Giddens, 44, grew up in North Carolina's Piedmont, where her love of Roy Clark's playing inspired her to try the banjo. She quickly became curious about the role of Black musicians in Appalachian traditions. In 2005, she co-founded…
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Not even a pandemic lockdown could keep Rhiannon Giddens from seeking new projects. Between making a new album with her partner, Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, and engaging in strategic planning in her new role as artistic director of the Silkroad Ensemble, the musician and activist seems as busy as ever even if she rarely leaves her house.
The limitations of lockdown have yielded an unexpected advantage: The organization has had time to focus on planning. Fletcher is impressed by Giddens's contributions to these discussions: "I didn't know how strategic she is. She's been a thought-partner that I could have only dreamed of."
Giddens sees this pandemic-induced planning phase as essential for bringing Silkroad into a new era: "We want to make Silkroad an evergreen organization, to always have something on the boil and make it so that when people hear the word Silkroad, they're not just thinking 'Oh, that group that Yo-Yo…
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: The Ultimate Collection
Capitol/UM 0735429 (6 CD). 1970/2021. John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector, prods.; Phil McDonald, Richard Lush, Paul Hicks, Sam Gannon, Rob Stevens, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Capitol/UM 0735429 (6 CD). 1970/2021. John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector, prods.; Phil McDonald, Richard Lush, Paul Hicks, Sam Gannon, Rob Stevens, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
John Lennon's first solo album was recorded in about a month, September– October 1970, less than six months after the Beatles imploded. Fresh off a summer of primal scream therapy, Lennon laid bare his soul's torments: the loss of his mother, the pressures of fame, feelings of betrayal and regret over the end of the Beatles' magic.
The…
Mario Rom's Interzone: Eternal Fiction
Mario Rom, trumpet; Lukas Kranzelbinder, bass; Herbert Pirker, drums
Traumton 4694 (CD; available as download, LP). 2020. Mario Rom, prod.; Werner Angerer, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Mario Rom, trumpet; Lukas Kranzelbinder, bass; Herbert Pirker, drums
Traumton 4694 (CD; available as download, LP). 2020. Mario Rom, prod.; Werner Angerer, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****
Most European countries have one standout trumpet badass. Finland has Verneri Pohjola. Portugal has Susana Santos Silva. Until his death in 2018, Poland had Tomasz Stanko.
Austria has Mario Rom. Like most European jazz musicians who don't record for ECM, he is under the radar in the US. His fresh, bold voice is loud and clear on the…
Danish String Quartet: Prism III
ECM New Series 2563 (24/96 WAV). 2021. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Markus Heiland, tonmeister
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
ECM New Series 2563 (24/96 WAV). 2021. Manfred Eicher, prod.; Markus Heiland, tonmeister
Performance ****½
Sonics ****
What on Prism III is more exquisite, the music or the musicianship? The question is beside the point when you're dealing with the exalted level of refinement, restraint, and elegance that the Danish String Quartet brings to the great music of Beethoven, Bartók, and Bach.
The deaf Beethoven, in his late String Quartet No.14 in C sharp minor, Op.131, journeys through deep, pervasive sadness and isolation into joy, song,…
MQA has once again floated to the surface of the perfectionist-audio pond—not belly-up as some have hoped but forced there by relentless pursuit by anti-MQA predators posing as impartial jellyfish.
In case you've been living amidst the seaweed at the bottom of the pond, MQA is a thing that's done to digital audio data—sort of a codec that is said to reduce the "blurring" repeated digital conversions cause. For high-resolution audio, MQA compresses data into a much smaller file or stream while retaining, it is said, the sonic benefits of the original high-rez audio (and also of "…
How do you like your tangential-tracking tonearm: with a captured air bearing? If so, a stationary bearing and moving rail—or a moving bearing and stationary rail? A hovercraft-style air bearing? Trolley-wheel or servo-mechanical bearing? Or pivoted, with some kind of offset at the pivot or the headshell—or both? In today's crowded market of analog playback, you can buy whatever type of tangential tracker you prefer, from Bergmann, Clearaudio, Kuzma, Reed, Schröder, Thales, and others.
Or maybe you're okay with a plain ol' pivoted tonearm that describes an arc across the record's playing…
When I bring files to audio events—needle-drop recordings of the same end-of-side classical-music excerpt—and ask listeners to tell me which was played by a pivoted and which by a tangential arm, no one can distinguish between them.
If you like or prefer tangential tracking, don't let me discourage you. The Klaudio KD-ARM-AG12 is mechanically ingenious, superbly built—the machining is amazing—sets up and works as intended, and is packed with interesting and useful features, particularly the headshell design, which I hope Klaudio makes available for separate purchase. I just think the…
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