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Few people make albums about isolation and loneliness sound as appealing as John Doe does. That's what Doe has achieved with his latest solo release, Fables in a Foreign Land (LP, Fat Possum FP 18001). Set as a song cycle in the 1890s, the album's 13 songs reflect Doe's penchant for dust-and-diesel storytelling, within an acoustic-trio format. It's "telling stories and playing music around the modern campfire," Doe said in an interview.

Doe's mining of what some call the "dark folk" vein during the latter portion of his solo career hearkens back to his…

Mettler: The sequencing on Fables is key to telling the story. By the time we get to "Sweetheart," you feel like it's in the right place—it couldn't have been, say, track 2; it had to be track 12.

Doe: I let Steve Berlin do the Fables sequence. He said, "Can I have a shot at it?" And I said, "Sure, go for it." We all agreed it was a good sequence. I think we made only one or two changes. We left "Sweetheart" off the vinyl, so don't be too disappointed. We did that because the sides were a little uneven, and we didn't want that.

Mettler: Well, you can put "Sweetheart" out…

Though it's often forgotten in the wake of Motown's success, there was also a blues scene in Detroit in which no one loomed larger than John Lee Hooker. Cut at a single session in 1962 in Chicago, Burnin' has been reissued by Craft on 180gm vinyl.

Hooker, who began his career playing solo, rockin' joints with his upbeat crowd pleasers put over by his growling vocal delivery, decided here to play with a group of musicians imported from Detroit,…

On the face of it, Alexander Melnikov's Fantasie: 7 Composers, 7 Keyboards is an audiophile's dream. A follow-up to keyboard genius Melnikov's marvelous 2018 Harmonia Mundi recital, Four Pieces, Four Pianos, it presents the keyboard fantasies of seven great composers, from Johann Sebastian Bach to Alfred Schnittke, on seven very different-sounding historic instruments. Each…

Bobo Stenson may be the most under-recognized great pianist in jazz. He was essential to the aura of mystical lyricism that prevailed on Charles Lloyd's first five ECM albums. That partnership ended more than 20 years ago.

Stenson has been leading his own trios on ECM for 50-plus years. His current trio, with bassist Anders Jormin and drummer Jon Fält, released Cantando in 2008,…

After I'd reviewed, in the January 2000 issue, AJ's Basis Debut Mk.…

Because the Phono 3's circuitry appears to be similar to the Reference 6's, I expected its sound to be as well. It was. Forget for a moment the typical sonic descriptors: like the Ref…

Like most American households in the early…

Miyajima Laboratory Kotetu Mono Cartridge
If you were shopping for records in the early years of stereo—or if you've bought many older, used records since—you probably recall the stern warning on the back of many early stereo records, that they should be played only with a stereo or stereo-compatible cartridge. The warning was necessary because mono cartridges were made to only move laterally—left and right—while the grooves on a stereo record are vertical as well. Older mono cartridges were designed so that the cantilever and stylus could move freely from side to side, following the…