Record Collector News : “The Year of Yarlung”

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David Thomson waxes poetic in Record Collector News about new vinyl releases during Yarlung’s 10th Anniversary and calls 2015 “The Year of Yarlung.” Yarlung Records received three prestigious awards in 2015, the year of their 10th anniversary: Dr. David W. Robinson’s Brutus Award, Brian Moura’s 2015 Writer’s Choice Award — both, mainly, for their astonishing analog tape conversions to Direct Stream Digital (DSD) files while, locally, owner Bob Attiyeh received the Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society’s (LAOCAS) Humanitarian Award for offering opportunity, and worldwide exposure, to the gifted young musicians who perform within the very diverse Yarlung catalog. About Te Amo, Argentina on vinyl: From the opening “Bragato Graciela y Buenos Aires,” I was absorbed. While ogling the gracious tango dancer imagery adorning the cover, the seductive melody took hold and the resonance of Antonio’s cello became so present in my living room, I was reminded of Disney’s Fantasia as Continue Reading →

Dr. David W. Robinson Awards Yarlung Records the 2015 Brutus Award in support of the label’s promotion of our musicians in high resolution DSD

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The cutting edge Positive Feedback Brutus Awards are given at the end of each year by Dave Clark and Dr. David W. Robinson. They are awards for the best products that PFO’s editors have heard in their listening rooms during the past year. Yarlung Records was once again selected  as one of this year’s honorees. Dr. Robinson writes: “The song continues! Bob Attiyeh and Yarlung Records have continued their Quad DSD series of transfers from Bob’s masterpieces on analog tape (15 ips half-track quarter-inch tape). Working with Jared Sacks, Tom Caulfield, and the other folks at NativeDSD.com, Bob handles the raw transfers from his master tapes via the industry-leading Merging Technologies HAPI ADDA (which he now owns!) to Quad DSD. The inimitable Tom Caulfield, a Grammy winner himself, does the post-production work, and then sends the DSD files along to NativeDSD for publication. You can find Bob Attiyeh’s recordings in Continue Reading →

Brian Moura awards Yarlung one of three 2015 Writer’s Choice Awards

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It is a privilege to be awarded Brian Moura’s prestigious PFO Writer’s Choice Award along with the superb NADAC from Merging Technologies and the DSD album Eight Ensembles in 1 Bit, both of which Yarlung has promoted and reviewed in our social media.  Our friends at Merging and NativeDSD deserve these awards and we are thrilled that Brian recognized Yarlung, Merging Technologies and NativeDSD in 2015.  (Please note Yarlung’s album created specially in honor of the NADAC.  Take a look at the download booklet). Bob Attiyeh is one of the largely unsung heroes in the world of very high quality music and audio. This year he celebrates the 10th Anniversary of his music company Yarlung Artists. Yarlung is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that records and releases music from young and very promising musicians in the highest audio quality. This includes Analog Tape, Vinyl LP and most recently Music Downloads. The result Continue Reading →

Yarlung Records, Segerstrom Center, Magico, Ciaramella

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Magico Speakers | Ciaramella Dances For Yarlung’s recording at The Segerstrom Center for the Arts  in early November, 2015, we will take our microphone test tracks to nearby Scott Walker Audio for a final check of levels and balance.  Coincidentally, the Magico speakers Scott uses are featured in this newsletter from The Absolute Sound (presented here with permission of the publisher).  Yarlung was delighted to see a glowing review of our first 45 RPM vinyl release Ciaramella Dances in this same newsletter.  Enjoy! And thank you. This November recording, J Schlichting executive producer, celebrates the music of James Matheson,  who will be with us during the sessions.  Color Field Quartet from the Chicago Symphony plays Jim’s string quartet, and soprano Laura Strickling and pianist Tom Sauer join us from New York for Jim’s song cycle Times Alone.  These two works will accompany Jim’s violin concerto, with Baird Dodge as soloist with the Continue Reading →

Sophisticated Lady jazz quartet: NEW RECORDINGS!

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Vinyl | CD-1 | CD-2 | Amazon CD | iTunes  | HDtracks  | SoundCloud | Native DSD Vol 1  | Native DSD Vol 2 | Reviews Sophisticated Lady is a Los Angeles-based Jazz Quartet. The group is a traditional jazz quartet rooted in the sounds, styles and history of jazz and brings a fresh approach to this music. With a mix of original compositions and new interpretations of classic repertoire this quartet has a sound and aesthetic that is both familiar and new. The group formed when the musicians met during their graduate studies at USC. Misha Adair Bigos, pianist; JJ Kirkpatrick, trumpet; Andrew Boyle, drums; Gary Wicks, bass www.sophisticatedladyjazz.com

Michael Fremer gives “Ciaramella Dances” an 11 out of 10 for sound!

