Elusive Disc has come to AXPONA in Chicago for years, selling music in the Marketplace area of the huge show. Interesting company. Most years I have picked up a $5 or $10 bargain XRCD. I got this one a few years ago for ten and the next year they had it for five. XRCDs have been an audiophile staple for years. Three Blind Mice was a label that put out about 100-130 titles back when; the music selection, recording, and pressing quality was always top notch. The JVC (Japanese Victor Corporation) K2 recording and XRCD release technologies were as good as it gets until SACD came along. The exposition of them in the CD booklet explains them well. I was especially taken with the microphone placement information provided in the booklet; the geek factor is high in the Japanese market. Notice the Rhodes was not miked, it went line in directly to the console. Sounds outstanding!

The Big 4 disc seems so fresh it gives me a mortality twinge when I realize the fifty and thirty-year-old musicians would be seventy and ninety-something now.

My main music stop at the show is always MA Recordings, Todd Garfinkle's one-man company. He gets outstanding musicians together in acoustically superior venues (churches, concert halls, etc) and records in the most accurate manner of any recordist on the planet (Two super high-quality microphones, modified, with custom FET preamps directly to a digital Dual DSD recorder. No board, no mixing.) All the music is original, excepting Classical and Baroque titles. He lived in Japan for a quarter century and is an outstanding musician himself. He is very well connected. Direct sales only.

Another all original label music is Colin Townes' Provocateur in the UK. A more standard recording technique but top sonic quality, unusual and interesting music always by phenomenal musicians, of which he is one. Their online store is gone, but he uses Import CD, CD Baby, and other such outlets.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/arti...-music-part-1/