#3: An Asteroid Crashed and Nothing Burned
Cleaning LPs, Testing Tubes, New Vinyl: Derek Bailey, Ralph Towner & Jane Siberry
As I enter my 20th or so year of record collecting, it’s become increasingly clear to me that I’ve been doing my collection a serious disservice.
“A rag and some isopropyl based cleaning fluid is totally fine. Cleaning machines are for rich folk.”
That’s how it was until I met this used Nitty Gritty (a generous loaner from Jared at Not Donuts, Records, one of the finest shops/hangs in the Hudson Valley). This machine is old, temperamental, smelly and a miracle worker. A simple design with a vacuum, turning motor, a stationary brush on the underside (that you wet with solution) and an additional brush, this thing has given new life to crusty krautrock, dust-caked free jazz and hopeless dollar bin George Winston rescues.
So far, the finest example is a VG copy of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Hissing of Summer Lawns’ (my current favorite but it’s a rotating trinity of that, ‘Hejira’ and ‘Court & Spark’) being brought to the upper end of VG+ simply with a couple deep and patient cleans (using a pre-mixed MoFi cleaner and rinsing with distilled water). My very finicky and noisy Italian copy of Popol Vuh’s ‘Einsjäger & Siebenjäger’ (1975) really settled down after a ride on the Nitty as did my first US pressing of ‘The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ (ATCO, 1974, Presswell Pressing). The latter got the treatment as I try to justify throwing down for the new Analogue Productions version (if you have, please let me know your thoughts in the comments).
But, yeah, I can’t recommend looking into a proper cleaning set up enough. Every record I clean is born again and enjoyed on a new level. The outlay of cash is a stinger (look for used!) but when it makes you want to clean and listen to every last record in your house, it’s well worth the price.
How do you clean your records? Drop tips and homebrews in the comments!
Growing up, I listened to music on an array of mass-produced pieces of Sony gear. Walkmans, boomboxes, mini-system, etc. I got the gist of the music and it engaged me enough to turn me into the person I am today but I see/hear now how blurry it all was. My dad didn’t have high-end gear and I don’t remember any family having any.
Starting a serious journey into sound, one of the first forks in the road is tube or solid state. The former gets all the love letters and hyperbole while the latter toils away, unbothered and unsung.
I’ve always been a solid state person mostly because it’s what I found cheap second hand. Tubes always seemed like a pain in the ass and expensive. An old roommate got a Fisher tube receiver and I liked it enough for the 10 or so years we lived together but it never sent me away drooling and raving and in need of finding something similar for myself.
Besides my DAC (MHDT Canary), I’ve never had any tube-based equipment. I have been looking for an affordable tube preamp to feed my secondary system’s power amp—my beloved Adcom GFA-545 II—mostly to see what it could do.
Enter this Dynaco PAS that I got yesterday on a trial basis. It’s hooked up to the Adcom as I write, playing FLACs of Wet Tuna’s Tapers Pot sampler (Child of Microtones, 2023) and it sounds really good (the first 20 minutes, not so much). If i look at this preamp wrong, it pops and fizzles and threatens to kill a channel for minute (yes, a good cleaning is in order) but it really is sounding sweet. The most notable thing I’m hearing is the taming (not rolling) of the high-end glare my Schiit Modi DAC (fed by my MacBook Air via VLC player) often gave me.
I’m not ready to toss all my solid state stuff and jump on the tube ship just yet—many more hours for critical listening are needed—but I’m loving the Dynaco/Adcom pairing so far.
My obsession with getting/finding records ebbs and flows. Fall and Winter see the most action as I’m less able to get into the mountains or down to the beach. I don’t buy a lot of new music on vinyl as I’ve gotten burned so badly by poor QC (well researched audiophile pressings are more likely) but there are some things I want to hold and support so i take a chance on the LP.
Strategy - The Wet Room (Community Library, 2023)
Paul Dickow dropped a new full length a few weeks ago and it feels more concise that other recent works. Track times are short on The Wet Room (possibly because he just dropped an epic via Longform Editions?) but pack a dubbed-out punch. Inside its spaciousness, the album spooks with sampled voices talking about climate disaster. The vinyl sounds fantastic. I don’t mess with much bass-forward music on LP but this one handles it well.
Derek Bailey & Paul Motian - Duo In Concert (Frozen Reeds, 2023)
Despite an (unofficial) high school curriculum based around the works of Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, Derek Bailey’s (d. 2005) music has just never held and engaged me much. With the exception of Topography of the Lungs (Incus, 1970), I don’t think I’ve ever made it through an album featuring the legendary English guitarist.
