In 1964, that country's armed forces overthrew the leftist…
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"Art is the only political power," the artist Joseph Beuys once said. If only it were true. Often, when power is wielded against an entire people with enough brutality and efficiency, it reduces the culture to a sickening silence, leaving room only for state-sponsored propaganda. Think of the Soviet Union under Stalin, or Germany during the Third Reich. But in other, rarer cases, repression is met with an efflorescence of great art, like a charred field welling up in a riot of wildflowers. Consider what happened in Brazil.
Holst: The Planets
Cheetham Fraillon: Earth
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, soprano; Upper Voices of the MSO Chorus; Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Jaime Martín
Melbourne Symphony MSO0003 (CD). 2025. Ingo Petry, prod.; Alex Stinson, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
Cheetham Fraillon: Earth
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, soprano; Upper Voices of the MSO Chorus; Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Jaime Martín
Melbourne Symphony MSO0003 (CD). 2025. Ingo Petry, prod.; Alex Stinson, eng.
Performance ****½
Sonics *****
Years ago, Hyperion released a Planets that added Colin Matthews's "Pluto, " absent from Holst's suite. Since then, alas, Pluto was demoted. Now the Melbourne Symphony has issued its own Planets—distributed through a partnership with LSO Live—appending an "Earth" movement composed by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon…
Linda May Han Oh: Strange Heavens
Linda May Han Oh, bass; Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet; Tyshawn Sorey, drums
Biophilia. 2025. Linda May Han Oh, prod.; Aaron Nevezie, Todd Carder, David Darlington, engs.
Performance **** Sonics *****
Linda May Han Oh, bass; Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet; Tyshawn Sorey, drums
Biophilia. 2025. Linda May Han Oh, prod.; Aaron Nevezie, Todd Carder, David Darlington, engs.
Performance **** Sonics *****
It is no small accomplishment for a bassist to draw attention away from a trumpeter and a drummer, especially young luminaries like Ambrose Akinmusire and Tyshawn Sorey. But Linda May Han Oh is special. Her purposefulness imbues every note with magnitude, and her attack makes the instrument sound 10' tall, strung with tiger gut. Only a few bassists…
In 1976 Stereophile stablemate Hi-Fi News & Record Review released Quadrafile. Created by then deputy editor Mike Thorne, this limited edition, 2-LP set featured a selection of recordings encoded with the four rival Quadraphonic systems: SQ, QS, CD-4 and UD-4. For more information see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrafile and discogs.com/release/8335618-Various-Quadrafile-Four-Speakers-Four-Systems-Four-Sides.
As much as I love my stereo system and listening to music through two speakers, some recordings just can't be bound by the limits of stereophony. For instance, Carl Orff's epic…
Pulp: More
Rough Trade RT0541LP (2025). James Ford, prod.; Matt Colton, Animesh Ravel, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Rough Trade RT0541LP (2025). James Ford, prod.; Matt Colton, Animesh Ravel, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Too often, a once-loved band or musician resurfaces after a lengthy time away and releases an album that leans on nostalgia, trading on a wellspring of happy fan memory. Twenty-four years after their last album, Pulp has released More. It doesn't fit the pattern. Indeed, on hearing it, all I can say, is: Wow!
It's not that it's a massive departure from the Pulp of Different Class (1995). The songs are similar in that they are stories of standard…
Robin Trower photo by Blackham Images
Five decades later, even dedicated fans of former Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trower have had to admit that they appreciate his solo albums for more than just his guitar gluttony. To be sure, For Earth Below's title track and his other blues-rock jams, obviously influenced by both the tone and approach of Jimi Hendrix, are foundational for today's stoner-rock subgenre. But while Trower wrote the tunes and is the headliner on all his solo albums, including a new 50th anniversary reissue of For Earth Below on Chrysalis Records, time has shown that the…
Acoustic Sounds' Chad Kassem is interviewed by Michael Fremer at the 2013 Rocky Mountain Audio Show
How was last fall for you? Mine was crazy. I traveled much of October: the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest one weekend, emceeing Chad Kassem's Blues Masters at the Crossroads Blues Festival the next, and the week after that, appearing at two Audio Advice stores, in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina. From there I traveled to Los Angeles to attend a 30th-anniversary celebration for Tron at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, where, standing in front of the screen, I talked to a theater full of Tronnies…
Frederich Nietzsche distinguished between two approaches to culture: The Apollonian, which is characterized by order and rationality, and Dionysian, which is about chaos, intoxication, and vitality. Apollo was the god of Music, Art, Light, and Knowledge, and to Nietzsche, the Apollonian impulse was the main source of beauty. It is characterized by order, clarity, individuation, and measured restraint. To me, Greek sculpture and the paintings of the Great Masters best represent this impulse. It's not just their classical forms—there's a strength to it, a solidity. Also think of the great…
My DACs are taking naps. I have not played music from a digital source in at least 12 weeks. I'm having too much fun playing records from the '50s and '60s with period-correct phono cartridges and listening to 100-year-old 78s at the Hot Club of New York. When I'm walking the sidewalks, my brain is strategizing about which vintage cartridge I should try next. Cartridge-rolling is my new favorite pastime.
These recent adventures have reminded me how close and hands-on the relationship is between a record collector and their phono equalizer. Watching analog shaman John DeVore play 78s while…
Spin Doctor #33: Hi-Fi Shows, the 2025 Capitol Audiofest, and the Doshi Evolution Phono Preamplifier
I was heading back home to New York in my old Mercedes diesel on a Sunday evening, having just attended the annual Capital Audiofest near Washington, DC. Riding shotgun was fellow Stereophile scribbler Ken Micallef, and as we puttered along the straight, featureless lower half of the New Jersey Turnpike, we started to reminisce about our audio show experiences.
My first audio event was the 1973 hi-fi show in Brussels, Belgium, held at the massive Brussels Exhibition Centre, near the famous Atomium landmark. Today, it's hard to imagine a hi-fi show big enough to fill a huge convention…