Rabshakeh

A bit of a Steve Hoffman type question here, for which I apologise. I recently upgraded my hi fi, with a fancy new Plenar 3 with Exact cartridge. It's great. No regrets, save for one pretty major issue. The stylus picks up dust as it plays, like all styluses. This one has a little cross bar thing though, and, once it picks up the dust, it sometimes can't be dislodged. I've tried various approaches - blowing on it, using a horsehair brush gently, and the horrible DIY blu tac approach, but often it is just not possible to get the dust off it. It's a full tangle. Like a beard. This happens daily at the moment. This is not an issue I encountered with my previous set up, which was a bit more robust and where the dust just dislodged with a blow. Is there any solution to this issue? I read somewhere about ultrasonic devices that can clean a stylus, and wondered whether that was the answer. Anyway, any help much appreciated.

I guess so. I think I probably know most of the records anyway. I just had an inkling that there might be something out there that I didn't. What could be hipper than classic GDR free jazz? Absolutely nothing. I don't go out much anymore, though, so this is primarily guess work.

It is healthy to have anxiety dreams about your record collection.

Thank you.

That wine shop. It had some new stock, including a bunch of records that have been sitting on my want list for ages (especially Coltrane) for decent prices. Then I had some chores on the Essex Road, and wondered into Flashback which has just had a massive purchase of second hand Blue Note reissues in. So that also happened. Disaster.

Thanks. Gumpert is actually a new name to me. I will check him out. It was more the way that @king ubu mentioned in in the same company as Ascension and Machine Gun. It thought that I might have missed a classic.

Thank you for this Wikipedia link. I note that it covers Schlager, but no sign of a reference to either free jazz or Muzak.

What is "GDR Free Jazz"? Am I missing out on some classics?

Soft Machine - Fifth (Columbia, 1972)

Tete Mbambisa - Did You Tell Your Mother (The Sun, 1979) Dunno about the creepy title and artwork, but this has some good Basil Coetzee on.

These look great. Do you recommend any in particular?

I went a bit mad today and bought 8 records. I just kept walking into shops and finding new stock that I really wanted at good prices. I'm trying to cut my collection down, so this is a disaster.

Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff - Soul Surivors (Fantasy, 1986)

Schlippenbach Quartet - Hunting the Snake (1975/2000)

Derek Bailey - Guitar, Drum 'n' Bass (Avant, 1995)

That sort of thinking is why I missed the recent Braxton standards set and Roscoe Mitchell's last visit. Just saying.

What a shirt...

Thank you for the info, and mentioning the album in the first place.

Tom Rainey Obbligato - Untucked in Hannover (Intakt, 2021) First listen to this one. I had high expectations due to the players, but I thought it very disappointing: despite some good solos, I found it a bit too diffuse, serious and without much drive, which I think afflicts a lot of forward thinking modern jazz. Ha ha. Indeed.

That is a beautiful cover. It's so good...

Kenny Graham's Afro-Cubists Volume One - Mango Walk (Esquire, 1951-3) Nice one, which I don't own but listened to on the YouTubes after reading a reference to it in a blog. From the looks of it, it was a London bebop band, with West African percussionists, playing Afro-Cuban bebop. What I heard is very witty and really enjoyable.

I had no idea that these were even available. So thank you.