Michael Ruff “Speaking in Melodies” 2007 (original CD release 1993), Qobuz 16/44.1
I know, how can you possibly resist a cover like that! An absolutely superb Sheffield Labs recording from the early days of digital and mastered by the legendary Doug Sax which once again proves James’s adage “it’s not the quantity of the bits that matters, but the quality”. I can’t summarize it better than John Atkinson did in his 1994 “Records 2 Die For” entry so forgive me for quoting it in full:
“Here’s another audiophile recording, all sound and no substance,” was how Stereophile 's keeper of the musical flame, aka Richard Lehnert, characterized this “live-to-2-track” disc as he handed it to me. Dutifully I took it home and listened. Well, it does sound superb: clean, dynamic, with extended, filigree highs, deep fundamental lows. A positive paradigm. And the drum sound is the best I’ve heard. In an oversampled age when engineers universally think a snare drum should sound like gated white noise, and toms and kick drums have no business sounding any different from crude, damped sinewave oscillators, Per Lindvall’s drums are different—they’ve been recorded by engineers who care what the real thing sounds like. The 0dBFS snare on this recording makes me jump right out of my skin; the kick drum propels the music along with toe-tapping intensity. And the band, recorded live in Oceanway Studio, cooks like enthusiasm was going out of style. Throw in intelligent arrangements from singer/songwriter/pianist Ruff and producer Clair Marlo, some attractively melodic songs, musicians who know that music lies in the spaces between the notes, a solidly subtle bass guitar, a suitably loose piano, and the inspired use of a trombone, and you have an “audiophile” album that needs no apology.
Verdi: Aida
Opera
Harteros, Kaufmann, Semenchuk, Tezier, Schrott
Antonio Pappano, Orchestra E Coro Dell’Accademia Nazional Di Santa Cecilia
Warner Classics - 2nd October 2015
24/96
DR: 19
Released this week. As for all discs Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer… lead writer/lyricist and lead singer) is involved in the production, the SQ here is way above other Metal records.
Superb performance of Mahler’s “Titan” by the Floridans under James Judd captured in what I can only describe as an absolutely reference quality recording by the redoubtable Peter McGrath. Absolutely superb.
