Whats on your turntable tonight?

Hi Foster, yes I *have* replaced the Magic Diamond with another Magic Diamond cartridge. The Magic Diamond does so many things so well I continue to be very impressed with it; from top to bottom it is has a consistency of sound quality that I've never heard another cartridge better. It just makes incredible music. Slipknot got the same Magic Diamond cartridge with his new Walker turntable, so there's certainly some common listening biases being shared in this neck of the woods.

I'm delighted to see Speakers Corner delving in to reissue the Harmonia Mundi catalog. They have several out or on their way. All are superb recordings in their original issues, so given Speakers Corner's track record for quality, I suspect the reissues will be well worth getting if you like the music. The "Danses Anciennes de Hongrie" is one of my favorites. I'm just hoping they will reissue a Harmonia Mundi I don't have in my collection already but have been searching for!
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RFS: That sounds like a playlist I'd make, except I'm missing a couple of those titles (but not artists). What do you think of the new Lips? I once authored an archived thread devoted to them, but I'm mostly underwhelmed by AWWTM although I do like much of it pretty well. Still, IMO not in the same catagory for me as their best recent work, including their last two albums.

Zaikesman, I find "At War With the Mystics" to be a great continuation of where "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots" left off. Mind you, some of the Lip's greatest work "Transmissions from the Satellite Heart" of 1993 or maybe "The Soft Bulletin" of 1999 IMHO but not one, not one of their releases has fallen on deaf ears in this house. Wayne Coyne and the fellows seem to continually up the ante with every mind-bending encounter. Rare are they who reinvent themselves and walk the fine line for their entire carrier as these folks have so poignantly. At their worst I genuinely love them and what they do. At their best I find them to be psychedelic geniuses. I also love them live, which adds a whole enhanced other element to what they do.

Happy Listening!

... In the way that many felt the lose of XTC for what they once were when they made "Skylarking" of 1986 with production by Todd Rundgren (personally IMHO, one, if not THE crowning achievement of their carrier) many may fall away from the Lips now due to their last two endeavors because refinement of the craft in all its aspects is confused with commercialism or the lose of some raw edge. If so then why note trash the fab four of "Abbey Road"?! I like what I hear, for what it is worth. Cheers!

RFS, obviously you 'get it' about the Lips, and might enjoy checking out the thread I mentioned, and I'd be glad if you felt moved to contribute, it's been dormant for a while now. I've been waiting for AWWTM to sink in for a while longer before I commented there -- slowly I've been easing up some in my opinion of it lately. Not that I thought it was terrible or anything, or very surprising either -- no one can be expected to climb forever at the heights these guys had been scaling recently.