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Great Recordings, Sonically Speaking - and Why.

I think many of us would accept that artists such as Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, and Dire Straits have consistently put out music that was at least originally recorded to a high technical standard. [I'm not too sure what the loudness wars may have done to subsequent reissues, but even so, the tone and timbre thankfully tends to remain intact.]

However there must be plenty of lesser known recordings out there that could be said to be of a high sonic standard.

One such recording that I like to put on in the background whilst I'm doing other things is a piano recording that features wonderfully lush timbre and some delightful tunes.

This one is The Disney Piano Collection by Hirohashi Makiko and to me it makes a lot of other piano recordings sound a little washed out.
cd318

Showing 3 responses by sumaato

sumaato
98 posts
 
Audio friends, I've got to wonder, reading the posts in this thread, if any listeners have purchased a record since about 1980! (And I'm 70).
There are countless fabulous recordings produced in the last few years alone, not to mention the '90s, '2000s. To mention just a few artists/labels I know of with consistent great sound who continue to record:

--Malia,
--Porcupine Tree
--Any recent ECM jazz release
--Hiatus Kayote
--The Robert Glasper Experiment
--The XX
--King Krule
--Cécile McLorin Salvant
--The Internet
--Stacey Kent
--Vanessa Hernandez
--The White Birch
--Joan Chamorro
--Xavier Davis
--Anna Maria Jopek
--Any Sono Luminus release
It's endless.

sumaato
98 posts
 
sumaato,
I am 68 and heard the name porcupine tree but never heard any of the music. The other's you have mentioned, never heard their names before!
ozzy
Ozzy, If you put a foot in the water with any of those artists/labels, it will lead you to other artists/recordings of quality. Have fun!
Here's a few more:
--Cassandra Wilson
--The Future Kings of England
--Moses Sumney
--Agnes Obel
--Reference Recordings label-Classical
--Artemis on the Blue Note label
sumaato
98 posts
 
Even now there’s potentially hundreds of great albums I’ve not heard - mostly US artists little heard in the UK.

Great music and great recordings have never stopped being made by great musicians. Sure enough, there is a huge amount of material to wade through even from one week of new releases to the next week , but if you know roughly what genres you tend to stick with, then it's not difficult to look into new stuff day-to-day.

If one is interested in 1970s rock music for example (as most of us seem to be!), there is a whole contemporary community of rock artists evolving and changing with modern influences from other genres, creating new worthwhile music, with great recording and musicianship.

One of my interests is 1950s torch singers, of which i have hundreds of original albums, in mono and early stereo. Though the overall presence of that type of music culture has shrunk dramatically, their high standards of arrangements and singing performance can be found in contemporary recording artists like Stacy Kent, Diana Panton and Celeste.
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