Hawthorne Audio – Silver Iris

The Silver Iris by Hawthorne Audio is a 15″ coaxial driver coming with a crossover and especially tuned to run in an open baffle configuration. After that open baffle virus had me I was lucky to  run into the Silver iris on the internet. There is also a review on TNT-Audio
. I did some further reading and was quite sure that these coaxials could be the drivers I’m looking for. The Silver Iris are running here since March last year and went through a few different set ups in baffles. The Hawthorne coaxials don’t require large baffles to run effectively and produce sufficient bass energy. If that’s not enough Hawthorne Audio offers the 15″ Augies, special bass drivers for open baffle use.
How do I describe the sound? I don’t know. The only thing I can say is that I listened to my CDs and records again just to discover things I hadn’t heard before. Some albums that couldn’t convince me before have now found their way back to my regular playlist.

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MC Solaar

Last week I grabbed my MC Solaar albums and listened  to them again after a long time. I’ve got the first four albums which are listed below in order  they were released.
- Qui séme le vent récolte le tempo
- Prose Combat
- Paradisiaque
- MC Solaar – le 4éme album
Following these comes a live album with a compilation of songs from the albums named above. I have to listen to the more recent ones Cinquième As, Mach 6 and Chapitre 7 which I’ll certainly do soon.
“Prose Combat” was the first album I’ve heard from MC Solaar and I bought it shortly after its release. In my opinion it is obviously jazz influenced mixed with interesting sounds and the best album of MC Solaar.

Sonny Rollins – Way Out West

This album is fascinating. It is really something special and somehow difficult to describe. Way Out West is certainly a kind of minimalistic jazz album.

Way Out West was recorded on March 7th in 1957 in one day and Sonny Rollins had never played with Ray Brown (bass) and Shelly Manne (drums) before.

I have the CD and the record of Way Out West. The CD contains alternate takes of some tracks and I heard there is a vinyl release with those. Comparing the vinyl sound with the CD I must say that the record surprises with much richer and detailed bass and drums than the digital source does. It’s more fun listening to the record.

Bootsy Collins (space) bass solo

Just found this great Bootsy space bass solo a few days ago. Wow!

Record cleaning

As I was young nobody seriously thought about record cleaning. You had a brush to wipe off the dust off your records and that was it. The others used to play their records with that Lenco device which let you play your records with a wet film of water on it. At first glance this method seems plausible. On the other hand the Lenco method probably destroyed generations of precious vinyl because the records once played with the Lenco device are lost forever for normal, dry record playing. A lot of people use normal tap water and once dry the residue sticks deeply in the grooves. Some people say that with a lot of work and some special mixtures of cleaning fluids these records can be resurrected.

Now not all of us are able to afford a Keith Monks. The cheapest machine I’ve heard of seems to be the KAB record cleaner that looks quite like the Nitty Gritty machines. On the internet there are a lot of diy attempts of creative people building their own record cleaning devices.

Meanwhile I think it’s essential to handle your records with care and give them the right treatment with a record cleaning machine. At the moment I’m doing my first steps in that direction with steam cleaning and with an old Dual record player but don’t have a clue how to solve that vacuum cleaning issue properly without harming my records and ruining my nerves.

Music from Turkey

Our pretty part-time student assistant Esra was so kind to name me a few of her favourite turkish artists. I picked the ones I liked best. So here we go:
Yavuz Bingöl – Yar Demedin

Ibrahim Tatlises – ArAmAm

Orhan Gencebay – Kaderimi Oyunu

Hakan Altun – Nefesimsin

John Currin

Just saw a short documentary about John Currin on TV a few days ago and was fascinated by his style of painting. A good description of his work and some of his paintings can be found here at Slate – A Closer Look At John Currin. More about the artist can be found here:John Currin Wikipedia.

Thelonius Monk – Misterioso

Again another great Thelonius Monk album. It’s recorded live and the background sounds as if the band plays in a crowded bar somewhere. In fact it was recorded in New York 1958 in the Five Spot Cafe. The recording quality is good. The album contains a short piano piece, a real gem called “Just A Gigolo”.

Neville Brothers – Tell It Like It Is

What a voice! Yesterday I searched for the Neville Brothers because I haven’t heard of them for a very long time and found this soulful performance. I think it’s Gregg Allman on the e-piano.

T.Rex – Tanx

Honestly I never was a big T.Rex fan. This record is an exception and I like every song on it. The first time I got my hands on this record I was about ten years old and I listened to T.Rex numerous times on my plastic turntable I used to own as a kid.