Ear Candy: Most startling recordings.

1. Shelly Manne & Jack Marshall - "Sounds Unheard Of"
Acoustic guitar and percussion on Analogue Productions vinyl.

2. Mikey Hart - "Dafos" (whole CD/LP)
Unreal percussion and sounds. Eerie kind of stuff. So far outside the speakers it's in your neighbors yard. Especially when he/they start using non-drums to make percussion sounds in the right side of the soundtsage. Banging metal pipes and stuff. A whole lot of fun.

3. Dianne Schuur - "Somewhere over the Rainbow". From her "Music in Me" CD. Breathtaking acapella, center stage, brings a smile to my face and goosebumps every time it's played. First cut I placed on my test CD. Ear candy in a different way.

4. Isley Brothers 12" "Eighth Wonder of the World". Talk about sounds all over the place. Especially the jamaican influenced dub mix. Un-freaking real percussion and Ernie Isley on guitar moving all over the place all the time.

He messes around in the studio quite a bit, from making recordings sound like they are being played on a Gramaphone to simply great recordings like the bluegrass cuts with the Del McCrory (s.p.?) Band. Wish I could afford to hear the title cut off Transcendental Blues on a big rig with Dunlavy SC VI's or the like. Anyone heard this track played on such a system?

One of my most recent discoveries is the Persuaions singing Frank Zappa. I don't have it as yet but what I've heard is beautifully strange!

I no longer have the vinyl nor can I remember the label but it was a direct-to-disc recording by Virgil Fox. On one of the tracks you can actually hear the engineer move one of the microphones while Fox is playing. There are also a couple of police sirens and an odd pedal note that was later revealed to be a garbage truck moving a dumpster outside the cathedral in Atlanta.

You can also hear an incredible blooper when he stomped(yes, Fox stomped) the wrong pedal in the Widor Toccata.

Will

bishopwill: the lp is called "virgil fox-the fox touch, volume two". it was released in 1977 by crystal clear records. i'm lookin' at a m/m copy of this disc as i type. haven't heard it in a while. think i'll crank up the compressor and get my analog rig goin' tonite. -cfb