As is often the case these days, the week caught up with me and I conked early.
Continuing where I left off with the young child protoje Dennis Brown who started recording at Studio One under the tutelage of Coxsone Dodd in the late Sixties at around 12 Years old along with another child star Freddie McGregor.
According to legend the young Dennis had to be stood on fruit crates to be able to reach the microphone.
Studio One released these two albums of sublime Dennis Brown recordings
In memory of the late great Dennis Brown who’s Earthday was on 1st Feb this week and thanks @Debs for posting
Dennis Brown - No Man Is An Island
If I Follow My Heart (StudioOne)
Pornography to follow up, very apt given Harvey Elliott’s rude goal on his return from such a serious injury.
Grayfolded - avant-garde composer John Oswald’s plunderphonics epic, made from more than 100 different performances of the Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star”, recorded live between 1968 and 1993.
Bob Marley was born on this day in 1945
born on 6 February 1945 in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica
Robert Nesta Marley 1945-1981
The B52’s (Island LP)
Love this idiosyncratic debut recorded at Compass Point in Nassau.
Auditioning and comparing two phono stages one £800 the other £2500 this has shown to be a good record to compare PRaT, the £800 outperforming the much costlier one.
Black Country, New Road - Ants From Up There. First play of the album, and it’s not quite hitting the spot just yet, may need a few more plays before it gels with me.
His 77th Year!
Intrigued to know which ones Dread?
Yusef Lateef - The Blue Lateef (Speakers Corner/Atlantic)
First time hearing this on the Black stuff, sounding superb from Speakers Corner. 1968 recording fusing Jazz & Blues. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere the track Moon Cup sounds quite dodgy to me, it’s meant to be an ancient spiritual chant but just sounds now like some drunken piss taker in a Chinese! the rest though is superb grooving riddim n blooze
I’m auditioning several over the coming weeks to replace my Naim Prefix, I’ve had a Tom Evan’s Groove 20th Anniversary which I liked on it’s own merit but a Dynavector P75 MKIV has seriously upstaged it (pun intended)
It has to be noted though that I’m using a DV 17DX cart which I think is very synergistic with the P75 MKIV as one might expect, but what really makes it stand out is DV’s unique and patented PE mode which works completely differently from conventional cartridge loading (DV say it works with any cart not just their own but how well I couldnt say).
It certainly lifts this combination to a level well greater than the sum of its parts.
It’s a tiny little box, well built though and powered by a walwart which makes it appear a bit underwhelming. Inside this little box lurks a musical giant though in the context of my system, warmed up and switched to PE mode my first words were, excuse the technical jargon, f*ck…in…hell! 
The only negative is it seems to generate some hiss, inaudible when listening to music though, and to adjust load settings requires sliding out the circuit board and moving little jumper terminals which is a little fiddly.
At about £2000 for the 17DX cart and P75 MKIV phono stage it’s a relative high end bargain, will need to see/hear in due course but it could prove to be a giant killer. Cyrus Phono Sig & Power Supply, Rega Aria & Aura and Naim Superline are on the audition list. Fortunately I have a really good and patient dealer who I’ve known for donkeys years and is happy to trust equipment to me for extended home listening periods, this really is valuable as ime you need to be able to live with a component in your own system for a period of time to really judge it. I’ve heard stuff in a dealer dem or even a short home loan that initially i would have been happy to buy, but after spending more time it can prove to be a very different outcome.
Donny Hathaway - Live (Rhino/Atco)
Nice Rhino re issue of this Classic 1972 live performance done for RSD a couple of years back
