Fresh Grabs

And this is apparently on the way next year?

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Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - Segla

A big day chez Poly-Rythmo - only the second time that an original album from Poly-Rythmo has been reissued (as opposed to compilations) and this one is as rare as hen's teeth, as the promo blurb said. I've only ever seen one copy for sale and until last year nobody even knew it existed. The cover, if there ever was one, hasn't been found so this is a made up one. But the music is just wonderful and really worth checking out. Out on Gilles Peterson's Acid Jazz label and with the prospect of a lot more great music to come from Benin. I've got it on the deck already and it sounds glorious.

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Oh man I didnt realise the new Joel Ross was out, definitely going to pick up this!

The vibraphone is such a lovely instrument.

I've been digging Joel's work on Whirlwind Recordings, especially Harish Raghavan's album:


 
Some stuff I received last and this week.

Les Discrets ‎– Septembre Et Ses Dernières Pensées picked by the great @blissfullychaotic is our AotM for November.
Herbie Hancock - Inventions & Dimensions, part of the Blue Note 80 reissue campaign
Uyama Hiroto - A Son Of The Sun finally available on vinyl, Uyama Hiroto collaborated quite a few times with Nujabes
Elijah Nang - Gaijin II Tale of Rai, second album for this great hip-hop producer, highly recommended
Junko Onishi - Unity All The Most Live! is a 2xLP recorded live by Junko Onishi and her Sextet
Shinpei Ruike, RS5pb - RS5pb is the last T5Jazz release, this time by Shinpei Ruike, a young Japanese trumpeter
and a few CD: the last batch of TBM reissues (missing one) and last Days of Delight releases
(the 7'' was in my box but I never ordered this nor ever heard of them. According to Discogs the Moonlighters are a mod beat band from Japan

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Just received my first UHQR Clarity title -- Jethro Tull, Aqualung. The packaging is outrageous. It's like a TOME.

Will this even fit in a Kallax? I am still in my office...

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I bet the Hoffman boards are having a major Boomer Boner over this one.

It looks like a coffee table book. It would be cool to see photos of this bad boy if you get a chance. I am curious.
 
Got tired of waiting for this one to get a reissue or showing up for sale in the US so I bit the bullet on one with a decent shipping price from Spain. It arrived to Alaska quicker than media mail from NC and it Arrived in NM condition! I’m over the moon 😍
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Today’s other arrivals...

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I bet the Hoffman boards are having a major Boomer Boner over this one.

It looks like a coffee table book. It would be cool to see photos of this bad boy if you get a chance. I am curious.
As promised, here are a bunch of pictures. It's actually a very nice package. As you can see, the "spine" of the book design on the outer box is actually a halved section of wooden dowel, which is a nice touch and bodes well for longevity. The jacket is very well done, nicely textured, graphics are clear and vivid. MoFi-style inner sleeves. There is a one-sheet lyric insert, as well as an UHQR technology pamphlet and some other marketing stuff. The box is so roomy that I can actually fit my Steven Wilson Mix gatefold in there as well, so that's what I'm doing to save a little precious shelf-space. As you can see, it turns out it does fit in the Kallax after all.

The sound is very good, but couldn't be more different than the Steven Wilson remix. Where the SW remix is modern and detailed, arguably an improvement over the original, this UHQR pressing is instead more like the best-possible-sounding version of the original mix. The '70s brown murk is still there, the toms still sound like cardboard boxes, but soundstage is W I D E and details pop out all over the place without adding a ton of extra high end, etc. I have been listening to this album for over 40 years and there are things I'd never heard before in every single track on this pressing. You can really hear the original mixing decisions; the mix is actually much more intricate and complicated than I'd ever noticed before. The SW remix delivers a more cohesive "band" sound, whereas this UHQR pressing reveals more of the original overdubs, punch ins, etc. It's going to take me some time to get used to the "new" details, but all in all it is a very pleasant listen if you are a longtime fan of the album, because it was all there all along.

The Clarity vinyl is excellent. Flat, clean, quiet. I didn't hear a single pop or crackle in either disc. The vinyl is actually so quiet that I discovered mechanical noise that I hadn't noticed in the half-dozen other records I'd played earlier in the evening; it turns out my tracking force was 3/4 gram too high! So, yeah, it's *that* quiet!
 

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