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March 5, 2007 - 11:40am
#1
Anyone heard of this label before?
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Okay guys.I finally got 3 lps and one sacd from venus records.here's my findings. It's crap !
Let's take the sacd first.It is called "The things we did last summer" by the "New York trio".The music is okay,Bill Charlap is a very good pianist but the pressing leaves a lot to be desired,let alone the recording which isn't consistent.The first track is worse than most cds,soundwise.
The lps now.I got 3 lps."Amor" by Eddie Higgins trio , "Sentimental mood" by Barbara Carroll and "Alfie" by
David Hazeltine trio.First-of-all,all 3 lps feel like 180gr and not 200gr.Second,they all suffer from surface noise.
Not excessive though but still,it is there.On one of the lps
the "Alfie",the stylus was "jumping" around as if there was no recorder grooves in that area which ,when you add the surface noise i mentioned earlier,leads me to believe Venus has a very problematic record plant.As for the music,well,
"Amor" is good,"Sentimental Mood" not so good,Barbara's voice is......how shall i put it....don't these ppl have friends to tell them they don't know how to sing? The only lp which is good,is"Alfie" but then again,my stylus wouldn't
sit in one place lol
The resume,steer away from Venus records.it's a waste of money.
I forgot to mention that with all 3 lps,i had the impression
that the treble was kinda "thick" sounding untill i looked closer the sleeves.All the recordings are digital.
Yiangos,
Thanks for the information on these recordings and on the Venus label. I will be sure to avoid this label. It's too bad that their quality control is so poor since at least two of the recordings seem to hold much promise (the David Hazeltine and the Bill Charlap). Now had you instead opted for the Vandermark Five double LP set which I wrote about here: Vandermark Five Review, you would have least gotten a very well recorded LP on very high quality vinyl which sounds great. Although you might not enjoy the music since it's far from the straight ahead jazz represented on the Venus label.
I allways read your reviews and looked for the vandermark lp
but Acoustic Sound don't have it and i wanted to purchase records from them at the time.Regarding the venus label, mind you,i did not read negative reviews anywhere else. Eveybody seems to be quite happy with this label,Everyone except me lol