Magazine
Essays, features, interviews, and reflections that begin with recordings but rarely end there.
There's a quality I listen for in jazz that has nothing to do with skill, genre, or choice of material. And if I don't hear it, I reach for the STOP button.
Some remasters sound spectacular on first listen and are forgotten a month later. Others stay with us for years. The difference often depends on what they ask us to listen to.
Many listeners compare hi-res and lossless releases expecting dramatic differences. But the biggest factor shaping what we hear is often not the format at all.
More and more new jazz releases are arriving compressed to the bone. It's time we talk about what that means, why it is happening, and especially, what we are all losing because of it. And perhaps it's also the time to object.
Eva Ollikainen's complete set of Pärt's four symphonies is a rare thing: only the second recording to gather all four works in a single release, and one that sounds good enough to make the journey worth taking more than once.
'I wanted to leave a fingerprint that would be invisible. Paradoxically, achieving that required quite deliberate intellectual work.'
Discover the moment when recording became capable of recreating space.
