What are you listening to today ?

My father would often play this in the house back in the late 70's on his shiny, new 1/4" Studer/ReVox B77 Reel-to-Reel tape machine when my sisters & I were quite young. It looked quite "high-tech" at the time and I stared and studied it in amazement! Needless to say, we weren't allowed to even breathe on the ReVox, LOL, but surprisingly the turntable was fair game.

But I remember my dad putting on this recording on one particular Sunday evening during a raucus thunderstorm...I must have been just ~7 or 8 years old, and we were all a bit frightened with the storm and it worked to distract and calm us kids down. Since then it has always riveted me and made me just stop and listen, and taken me back to that evening.

But it's not something you listen too when you're in a hurry or on the go...

Henryk Górecki: Symphony No. 3 (in 3 movements)
[London Sinfonietta - Dawn Upshaw, soprano - David Zinman, conductor]



If the link to the Playlist of the 3 movements doesn't work, here is the 1st movement, and the others should show up...

robtr8 said:

Never heard of the "Back To Mine" series and was confused by The Roots with EBTG album cover artwork. Went noodling around the net, learned about the series (interesting) and found an old track I had missed.

Click to expand...

Nice. Yeah, there are only a few in the series that I think were good enough overall to own:

EBTG
Faithless
Groove Armada
Nightmares On Wax
...one or two more I can't think of right now.


I have a few from a similar series called, "Late Night Tales"...

There are some gems in that series, too, but many are "hit or miss" as well. You can see all of the Artist's Albums in that series, and listen to samples of all of the tracks on each album (and purchase) here:

IMO, Thomas Dolby's "The Flat Earth" is one of the most unknown and underrated albums of the 80's. It's a production masterpiece.

Just listen to this entire title track from the album once and try to pick out and keep track of EVERYTHING that is going on in this mix and in the soundstage!

The 2009 Remastered Collector's Edition has better sonics than both the original Vinyl and CD release (which I also have), where the "Remasters" usually have crushed dynamic range via excessive compression. Not this one.

I often use the "Dissdents" track from this album as an "Ultimate Demo & Test Track" because it has so many elements in the mix which create a very layered and expansive Soundstage in terms of 3D Width and Depth. It's got BASS, mids, treble, and great dynamics considering this genre.

Thomas mixes both synthesized and traditional instruments here, and each instrument, vocal, background vocal (multiple), and the many "EFX" sounds have their specific place in the soundstage and should be very distinct and descernible on a good system.

Screen Kiss, I Scare Myself, and Mulu (the rainforest) are other standout tracks for me. And while Thomas' other albums are more popular, I still revisit "The Flat Earth" far more often than the others. This one takes you on a journey.

Cheers

Just a couple more days, maybe three, and I’ll be able to enjoy this thread again.