Mox Nox In Rem

Return to Vinyl, Part V - The Reality - Jazz

And, another surprise.  Is it my advancing years?  Is it, finally, growing up?  But, in a word, Jazz.  What never made sense when I was young, now makes sense.  I blame it on the turntable, and its ability to extract, forensically, the soul of the music.  I blame it on the gorgeous packaging - albums produced at the peak of the jazz boom - 1950s to 1960s - look at “Kind of Blue”

 

or Coltrane’s “Blue Train”

 

I suppose it was called “Cool Jazz” at that time for a reason.

And there’s something about the way that these albums were recorded.  An immediacy, an emotional commitment.  Perhaps it was tied in with the improvisatory nature of the music.  A Kylie Minogue performance will always sound the same, so there is no need to capture its fleetingness; it’s not fleeting.  But John  Coltrane never played a tune twice the same way.  Whoever captured it on the recording cared about that.

Return to Vinyl, Part IV - The Reality - Classical

Something I wasn’t expecting.  The shift to classical.  Whilst much of it felt inaccessible before, I can now chunk through the Ring Cycle (Solti, Vienna Philharmonic, 1958, Decca, 19 discs) at my leisure, with the detailed accompanying booklet, lyrics, etc.  The package feels more generous than Spotify, let’s say.  It feels like a gift to leaf through an artefact fifty-five years old.  Even older than I am, but more pristine.  The attention to detail is astonishing, both in the music and in the packaging.  The confection of something to endure and be savoured for a long time.  I like the fact that, despite the fact that it’s perishable, nothing about it feels disposable.

Oh, that cost £7.99.  For the whole thing.

Handel’s Messiah (Boult, London Symphony Orchestra, 1961, Decca, three discs).  £3.99.  Recorded at the Kingsway Hall in London, the sound is open and warm and thrilling.  Joan Sutherland sounds like she’s in the room.

These old recordings sound unlike anything else.  Full, fat, flawed, feisty.  A revelation.

 

Return to Vinyl, Part III - The Reality - Rock

So, it’s all plugged in.  The Rega RP6.  The Yamaha DSP-A1.  The creaky old AE109 speakers.

What does it sound like?  It sounds very complete (nothing missing), very uncompromised (no short cuts to fit everything into a given format).  It sounds like the timing is right on everything.  It sounds like there is nothing - a digital gauze? - between me and the music.

I have some albums to play, as well.  All the rock you would want - Zeppelin, U2, Van Halen, UFO.  Rolling Stones, and more.  It all sounds magnificent.  “Some Girls” on pink vinyl (of course).  The sleaze of the title track very real in the room, its crunching bass drum, its swagger and swing and soul.

And Van Halen, even more insane than I remember.  Eddie Van Halen’s finger-work revealed in all its frenzied detail, Dave Lee Roth’s breathy yelps echoing through a cavernous-sounding studio.  Ted Templeman’s production sounds and smells like new paint.

In fact, it’s all fresh and new and worth repeated listening.

 

Return to Vinyl, Part II - The What?

So, what to buy?  A turntable, obviously.  But which one?  When I was in my twenties, I had a lovely Rega Planar 3, bought from Graham’s HiFi in North London.  Having just been reading about the Lindy Effect, I thought I would see if Grahams - and the lovely Rega were still around.  Yes, it turns out, and Yes, respectively.  Jude at Grahams set up a demo.  Deep joy.  He would set up a system, and suggested that I try the Rega RP3 against the Rega RP6 (the latter rather more expensive).  Comfy room.  Cup of tea.  I can choose the albums.  So, “Led Zeppelin II” and Miles Davis “Kind of Blue,” starting with the former.

The first note was a shock.  Then the first bar.  This is the sound of a skinny man in a room with an electric guitar and amp.  You can hear all three things.  You can hear the walls.  And when the drums come in, Bonhamsequely, every snare rattle, every ghost note.  All the music is there, in all its human failing, fault and frailty.

Then on to Miles.  Arguably the greatest jazz album of all time.  And again, from the first, it’s all there.  The room, the men, the finger and string noise.  The jazz heat in the room, the interplay.  And - arguably the finest moment in jazz on arguably the finest album in jazz - when Jimmy Cobb hits the ride cymbal and it sustains for one, two, three bars, fizzing alive in the air in the demo room.

There, then, was all the music.

And the RP3 vs. the RP6?  The RP3 for sentimental reasons (the designed almost unchanged over thirty years) but for clarity, musical definition and pizzazz, the RP6.

Which now sits in my sitting room.

 

Return to Vinyl, Part I - The Why?

So the CDs are in Oxfam in Shaftesbury, if you want them.  Actually, the first four hundred went to Oxfam in Earl’s Court in 2011.  They won’t be missed, or not much.  But the last, loved, hundred? Perhaps.  The copy of Led Zeppelin IV owned, I guess, since 1986?  It has a heft and solidity that most of the others lack.  Not musically, I mean.  Although that too, or course.  But the thing itself.  Physically.  Later, CDs seemed to just get flimsier and flimsier, until they became MP3s.  And then they didn’t weigh anything at all.  Anyway, it’s gone.

The catalyst for all this?  As I have mentioned before, on MP3 or CD most of the music is not there.  Digitally, 95% of the musical information disappears between the original sound recording and the MP3.  And 75% disappears on the transition to a normal CD track.  I wouldn’t mind, but (a) I have paid for all the music, and (b) the missing bit may be the most interesting bit.

So, back to the future.  Back to vinyl.  Why?

First, as noted above, in the move from analogue to digital to CD, too much of the musical context has been lost.  Second, too much of the sensory immersive experience has been lost too.  Irrespective of the actual quality of the sound, I see too large a gulf between (a) hitting a button on the iPad and (b) pulling an album from the rack; sliding the inner sleeve from the cover (oh, look, here are the lyrics on the inner sleeve, and some cool art and words on the sleeve), feeling the weight of the disc in my hands; but be careful not to touch the surface; then slotting it onto the turntable spindle.  Hit the start button.  Unhook the tone-arm, place the stylus in position.  Lower the tone-arm.  The hiss (run-in groove) and the click on to the sound track.  Then, always, the first note.

So, you see, I miss all of that.

So, back to vinyl.