#17: Time Turns Elastic
Good Schiit: Urd CD Transport First Impressions & Tidal Playlists for Subscribers
The quick & dirty:
This week’s radio show had great music.
I’m on Tidal making playlists for paying subscribers. DM me if you want in
The Schiit Urd is blowing my mind
Phish
More details below.
The Trailhead 129 is now on Mixcloud and features another piece from the stunningly lovely James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg long-player All Gist (Paradise of Bachelors). These guys could do an album of Shania Twain covers and I’d be gaga for it. We also got to hear guitarist Shane Parish doing Ornette Coleman’s ‘Lonely Woman’ from the forthcoming Repertoire album to be released presently via Bill Orcutt’s Palalila imprint. Also in the show there’s some of the great new album from Los Angeles’ Marine Eyes, who has surprised me by putting a lot of guitar on To Belong (Past Inside the Present). There’s a new one in the pipeline from long-running Japanese ambient project Rhucle called Place (Oxtail Recordings) and we heard the first released taste/whisper from that one.
The second set went unusual with some modern electronic art/rock/pop from Berlin project Sun Kit (All The Patterns Inside, Hyperdelia) and Frankfurt’s Man Rei (Doer, Crash Symbols) before yielding to a maga, post-everything proggy epic from Post Moves off the as-yet-unreleased Debacle Records full-length, Ground Echo Dust.
Listen to the show here and peep the tracklist below.
1. James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg - Death Wishes to Kill - All Gist (Paradise of Bachelors, 2024)
2. Shane Parish - Lonely Woman - Repertoire (Palilalia, 2024)
3. Lunar Prairie - Slow Rebound - Lunar Prairie (Self, 2024)
4. Panghalina - Stellar Tides - Lava (Room40, 2024)
5. marine eyes - night palms sway - to belong (Past Inside the Present, 2024)
6. Rhucle - Slow Wave - Place (Oxtail Recordings, 2024)
7. Turn On The Sunlight - Loving Consideration, and Loving Kindness Reprise - Canoga to Haʻikū (Moon Glyph, 2024)
8. Juho Toivonen - Enne - Sisarusten Toistuva Uni (Discreet Music, 2024)
9. Gretchen Korsmo - Presto - Silhouettes, Spires (Full Spectrum, 2024)
10. Michelle Moeller - Slate - Late Morning (AKP Recordings, 2024)
11. Swanox - My Truth - Rhodyrunner (Not Not Fun, 2024)
12. MV & EE - Jacked Up - Fuzzweed (Three Lobed, 2013)
13. Sun Kit - Tunnel Vision - All the Patterns Inside (Hyperdelia, 2024)
14. Man Rei - Hung - Doer (Crash Symbols, 2024)
15. Bathroom Plants - Raise Your Consciousness to Class Consciousness - NewMind Solidarity (Aquablanca, 2024)
16. Post Moves - Harbor Ripple Blue - Ground Echo Dust (Debacle, 2024)
It’s over. I’ve surrendered.
I stream.
It started with a promotional free subscription to Apple Music. When that ended I considered extending the ride, enjoying hearing “classics” like Can, Dylan, the Stones, Eno, etc in pretty good quality. I did have access to a friend’s premium Spotify account previously but I never spent a lot of time with it and always found them to be the slimiest operation around. That’s something Damon can tell you a lot more about. Also that was before kids and bigger bills and all that.
Anyway.
It was likely John Darko that tipped me in the direction of Tidal. I liked that they seem intent to stream the best quality possible and they’ve just made access to their hi-fi tier free. I also wanted to make playlists for paying subscribers and that didn’t seem possible on Apple Music without surrendering my almost 1 TB of offline music to the cloud and integrating my digital music collection with their library. I depend on my digital collection for the radio show so I didn’t want to mess with it. Tidal came out slightly ahead in a week of deeply unscientific A/B comparisons with Apple and it really makes Spotify sound like my son’s Fisher Price turntable.
So Tidal it is. I’m still reluctant to listen to smaller, independent artists on there, preferring to go to Bandcamp first but it’s been great for checking out a lot of classic jazz I jumped over in my pursuit of the skronky and free in my youth.
The idea that paying 10-15 dollars a month might keep me from buying so many LPs seems quaint and ridiculous now as each stream leaves me with “well, wonder what the original LP sounds like” in my brain.
So if you want in on these private playlists and are a paid member in good standing, slide into my DMs and I’ll send you some links. Currently I have these running: “70s Jazz”, “80s Jazz”, “80s” (rock and pop), and “New Ambient”. Eventually I’ll have some ones up for folk and prog and more indie rock type of stuff. Suggestions are welcome.
So this isn’t my full on review of the Schiit Urd CD transport but rather a first impressions post. I mean, holy shit.
I really didn’t know what to expect plugging this into my DAC, figuring surely there can’t be all that much difference from my old stand by player—an Adcom GCD-575 with the beloved TDA1541 chip. I use the Adcom as a transport and it’s been real good. But I keep reading all these reviews of new transports that say they are taking CD playback to hitherto unknown levels of joy and bewilderment and beyond. It’s kind of hard to believe that one optical drive and mechanism tasked with extracting 1s and 0s and sending them out of the unit to be put together and turned analog can be better than another. But I am now a believer. The Urd has taken CDs I wrote off as flat and lifeless and mastered poorly and has lifted them up to worshippable status. Drums and bass that could be hard to find on some albums on CD have been rescued and placed before me. Space that previously seemed insufficient and claustrophobic is now a glittering galaxy. I could go on but I think I’ll let it keep burning it in by marathoning Child of Microtones live boots, doing some comparisons with another DAC and transport and letting that new gear high dissipate a little.
There’s a new Phish album on the way called ‘Evolve’ and its first single and title track is out. It’s really good.
Honestly, I haven’t cared about new studio work from the quartet since the last century but the shows I’ve hit/streamed the last couple years have me very excited for the band and the music right now. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten my partner into them and our 4.5 year-old and 18-month-old are on their way to becoming grizzled tour lizards that I’m feeling a personal resurgence with them.
‘Evolve’ is one of those sweet little soaring ditties Trey & Co. don’t get enough credit for doing well. Give it a chance and if you are completely new to the band but curious, ask for some live jams to get you hooked.
Great album art, too. Feels like a throwback to Slip, Stitch and Pass.
thank you, jeff! ✨