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August 18, 2014October 30, 2014 by Michael

Miles Davis: Pangaea – A genre of its own

On the front page of the Audio Federation website Neli and I get to post our favorite albums of the day, week, whatever.

[These favorite albums take the place of what was previously our Linkedin profile photos. Neli got tired of seeing this photo of herself everywhere. I think it is a great photo of her. Women… 🙂 ]

I currently have ‘Miles Davis Pangaea‘ as my Audio Federation front page album.

This double-album is part of a set of concerts during Miles’ electric funk space jazz phase. Agharta is another double live album of this concert series from Osaka, Japan. To a large extent Black Beauty, Dark Magnus, In a Silent Way, and even Miles Smiles are other examples of his of this genre. And as far as I am concerned he has this genre all to himself. Although Live-Evil is much more widely available, and many consider it part of this phase of his, I do not – it is more commercial electric jazz-fusion – nice but without the ‘space’ and ‘deep rhythm’ these other albums mostly have (Miles Smiles is missing a lot of the deep rhythm of these others, but it still stands above Like-Evil IMO in terms of groove and aggressiveness).

Here is what Amazon has to say:

“(2-LP set) Recorded on the same day as Agharta (FMN 811), Pangaea‘s 2 LPs of material are culled from the evening performances at Osaka’s Festival Hall. Featuring just 2 songs, both clocking in at over 40 minutes, Pangaea shows Miles’ band really stretching itself to the limit. Live electric jazz-fusion from the undisputed master of the genre. 180 gram vinyl in a gatefold jacket with a reproduction of the original black and white insert.”

I discovered these albums back in the late 70s, early 80s. There was a store on the ‘Hill’ in Boulder that sold lots of cutouts for $3 and lots of mostly Japanese and some European (mostly German) imports for $7. I spent a large percentage of my wealth here at the time [not much to speak of, but it was a lot to me…]. I got this as a Japanese import.

It was definitely an OMG experience that has lasted for 40 years. At the time it was also life-affirming in the sense that an ‘old’ master of ‘boring’ jazz could do something that was so now and ‘with it’.

There is nothing out there like it that I have come across. They lay down a groove with a significant beat and then overlay electric jazz and space all over it for over 40 minutes [on the album].

Make no mistake, this is NOT Kind of Blue. This is more like Funkadelic if you imagine them at the end of a week of playing in front of 100,000 people after being dosed to the gills over and over again. Or Sun Ra if Sun Ra knew what the heck a beat and a melody was.

There are some bootlegs of these concerts. Haven’t played them in awhile, so forget what quality they are [the music itself is, of course, awesome in the sense that It does Inspire Awe].

Neli likes these albums too and they are accessible to the average listener – just Not At All what you would expect to hear from Miles Davis.

The sound quality is B+. It is really quite good IMO. I have mostly played the original Japanese import LP, though we have been playing the CD for convenience lately. 40 minute songs do require a commitment – there are no obvious places to stop the rhythm once it gets started – so you have been warned 🙂

August 16, 2014August 16, 2014 by Michael

New Harmonic Resolution Systems HRS RXR Rack

These photos of the HRS RXR rack are from CES 2014.

They were [are] supposed to go up on the Ultimist show report – but time has been at a premium here lately.

So we’ll post them here, and hopefully later will get back and add these, along with a 1000+ other photos, to the Venetian part of CES 2014 show report on Ultimist.

The RXR is HRS’s least expensive rack. Though more modestly priced, it still has that high-performance vibration control technology that the SXR and MXR racks were so successful with. Hard to pin Mike Latvis down on what percentage of the performance of the SXR we can count on for the RXR – but that has a lot to do with its configurability.

The rack can use any one the 3 HRS platforms for its shelves. Or you can mix and match. As you can see in the photos, you can use their top of the line M3X, their somewhat more modest S1, or a basic platform that was specifically designed to work in the RXR rack.

The idea is you can get the rack and a few basic platforms. Then, when funds permit, upgrade to the better S1 and M3X platforms – thereby slowly building yourself a very high-performance rack over time.

The HRS RXR support system (equipment rack)

The underneath of the new basic platforms for the RXR. The corners there are made of the special HRS polymer similar to that which goes into their other, top-of-the-line products.

The HRS S1 platform on the RXR rack

Adjustable metal feet.

Finishing off this photo essay with photos of their Nimbus Couplers / Spacers, Damping Plates and Analog Disks

Another look at the HRS Nimbus Couplers / Spacers, Damping Plates and Analog Disks

in HRS 0 comments

August 15, 2014August 19, 2014 by Michael

Na-Nu Na-Nu

Photo of Mork and Mindy coming down the Boulder Canyon at the beginning of their show.

Robin Williams always portrayed Real. In-your-face Real. Fearless Real. Real with a smile and a wink.

The Mork & Mindy TV show with Robin Williams and Pam Dawber ran from 1978 to 1982.

It was situated here in Boulder CO, 2 blocks off the Pearl Street Mall.

I was in and out of University then, also here in Boulder. Like I have been for 41 years.

Boulder was still nice and wonderfully weird back then [probably before we became the smartest city in the U.S. (most BS and PHDs per-capita), and fittest city in the U.S.]

Being weird was… normal – lots of drugs, public drug-use, selling, buying… public laughing, singing, wearing funny clothes [even men!], be openly romantic… massive Halloween parties on the mall with 10s of thousands of people.

If you were a business and were going to make a go of it on the Pearl Street mall, you catered to the party ‘do whatever you want to do if it don’t hurt no one’ culture. This led to some very interesting business models.

It was awesome. It was relaxed. It was cheerful. It was non-commercial.

The Mork & Mindy show portrayed Boulder ass-backwards.

Mork was the normal one, the rest of the cast was your typical psychopathic Hollywood conceptualization of normal, normal hippies, normal bankers, whatever [well, not Jonathan Winters… he really WAS an alien :-). And Pam Dawber, she was a metaphor for all that less-weird women have to put up with when dealing with more-weird men].

They eventually included The New York Deli which opened on Pearl Street as part of the show in one of the later seasons. I knew people who worked there. I think my brother eventually worked there.

With the real house on Pine Street and this real restaurant, it was just really, REALLY, R-E-A-L-L-Y confusing at the time.

Where did Reality stop and Fake Real begin?

Seems like a silly question. Just like Robin Williams often seemed silly. But they are not. Not really.

For me, this is what the show was about, what Robin Williams was all about, what Weird Boulder was about, what being young and experimenting with life is all about.

A question which no one has answered and hardly anyone asks anymore.

But Robin Williams asked it. And kept asking it. And still asks it through his body of work.

…

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

…