Ivan's Choice - Jaga Jazzist's Live with Britten Sinfonia

Jaga Jazzist —
Live With Britten Sinfonia

ZENDNL196

Released 06/05/2013

Yes, yes, we know what you're thinking. It's a live album, and when are those ever very exciting? But just remember that they really can be, and trust us when we say that this one really, truly is. Like a modern day Live at Leeds, like the benevolent, neon twin of Live Evil, Jaga Jazzist's wondrous new record is just that; a brilliant album on its own terms. It's a psychedelic Bond soundtrack twisting and turning from the stage, propelling the listener forward on an epic emotional voyage. At times it seems to explode from the speakers in pure, exuberant colour, making you wonder if you've recently developed synesthesia. It moves with unrestrained ease from quiet reflection to cinematic, widescreen thunder, fromSound of Music pastoral joy to pulsing jazz chase sequences… and it makes you wonder why more of the music you hear isn't quite so completely affecting.

Jaga Jazzist had long wanted to work with an orchestra, and when the British radio DJ Fiona Talkington introduced them to the Britten Sinfonia, they leapt at the chance to collaborate. The Barbican's Chris Sharp promised to stage the results, and the team set about writing the work from scratch. Jaga wanted to make each musician feel like a central part of the performance, and this philosophy paid off in full. The music is full of exuberance and passion, each player becoming an equal part of a startlingly purposeful hive-mind.

Time Capsule Audio - Cunningham CX-310 triodes from the Roaring Thirties

I always found sooo sublimely intriguing and romantic thinking about a fragile tube which survived wars and riots and revolutions, floods, earthquakes, storms and hurricanes, several shippings, thieves and everything in-between...

I recently found one pair of N.O.S./N.I.B. Cunningham CX-310 from early '30s with their nice old-timey original boxes: the grandaddy of all 801A/10Y triodes family in a cool, classy "globe" glass envelope.

These will nicely and smoothly work in Thomas Mayer's 801A line stage pre-amp... they measures very similar, so, let's only hope for good microphonic rejection!

It's weird to say, but, IMO, it's like finding a four-leaves clover in a crowdy highway undertaking-lane... while driving;-)))

Thanking Brendan Biever and his always supporting tubes warehouse and good taste.

... cannot stop thinking that "this" was rocking and dancing, in "those" days...

Musings

ALLNIC Puritas... more Repetita Juvant, with a little help from my... Arche' headshell!

After happily living for some months with the beauty and easiness of Decca SC4E, I strongly wished to return to ALLNIC Puritas and its extreme detailing and superb musicality.

I had to suffer a little with installing the headshell wires as both Arche' headshell and Puritas' terminal pins are on the thick side vs. the snug fit of Oyaide's silver wires...

Had to take Valium for a couple of days before re-trying the mount, after I damaged one of the wires the first time and had to re-buy a new quartet... a REALLY gonzo-like affaire:-)

Anyway, this morning, thanking (...) the VERY annoying and boring and dull rainy weather, I successfully completed my (little) task...

... and... AND...

... welcome back home, beauty...

Seriously, the Decca is a very, VERY musical cartridge... Puritas is both musical and detailing like no other in my humble experience... tracking like no other... pleasant and involving like no other...

The Arche' headshell, thanking the 16Audio Blog folks who suggested the heavenly match of Puritas & Arche', is... well, an heavenly match.

Finely tuning the SRA/VTA at headshell is really easy and unforgiving... you cannot be wrong, with Arche'!

The cartridge "chatting" coming from the disc in the silence of the room, system in mute-mode, is non-existing... the resonances are virtually absent and the overall sound - REALLY indeed - is impressive...

I'm using my WE 618B MC transformers and my friend Andrea's - aka "The Very Best Cable Maker of North-Eastern Italy" (his nom de guerre:-))) - 7N Silver cobra-like interconnects... those HUGE black "things" arching between Thomas Mayer's LCR Phono stage and (hidden) trannies.

