Ottawa, Ontario

Matthew and Jeff

I'd be interested too. I'm a west ender like Matthew, and I'm always looking for new listening experiences. My system is posted here, and my listening room is always open.

Paul Chefurka

Yes indeed, the Coincidents were in fine form. They will be replaced for the next session chez GliderGuider by the FAB Audio Model 1, which are even more Fab than a Total Victory!

For anyone wondering what instrument Jill St. John plays, it was actually Lara St. John playing Gypsy music on a Strad. The pig latin thing is an odd recording. It was written and produced by Sandra Boynton, and is described on the net thusly:

"Perhaps the single most ambitious, inexplicable project in a career fraught with ambitious inexplicability: a book/CD documenting a simple day in the simple lives of the simple pigs of Snouto Domoinko de Silo. Intoned in the original Pig Latin, with antiphonal responsaria and commentaria by the lesser barnyard animals. (Maybe you had to be there.) Truly sooee generis."

It's basically "Old Macdonald Had a Farm" sung in Gregorian chant by the animals on the farm, all of whom for some reason speak Latin, except for the pigs who of course speak Pig Latin. The acoustics and recording quality of this CD have to be heard to be believed. And even once you've heard it you can't believe anyone bothered...

The latest get-together involved listening to folk and blues through my newish Fab Model 1 speakers driven by Wavelength Triton Blue 300B amps and a pair of ACI Titan subs. The sound was very nice - open and clean with a firm, well-integrated foundation.

Music included Martin Simpson, Mary Black, Ruthie Foster, two versions of Western Wall (one by Roseanne Cash, one by Emmylou and Linda Ronstadt), and a "vertical tasting" of Greg Brown - some from his 1983 album "One Night..", and some from his recent release "In the Hills of California" from the Kate Wolf Music Festival.

Refreshment was courtesy of three bottles of cask-strength single malt - a 27 year old Blair Athol, a 24 year old Convalmore and an 18 year old Caol Ila.

All in all, another pleasant, successful night.

Last Friday we met at my place again, to taste the delights of the Audion Silver Night PX25 amp. It acquitted itself very well. I over-programmed the music, though. My bright idea was an evening of chanber music, chosen for the number of instruments in the ensemble - starting with a Bach solo violin sonata and going all the way up to Spohr's Nonette. While there was some good music along the way (including a transcription of de Falla's "Nights in the Gardens of Spain" for guitar trio, and the Beethoven Grosse Fugue) we only made it as far as a Brahms Sextet before the idea wore out its welcome.

As a reward, we listened to some CD copies of working tapes made by a recording engineer from Toronto. He specializes in single-pass recording, done with strict stereo miking. The pieces were a small jazz combo - a female vocalist, a piano and a bass. The recordings were straight from the session, and included a lot of "beginnings" that ended in mistakes. It was like looking at a photographer's contact sheets - fascinating. The recording quality was interesting, in that it gave a very realistic picture of the venue acoustic, sometimes at the expense of the individual instruments - especially the piano which sounded a bit distant compared to the voice.

Yes, it was a lovely afternoon, with some music I'd never heard before, some tasty new components and good whisky to meld it all together. By the way Matthew, the CBC program I meant to slag off was Freestyle, not Fresh Air - though Fresh Air doesn't escape criticism either. If the CBC gets any more lightweight, it's going to float away on the hot air of its own making. It's a saddening state of affairs.