Going Nowhere, Slow

WMRI is Russian synthesist Mike Winchester. He has quite a few releases spread throughout the Internet, on sites like Jamendo, AmieStreet, Bandcamp, etc. And while much of it is quite good, I feel that his work really shines on a series of recent releases that he alludes to as the “Ambient Gem Series”.

~ Free Floating Music

Dr. Ebbetts specializes in releasing digital remasterings from long-deleted and hard-to-obtain vinyl records, particularly issues from the audiophile Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs (MFSL) label. Although the Ebbetts catalogue has many artists, it is most known for Beatles CDs transferred from the best quality MFSL releases, US releases and mono vinyl sources. While lables like Millenium, BEAT, Mirror Spock and Fabulous Sound Labs (FSL) also issue 'needle drops' of Beatles vinyl, Dr. Ebbetts is regarded by many audiophiles as being the highest quality. For those interested in the technical, one source close to the Dr says that Ebbetts says that he uses no noise reduction and that there's no magic formula…just a good ear and patience.

In demand singer-songwriter and guitarist, Doyle Bramhall II will release his latest album, Shades on October 5th. The intense and wide-ranging collection is a strong follow-up to his 2016 release Rich Man and marks his first album on the Provogue label. As a left-handed guitarist who plays his guitar “upside down” (i.e.: still strung for a righty a la Dick Dale and a few notable others), Bramhall is automatically going to have a non-standard approach to the instrument. This means unusual tones and textures are to be expected as he easily juggles genres from blues-rock and psychedelia to some smooth R&B as he figures out what is on his mind these days and how he is going to explain it to all of us…

After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic…

Although technically he never left, Alvin Lee is back. Recorded in 2003 at original Elvis guitarist Scotty Moore's Nashville home studio, with Moore as the mastermind behind the sessions (although due to ear problems he only plays on two tracks), along with Presley's drummer D.J. Fontana on the skins, this would be a listenable effort regardless of who was singing. With ex-Ten Years After's Alvin Lee playing guitar and taking the lead vocals it's a powerfully compelling disc that approximates many of the Sun label greats. Recorded predominantly live in the studio and sounding it, these songs - mostly originals written expressly for the sessions and an unexpectedly rip-snorting run through of the TYA chestnut "I'm Going Home" - find Lee at his most enthusiastic…

Although technically he never left, Alvin Lee is back. Recorded in 2003 at original Elvis guitarist Scotty Moore's Nashville home studio, with Moore as the mastermind behind the sessions (although due to ear problems he only plays on two tracks), along with Presley's drummer D.J. Fontana on the skins, this would be a listenable effort regardless of who was singing. With ex-Ten Years After's Alvin Lee playing guitar and taking the lead vocals it's a powerfully compelling disc that approximates many of the Sun label greats. Recorded predominantly live in the studio and sounding it, these songs - mostly originals written expressly for the sessions and an unexpectedly rip-snorting run through of the TYA chestnut "I'm Going Home" - find Lee at his most enthusiastic…