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The Great Michael Fremer gives “Ciaramella Dances” an 11 out of 10 for sound! …the recording sounds… closely miked, yet still wonderfully spacious and natural. Instruments are convincingly spread across the stage…. The music covers “grounds” from Spain, Italy and England…. These mostly mirth-filled tunes sound something like what you’d expect to hear at an outdoor June wedding held in a garden and you might expect the group to break into Pachelbel’s Canon in D, but thankfully they don’t…. (there’s also a new composition “The Fisher and Fox” by group co-director Adam Knight Gilbert). Side two begins with Alessandro Piccinini’s “Chiaccona in partite variate”, which has a chord progression familiar to any rocker or folkie. As much pleasure as the melodic compositions and spirited playing bring, an additional highlight is the superb, minimally miked recording (a single AKG C24 tubed “stereo” unit), produced to analog recording tape at USC’s Alfred Continue Reading →

LAOCAS Humanitarian Award for 2015 goes to Bob Attiyeh and Yarlung Records

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The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society awards its Founder’s Award every year at the annual gala in December. But for only the second time in the Society’s history, the president and board of LAOCAS has decided to award The Humanitarian Award. The Society recognizes Bob Attiyeh from GRAMMY® Award-winning Yarlung Records in appreciation of the label’s outstanding audiophile recordings and the good work Yarlung does to support young musicians in the early stages of their international concert careers as well as the recordings they make with already internationally recognized artists. Repertoire ranges from medieval and Renaissance music through the classical and romantic eras to newly-commissioned and world-premiere recordings in the 21st century. Yarlung also records world music and jazz. 2015 marks Yarlung’s 10th Anniversary. The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society uses The Humanitarian Award to recognize the very best in audio, particularly where it serves a Continue Reading →

Dr. David W. Robinson, Postive Feedback, and DSD

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Our greatest and most important ambassador for high resolution DSD playback of music files may be Dr. David W. Robinson, audiophile and Editor-in-Chief of Positive Feedback, the famed online audio magazine based in Oregon.  David became a friend some years ago and his encouragement and downright insistence have inspired success for Yarlung Records in two distinct arenas. First, David was one of the first and most important reviewers to write high-visibility articles on Yarlung’s releases on analog tape.  He fell in love with our SonoruS Series of recordings. The SonoruS Series of analog tapes  Second and more recently, David convinced us that he and his readers and listening friends around the world wanted access to the highest resolution digital transfers of these tapes, and that we needed to create 256fs[1] DSD files of this music, sampled at 11.2 megaherz, which is 4 times the speed of a Super Audio CD and Continue Reading →

Primephonic names Yarlung Records “label of the month”

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Primephonic celebrates Yarlung as Label of the Month: “Yarlung Records is a Grammy Award-winning American record label, that specializes in classical music. The label is widely acknowledged for its high-quality recordings that live up to the audiophiles standards.” Please read more on primephonic’s website.  Thank you, primephonic, for your generous and much appreciated support. “On the occasion of Yarlung Records’ 10 years anniversary, we would like to highlight the label as primephonic’s label of the month. Yarlung’s vision is to deliver sound as close to living performance as possible. The label’s name ‘Yarlung’ has been derived from the Yarlung Valley, or ‘Valley of the Kings’, in Tibet. The valley is known to be a magical birthplace, a place where heaven and earth meet. Yarlung’s logo refers to a Yambulakhang Castle located in the valley, and this castle is believed to be where heaven and earth touch in order to transform Continue Reading →

Antonio Lysy vinyl, Audio Beat review: Te Amo, Argentina

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Vinyl  | CD |   CD on Amazon | Vinyl on Amazon CD | iTunes  | HDtracks  | SoundCloud | Native DSD Vol 1  |  NativeDSD Vol 2  | Audio Beat Review Guy Lemcoe reviews new Steve-Hoffman-mastered 180-Gram vinyl tango album, lacquers cut by Bernie Grundman A few excerpts from the review: Side two opens with Astor Piazzolla’s “Milonga del ángel,” an intoxicatingly lovely piece featuring Lysy’s cello with Philip Levy on violin. Languid and sultry, it’s Piazzolla through and through. Next is “Omaramor” for solo cello by Argentinian classical composer Osvaldo Golijov. The recording is the sonic equal of the legendary Mercury Living Presence recordings of Janos Starker’s Bach cello suites — liquid, woody, resonant and, when necessary, wiry. Veteran jazz and soundtrack composer Lalo Schfrin contributes the album’s closer, the introspective, brooding, calming “Pampas” for cello and piano.   The LP I received was a perfectly flat, thick slab of flat-edged, 180-gram vinyl pressed at Pallas in Germany, so I knew Continue Reading →