panzerholz platter... yes, I'm a lunatic, I know...

The violins, violas, cellos and double-basses were very romantic and the flutes, piccolo, horns and percussions were extremely lively (...), also from the "pigeons nest" balcony seats I enjoyed.

The Delignit's plywood detailing is less exagerated vs. bronze very "severe",  incredible retrieval capabilities... yet, acoustic instruments and classical string quartets, acoustic guitars and voices are amazing with Panzeholz.

Electric jazz and rock may sounds too "polite" and "sweet",  yet dynamics are here, always surprising like it was surprising hearing the tympanis and large drum and triangle and gong,  yesterday... Sir Gardiner conducting Verdi, Rossini and Tchaikovski.

So what?

A bronze platter is like a Martin '29 00-45 Brazilian Rosewood/Adirondack and a Panzerholz platter is like a '60s Gibson J-200... what's better?

Rich and mellow, the first vs. mellow and rich, the latter... both gorgeous.

I enjoyed the tasting a lot... and cherish both platters a lot.

Dictaphone - Poems from a Rooftop

DICTAPHONE 

Underneath the rage, there is a disturbing sense of calm, an overwhelming sadness that fails to show its true colors; once ground shaking emotions have been vanquished and deemed to live in the sub-terrain, palpable to some yet utterly nonexistent to most. This, in very simplistic terms, is the more prevalent feeling I have gotten from people during my time in Iran so far, the sense of being overpowered yet fully knowing that it’s only a matter of time, until all hell breaks loose. The “Green Movement” which found itself at a loss when fighting the powers that be, is gone, but only momentarily; it’s merely a matter of time. Dictaphone’s third album “Poems from a Rooftop”, which gets its name from the above-mentioned movement’s call for people to shout their dissatisfaction from their rooftops after the highly controversial elections in 2009, represents this sense of lurking anger and disdain in magnificent fashion. It is sadness which you can snap your fingers to, a testament to the trio’s grip on mood and texture and a gripping experience from start to finish.

GREAT music and an amazing recording to par... the vinyl extra-limited (350 pieces, only... and already out-of-print, but CD and download are still available...) pressing is awesome, with super quiet surfaces and hand-made cover.

Gorgeous.

Thanking Thomas Schick... it's one of 2012 musical highlights:-)

Shameless

I believe in caos and chance... entelechy...  ἐντελέχεια... yes!

... or the most perfect form of perfection, as it's self-contained... not "pushed" or hyped or stressed...  the best and only self-perfection:-)

Yesterday I received a small envelope from Bruxelles... the artist who played and recorded one of the disks Jean Hiraga brought with him during our Kolner gathering at Klaus' place - only a few weeks ago - sent it to me...

Jason Van Gulick, the percussionist behind this one-of-a-kind extremely limited edition, home-cooked disk is a genius... I got # 48/60: the disk title is, would you bet it, "Entelechy".

He quotes - with his flawless playing - Gamelan, Tibetan and Chinese traditions, a la Lou Harrison and Colin Mcphee, yet, he sounds like an early Stomu Yamashta, and he's eerie and heavy, crashing cymbals and big drums, using hands and sticks and mallets.

Strange indeed, once more time, after remembering the listening of this SO nice disk at Klaus', I noticed a whole load of hidden details in the background of music... birds (the recording was held in May in Bruxelles...) and assorted little background noises.

All these details SIMPLY weren't previously audible, during my first auditioning of this fine music.

(...)

Shamelessly... YES,  proudly, yet respectfully selfconscious and feeling NO embarassed while comparing Gotorama to Klauscope... sincerely, as music always is also "naked truth",  I strongly felt the HUGE merits of what I created in my listening room, after some years of hard work and fiddling and spending time and money: also on Jason's disk heaviest passages, with BIG drums, metal "thunder" sheets and cymbals climaxes, I do not loose control or feel pain at the ears or feel the need to get worried about (audible) distorsions or any system crisis and stress and still keeping a detailing 2die4... not only (beloved) birds chirping on this very disk, also the hum of a guitar tube amplifier before an electric guitar solo or the twang of an amp spring reverb on "The Alps 3rd"... or the hands brushing a drum leather, again on Jason's... and more and more... if all the above is "here" I find it "right" to hear and enjoy it... am I wrong?

I - shamelessly - enjoy "what" a system "truly" is: as I already pointed it out, not gears on shelves in a room,  BUT a "system"... all the above embedded in each others, indissolubly... where all complexness is digested and forgotten, and only a Zen-like, simple distillate remains.

Music.

I'm not aware of other "systems" around... performing this way, as a "whole"... and this whole is MUCH more than the sum of single parts.

I told you: on this end of 2012... I'm shameless:-) for being aware of ἐντελέχεια when I find it.

Thanking Jason for great playing and superb recording and Jean for his always great musical tastes and suggestions.

... and kudos and deep bows to everyone, friends and artisans, who contributed with yours truly in creating... this... THIS...

Entelechy.

The Perfect Gift Dept. - Clack!

Clack!

.. mmmhhh... was thinking: could it be used - yes, talking about the egg "dome" - as a "bio", 100% natural diaphragm for a, say, 1,5" mid-driver... so after "woofer" and "tweeter"... "egger"?

Thanking Jean...