Music and Recording Features

Miles Showell: Half-Speed Master

Robert Baird Nov 04, 2026

Now that vinyl is again a growing and profitable reality, various schemes and ideas have emerged to improve the sound quality and raise the price of vinyl, especially vinyl reissues. From Mastercuts and One-Steps to Original Master Recordings and UHQR, vinyl records have never been offered in so many high-quality forms that both sound better and cost more.

Music and Recording Features

On the Road Again, Vol.III

Thomas Conrad Oct 08, 2026

I started writing "On the Road Again" pieces for Stereophile in 2022. They are European jazz travelogues. The motivation behind them is to inspire others to make similar treks. No one needs an excuse to go to Europe. But European jazz festivals are a great thing to build a trip around.

Music and Recording Features

Weir Science: A Fare-Thee-Well to Bob Weir

Mike Mettler Aug 10, 2026

The Grateful Dead ushered in an era of open-minded experimentation and endless touring that paused occasionally but never really expired until its participants did. It follows that saying goodbye to cofounding Grateful Dead guitarist/vocalist Bob Weir, who passed away at age 78 on January 10, 2026, truly signifies the end of an era.

Music and Recording Features

Sonny Rollins: A Titan Has Left Us

Thomas Conrad Jul 15, 2026

Photo by Tim Dickeson

The jazz world is accustomed to losing its greats too soon. Charlie Parker was gone at 34. John Coltrane at 40. Clifford Brown at 25. Rollins was, wonderfully, not one of them. He lived to 95.

Music and Recording Features

Lost Nights, Found Solos: The Penthouse Tapes

Thomas Conrad Jul 09, 2026

The Penthouse jazz club was on First and Cherry in Seattle. It had a seven-year run from 1962 to 1968 as one of the premier jazz venues on the West Coast. The site is a parking lot now. Yet the Penthouse lives. This is the story of why.

Music and Recording Features Sound Chaser

Sound Chaser #10: Remembering Dave Mason

Mike Mettler Jun 24, 2026

Dave Mason, the British guitarist/vocalist who passed away at 79 on April 19, conceded that some of his best-known songs fared better with other people's voices. "I may not be the best interpreter of certain songs of mine," he told me during a phone interview in 2018. "For example, I feel like Cocker's got the definitive version of 'Feelin' Alright?'"

Music and Recording Features

Vinylphyle & Definitive Sound

Robert Baird Jun 17, 2026

Not long ago, the return of vinyl records was still being labeled a fad—a momentary fascination that given the convenience of the digital world would soon fade. Then around 2022, when vinyl outsold CDs for the first time since 1987, minds began to change.

Music and Recording Features Sound Chaser

Sound Chaser #9: Derek Trucks Keeps the Jam-Band Sound Alive

Mike Mettler Jun 03, 2026

You could say that guitar phenom Derek Trucks grew up in a musical family. His late uncle, drummer Butch Trucks, was a cofounder of The Allman Brothers Band, and his younger brother Duane drums for Widespread Panic. Derek's jam-centric DNA shaped the sound found in the grooves of Future Soul (Fantasy), the sixth studio album from Tedeschi Trucks Band/

Music and Recording Features

Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman on the Triumphant Return of The Guess Who

Mike Mettler May 25, 2026 First Published: May 26, 2026

Mike Mettler talks with Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman about The Guess Who's new reunion tour, why they were early proponents of releasing stereo singles, which one of them loves vinyl and which one prefers CD and digital, and how the eternal hit that is "American Woman" was born out of an improvised riff during a live show.

Music and Recording Features Sound Chaser

Sound Chaser #8: Pulling Mussels from a (Tape) Shell

Mike Mettler Apr 22, 2026

Each side of the one-sheet lyrics insert accompanying Squeeze's latest LP, Trixies (Love/BMG), has been divvied up into three equal columns that can be folded over to replicate a 4" × 11½" nightclub menu. Subtitled "Trixies Concoctions Menu," the insert conjures the theme of the 13-track song cycle that comprises Trixies, whose storyline traces several scenes set in and around a fictional nightclub.