Also enjoying the Luxman AT-3000 Ultimate buffer... but still preferring the Fidelity Research AS-1:-)

I had to hardly push myself to stop listening disc after disc after disc... everything is clicking so beautifully!

... again and again: music and audio is THE MOST REWARDING AND TOTALIZING PASSION, period.

Twogoodears goes to Munchen's High End 2013

My first time at M.O.C., ever... from Friday to Sunday.

See you at Silbatone's Western Electric Shrine!

WOW! Cannot stand in my shoes...

No jokes!

Thanking Pierre Bensusan and Jamie Tate...

Insound Choice - Wooden amp for iPod

Cool, mains-less "amp", using natural wood resonating properties...

Yesterday was Earth Day and coincidentally, I watched an extremely frightening documentary about the environment over the weekend. You could actually say it’s not all that coincidental since I watch/read/intake information that frightens me and gives me no hope for the future on the reg, but hey – I digress! This particular documentary focused on the oil crisis and how in about 40-50 years, there will be no oil. If this doc is to be believed, unless we can come up with some viable alternatives, we can say goodbye to car travel, air travel…MAYBE EVEN ONLINE RETAIL – NO SHIPPING! Society as we know it will crumble to the ground and I’ll be riding a horse to work at an artisanal accordion stand in McCarren Farm.

I know that no speakers (at least none that I know of) run on oil, but I’m sure oil is used somewhere in the manufacturing process. Honestly, oil is probably even used in the manufacturing process of these beautiful wood “speakers” (power tools, y’all), but let’s focus on the positive. Once the Koostik Original is handcrafted, there’s no need to plug them in or recharge them or stick batteries in them – they use the natural acoustics of the wood to amplify your favorite jams. I mean, YES, you will still have to charge your phone in order to play the music in the first place and YES, electricity isn’t oil, but a lot of electricity is generated from fossil fuels, so conserving energy in any form is a good thing that you should do.

In conclusion, according to my rock solid logic, by buying the Koostik Makore Original Speaker, you will be saving the planet. Case closed.

– Nicole Johnson

Add To Cart

$119.99 $101.99

Bob Brotzman passed away yesterday, April 24th 2013

... so sad news!

He was a genius and a dandy... I'll give a listen to one of the several discs I have in my collection... maybe the duet disks with Woody Mann or with David Grisman.

R.I.P.

R.I.P. Dept. - Richie Havens passed away yesterday, April 22nd, 2013

Freedom, freeedom, freedom... at last.

... no need to feel like a motherless child, anymore!

I loved him and his Guild D-40 acoustic/grater and so ancient way of playing and his SUPERB - griot-like - voice... pure Africa!

Wabi-sabi

... no, not wasabi, the green, super hot sauce we enjoy, sweating and jellying while having sushi;-)))

Wabi-sabi is a concept in Japanese aesthetics which represents the exact opposite of Western beauty ideal, usually seen as something huge, abiding or spectacular; wabi-sabi deals with lesser and hidden, simple and fragileness of art and nature.

Also something ungainly, irregular, ugly - as per common aesthetics - can be full of grace and poetic, as well.

"Wabi-sabi things own a spontaneous and unevitable aspect; they neither do not flag their importance nor claim to get center-stage and full attention of the world.
They're discreet and unpretentious, yet they own a quiet authority, their own personality and a natural, unassuming elegance". (Leonard Koren)

The above is the VERY best description of my audio system I'm aware of, folks... it's not LED-blinking and chrome finishes, it's someway ugly (Gotorama's speakers) and WAF unfriendly, yet the inner beauty of the care infused in the making of such a complex system simply shines at the very first notes.

Wabi-sabi, the humble, human-flawed perfection!

The mini passive line-stage survey - Fidelity Research AS-1 (reprised)

The Luxman AT-3000 represented a personal fave of mine, a Zenith, as an audio lover, scholar and collector...

So, using it for the past three days, now... well, it's an emotion and a satisfaction difficult to be forgotten.