That changed when Finland’s Frozen Reeds let loose Duo In Concert. Drawn in by Robert Beatty’s stunning cover design, the music here (recorded in 1990) feels less frantic and more flowing than anything I’d heard from Bailey previously. This release timed perfectly after a new Motian fascination that began with a recent exploration into Bill Evans and the drummer’s ECM works in the 70s. Duo In Concert actually feels more like his onetime collaborator Pat Metheny in places with it’s liquid runs of exchange.
Ralph Towner - Blue Sun (ECM, 1983, Germany)
Ralph Towner, Eddie Gomez, Jack DeJohnette - Batik (ECM, 1978, US)
Ran across a tweet recently where the narrator snarkily asked why they were seeing so much recent love for Pat Metheny (hey, two mentions in this newsletter!) from “dudes who got into the Dead 5-10 years ago.” I almost took this personally before remembering my first PMG exposure was by finding American Garage on cassette in the old jeep my Deadhead aunt and uncle gifted me upon High School graduation (American Beauty landed four years earlier on a camping trip). Not to mention the fact PMG were very popular among college-aged youth starting from the mid-70s well into the 80s kind of like that Grateful Dead band.
Anyway, all of that is to say you posers reading this who got into the Dead this past weekend should point your ears toward Ralph Towner as he is now being anointed as the next ECM guitarist deserving of wook and post-wook allegiance. Blue Sun is a solo work featuring lots of synth in addition to his other-worldy acoustic. There’s a couple moments of wankery but overall it’s a very serene and contemplative outing, with Towner covering all the instruments. It feels very much a compliment to his albums with John Abercrombie (and JA’s essential Characters (ECM, 1978). This is an upgrade German copy that I’d like to A/B with the US pressing I have as I’ve never been disappointed by an ECM’s pressing quality from anywhere in the world.
Batik is a more roiling affair with drummer Jack DeJohnette and undersung bassist Eddie Gomez. Side A is jumpy and often wild, starting with severe overplaying by DeJohnette before things settle down and gel a little more. Side B is where the money is with the 16 minute plus title track doing everything you need three improvising masters to do.
Jane Siberry - No Borders Here (Open Air, 1984)
Jane Siberry - The Speckless Sky (Open Air, 1985)
The term “dream pop” has been disappointing me since I first read it—no modern record saddled with the tag living up to what it could be in my mind. Or just paling in comparison to Cocteau Twins. And yet I persist n wanting to hear more, especially vintage 80s stuff.
Somehow I landed on Canadian singer-songwriter Jane Siberry’s RateYourMusic page and read effusive praise for her 1987 album The Walking and so I streamed it and, man, it was something else. In fact, I don’t have it in my record nerd vocabulary to give reference points other than Kate Bush. It’s not an easy listen but rather a complete sound-world with songs. The pieces are long and dense and kinda proggy. It’s wild.
So I came across two of The Walking’s predecessors at Academy Records’ killer new Brooklyn space and initial impressions are they are going to be filed and revisited often. 1984’s No Borders Here is more open and spacious while the following year’s The Speckless Sky feels more reined in and accessible but no less intriguing. Both are on Windham Hill sublabel Open Air and sound amazing—no surprise from the house Will Ackerman built.
New Musik - Anywhere (GTO, 1981, UK)
Polyrock - Above the Fruited Plain (PVC, 1982, US)
I wasn’t joking when I mentioned a newfound love for synth-pop. I’m not just talking about the obscurities, I’m going back and finally learning who sang the hits as previously I just assumed they were all by Simply Red.
Polyrock and New Musik never soared to those rarified heights but they did make some strong music that holds up remarkably well almost 40 years on. The former were a New York-based group with a connection to Phillip Glass (he played on their first two albums) while New Musik formed in London and benefitted from the stunning and forward-thinking production of Tony Mansfield.
Above the Fruited Plain, a “mini-album”, plays like the poppier side of Wire with more melodic force and it sounds great. Polyrock records are abundant and cheaop in the NYC metro area, and a couple spins of this one have me deeply confused as to why people are snapping them up and holding on to them.
New Musik I discovered while reading up on Steven Wilson after gorging on his remixes of Gentle Giant albums. Wilson placed them on his recent compilation Intrigue: Progressive Sounds In UK Alternative Music 1979-89 (Demon/Edsel, 2023) and they were the first name I didn’t recognize on the tracklisting. As it happens, I stumbled across the album a few months later (a UK gatefold first pressing!) at Darkside Records in Poughkeepsie and it’s a tuneful and enveloping delight. Funky bassline, squiggly synths and yearning vocals are all here and cozily presented. An aural delight!
I love my NG! Not so much my wife. I love the ritual of cleaning the record and sleeve and then giving it a new inner/outer sleeve. Unfortunately, I haven't found a good supply of cleaning goo. I use the Pure 2. Like most things these days the shipping is almost as much as the goo.