Upcoming Impulse! reissues from Japan

[CJ Shearn]

First Meditations, Vista, Rural Still Life and Three Four Shepp arrived last week. FM was an upgrade from the GRP edition which I've always had trouble enjoying. Three For Shepp was to replace a defective domestic disc and it sounds better too. The other two were on the sound recommendations here. Both are very attractive albums. 

Nice to hear that the Three For Shepp I also bought is better than the domestic version. That one is long OOP and I could not find a copy for a reasonable price.

Three For Shepp is a 20bit K2. Some of the Coltrane 20bit K2s also sound a bit better or no worse than the 90s Labson 20bit US/EU digipaks (At The Village Vanguard Again), but not by a huge margin imo. The last of US/EU digipaks from 2000 (Interstellar Space, Kulu Se Mama, New Thing At Newport, Ascension), however, are by Kevin Reeves and were much better than their predecessors.  

Indeed the Japanese budget 20bit K2 of Kulu Se Mama from four years ago is not as good as the domestic digipak from 2000. Likewise, I expect the New Thing At Newport from this new budget batch to sound worse than the 2000 domestic digipak.

Ascension could be a later Japanese remaster, and thus the exception among the remasters that predate the 2011 SHM editions. I have an edition from 2005 which I slightly prefer to the 2000 digipak.

 

I have the  2000 Reeves digipack, and that has a pressing error I guess.   it won't rip "Edition I" or play the very end correctly, years ago originally I exchanged the first copy thinking it was defective but, same thing occurred.

Really? I used to own a EU pressing of Ascension and later replaced that scratched disc with a US CD, and both played fine until the end. The Originals is also by Reeves and sounds the same except for the extra treble, compression, harshness, and loudness. I prefer to listen to UCCI-9124 from 2005 (Japan). I don't know if this budget release copies that mastering.

It plays fine in my PS3, but ripping the track (I play most of my CD's as ripped WAV's off my laptop) the last 30 or so seconds a bunch of digital clicking, very strange.

[mjzee]

What I do in a case like that is record the CD onto a CDR.  I have a recording CD deck as part of my stereo, and can make an exact digital copy of the defective disc (because it's weird; sometimes the CD will get that clicking at the end of a disc on my computer but will play fine on my CD deck - and, interestingly, I've only had this problem with discs from Universal).  The CDR disc will then play perfectly on my computer.  Weird, I know.

[barnaba.siegel]

I just got Marion Brown's "Vista". Well - the album itself is brilliant and so is the sound quailty. Really, really classy, just what you can expect from the type of delicate, ambient music.

It's also good to notice that the track "Bismillahi 'Rrahmani 'Rrahim" was one of the earliest pieces defining the ambient genre. Harold Budd (also present on "Vista") recorded/composed it in 1974 but it wasn't released until 1978. So "Vista" should be treated as one of the god-fathers of ambient music - and it was recorded by the "screaming", free-jazz/avant-garde Marion. What an irony!

[king ubu]

Ever heard of one Erik Satie?

[JSngry]

Not ambient, not really, but pre-Vista:

[jeffcrom]

I just got Marion Brown's "Vista". Well - the album itself is brilliant and so is the sound quailty. Really, really classy, just what you can expect from the type of delicate, ambient music.

I read this and had an emotional moment. In some ways, Vista is Marion's "Atlanta" album - several of his old Atlanta colleagues join him on that album.

One of them was drummer/vocalist Allen Murphy. I did a gig with him after his stroke, and tied his tie for him, since he was unable to.