I already got the little, unassuming, yet elegant FR AS-1, but didn't listened to it, yet... today, after enjoying Luxman's, I told myself... "Hey, I got it, paid for it... am I so silly to do not try it?!?"

... and wasn't prepared for what I heard, period.

Fidelity Research AS 1 is an humble gizmo vs. Luxman AT 3000 Ultimate, but quality is well present, thanking Ikeda-san, also in this smallish package.

Aesthetically, FR made something, using a solid thick aluminium chassis and cool mat finish grey faceplate with a seldom seen 18K gold silk-screening lettering... left and right gain controls are very useful to correct slightly unbalanced recordings and a quite purist choice... knobs are a little miniature sized, but you know - respectfully said - Nihon-jin aren't famous for being giants:-)

Sound-wise... ohhhhh my!!!

AS-1 is clear, zest-like, speedy-as-the-light, maybe just a tad darker than AT-3000 in the low register, while mids are PERFECT, as per my VERY taste, transparent, unboomy, extremely different from previous & next notes, highs are silk-like, female and male sybilants are giving goose-bumps, as detailing, on same par than Luxman's.

Soundstaging and ability to follow more and more music and harmonic layers is, maybe, a tad, just a (significant) tad better vs. AT-3000.

Micro-dynamic? A specialty! Awesome...

Resolution? impressive: for example, Lee Koonitz and his alto register tapping before soloing and little noises from sax necklace on instrument brass body... amazing!

I've been speechless for a couple hours... oh, well, I was alone:-)))... so I called a friend who arrived in half-an-hour (myself always enjoying more and more music, always sounding sooooo brand-new) and... no doubts: he gave a distract look to AS-1, seated on Eames', and we had superb Howling Wolf's "Spoonful" - two times - from this month Mojo magazine complimentary disk, some Tom Waits' Mule Variations, beloved The Grateful Dead's "Nobody's Fault but Mine" from Dick's Picks' Live in Tampa, FL Dec. 19th, 1974, Wheeler/Holland/Frisell/Koonitz "Angel Song", the "Polka" from Malcolm Arnold's Lyrita SRCS 109... ONLY after the above mentioned music-shot we talked, at last... and it was only one word...

Perfect!

If you'll patiently check the whole Blog, while talking about my system, you'll never, ever find such a statement on my part...

I repeat, without any shame: PERFECT!

... and like Forrest G-g-g-gump seated on the bench... "I've nothing m-m-more to say!"

Musings

New audio frontiers:-)

Musings!

Holy Shit!

Records Shop Day 2013

Let's support our local brick records shop, folks!

Amazon is cheap and easy,  Ebay,  Discogs,  GEMM,  flea-markets and record fairs are super... but the relationship you establish with your record store is... magic!

Hey, Ivan... I'll be visiting you and your "new" shop, tomorrow:-)))

Robert Crumb or... who else better than him to know ups and downs of the vinyl records collector

Always loved him... from his comics (Fritz the Cat!!!) to Cheap Suit Serenaders' discs (I own them all, incl. the rare 78 rpm) I cherish in my collection.

Look at this extremely interesting interview... also if he's a 78 rpm freak, collecting dynamics are the same... down to... dreaming about a record!

An extract from the interview: "I spend some time listening to records almost every day when I’m at home, and I spend time just pawing through the collection, just looking at what I have.  Sometimes I’ll pull a record off the shelf and just marvel at it, that it exists and that I own it.  Again, it’s a sickness. It’s embarrassing to admit openly to such behavior, like talking about masturbation or something.  Sometimes I have to listen to records in the endeavor to purge and make room for new acquisitions, since I’ve run out of room to put new additions to the collection on the shelves.  I have to get rid of something before I can put the new ones in.  This involves tough decisions.  My natural impulse is to save everything, don’t wanna get rid of anything.  If I had endless shelf space, I guess I’d have ten times as many records.  Purging, however, is good for the soul and just makes the collection better, more intense.  Borderline items must be eliminated, moved out, sold if possible."

He knows!

Thanking LencoHeaven's pals for suggesting this...

DEEPEST thanks and appreciation go to Robert Crumb for... being Robert Crumb.

... and to Discaholic Corner's folks... superb site, indeed!

Storm Thorgerson (1944 - 2013) - Pink Floyd's Sleeve Genius Passes To Dark Side

Some of the most famous progressive discs covers and - most of all - Pink Floyd's wouldn't have been, without his eye.

R.I.P.

A mini passive line-stage survey - Luxman AT-3000 Ultimate

I choose, at last!

A new passive line-preamp entered my system, folks...

Luxman AT-3000 took the place of Thomas Mayer's 801A Line Stage, lately "only" used as a buffer to Mayer's Passive crossover... shame to me!

Due to the below-par use, I someway felt slightly unconfortable with using built-in Slagle's AVC full open, resulting in some (light) random microphony during warm-up and some (light) noise on one channel... but, hey... I was badly or so using it: who... WHO uses a preamp with volume at VERY maximum?

This way - I told myself - I freed Thomas' Line Stage for more proper use/gain settings.

Back to the AT-3000... it's a truly awesome piece of gear: deadly silent with a smoothness, resolution and overall beauty and rightness which I only experienced at Serge Schmidlin's studio.

Dynamics is impressive, perfectly balanced, correct... ambience retrieval is among the VERY best I ever tasted, going much further vs. my previous layout.

Look at building quality: shielding copper chassis and clever trannies positioning.

Luxman AT-3000, near Thomas' WE 437 LCR Phono Stage.

Everyone has his opinion about passive preamps... my own - very limited experience - was... aehm:-)... limited to a quite boring and unsatisfying exposure to a Shindo Arome, years ago.

Sure a transformers-based preamp is a completely different, far superior beast... and this very preamp TRULY is among the VERY best ever.

Was considering... when NOT using phono with WE 437A, my system is currently NOT based on tubes, at all... many irons, silver wire, but no tubes, anymore... at least if not using the above mentioned LCR phono-stage:-)

Who cares! Music first...

Enjoyed the adding immensely: The Grateful Dead's "Nobody's Fault but Mine" from Dick's Picks Vol. 1 NEVER played this good.. I mean it's not a signorina kind-of-sound, but natural, very beefy and full, yet sublimely detailed!

As a plus, the classy "Direct" input option, by-passing the Input selector, straight to irons, helps.


Welcome to Luxman AT-3000 Ultimate!


... and many thanks to Paolo.

Derek Bailey - The art of improvising, unveiled...

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• Derek Bailey and his beautiful, Samuel Beckett-like face... the dare-devil improviser which almost went famous (...) after collaboration with David Sylvian on " Blemish".
• This book, Derek Bailey's Improvisation, originally published in 1980, and here updated and extended with new interviews and photographs, is the first book to deal with the nature of improvisation in (almost) all its forms: Indian music, flamenco, baroque, organ music, rock, jazz, contemporary, and free music. By drawing on conversations with some of todays seminal improvisersincluding John Zorn, Jerry Garcia, Steve Howe, Steve Lacy, Lionel Salter, Earle Brown, Paco Pea, Max Roach, Evan Parker, and Ronnie Scott... Bailey offers a clear-eyed view of the breathtaking spectrum of possibilities inherent in improvisational practice, while underpinning its importance as the basis for all music-making.
• 1992 DA CAPO PRESS (USA)
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• ... great reading, folks.
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A mini passive line-stage survey - Thomas Mayer's Passive Line Control Unit

Thomas Mayer's aesthetics is VERY elegant and using Dave Slagle's AVC and solid silver wiring throughout...

Superb.

A mini passive line-stage survey - Fidelity Research AS-1

A cool add to my (small, humble) audio collection...

Elegant!

Balance available via the two attenuators...

The heart for a nice sounding, simple, cheap phono-less (or using a sep Phono stage) audio system...

I'm currently diggin' passive preamps world and... surprise, surprise!

... more to come, VERY soon.