Earth & Wood: “Flawless”

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Writing about Yarlung executive producers Diane and Craig Martin‘s most recent release Earth & Wood, featuring Smoke & Mirrors percussion ensemble, page 29 of Tone Audio Issue No. 116 celebrates: Yarlung Records’ latest is not only a flawless recording, it’s incredibly engaging on a musical level as well. This is one to keep the beat going as we get into the issue! Many thanks to Tone Audio‘s maestro Jeff Dorgay and Abey Fonn from Elusive Disc for this wonderful splash. More information about Smoke & Mirrors percussion ensemble and their Yarlung Releases available on the website.

Michael Fremer writes about Earth & Wood: “Sonically Spectacular”

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A Sonically Spectacular Percussion Record Worth Repeated Plays —Michael Fremer, Tracking Angle COMPOSITIONS BY LOU HARRISON AND STEVE REICH PLUS A WORLD PREMIER CO-COMMISSIONED BY THE ENSEMBLE Recorded during the same 2011 and 2012 Zipper Hall, Los Angeles sessions that produced the remarkable percussion record “Smoke & Mirrors” (Yarlung 17255-195V), “Earth & Wood” is another sonic spectacular recorded directly to tape using a single AKG C24 stereo microphone (with Elliot Midwood mic amplification). The one-mike recording technique required “just so” placement of both it and the seven member Smoke and Mirrors Percussion Ensemble that performed the intricate pieces “without a net”. The quartet tackles on side one of the 45rpm LP Lou Harrison’s early 1940’s piece “Canticle No. 3” for ocarina (Italian for “little flute”) and percussion. Joe Beribak plays an earthen Aztec/Mayan ocarina, Derek Tywoniuk adds steel guitar to the exotic assortment of percussion instruments that include both standard Continue Reading →

“I have not ever heard, in my lifetime, a better solo violin LP…”

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Bob Levi responds to Petteri Iivonen’s vinyl release of J. S. Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor AKG C-24 Stereo Tube Microphone, No mixer, direct from the microphone amplifier to the Tape Deck using the shortest possible length of custom wire. Agfa Formula 468 Tape…. One has to understand that Yarlung Records is a non-profit organization and releases its amazing productions when financially feasible. This performance was included in a CD compilation of Petteri Iivonen’s work titled Art of the Violin, Yarlung Records 05787, in 2008, to rave reviews. Being a CD with its limitations, I did not realize the overall importance of this recording. The performance was both exciting and nuanced but not what you would expect from analog’s ability to make the violin come alive in the room. Now we have the BOMB! I talked with Bob Attiyeh the other day, and he mentioned that Elliot Midwood, Partita‘s executive Continue Reading →

Yarlung Records at Peabody Institute, Conservatory of Music

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For almost ten years, Professor Don Franzen has asked Yarlung to participate in his music industry classes at UCLA. I, Bob Attiyeh, represent the fly between elephants in this class, and I have enjoyed participating in Don’s class very much. His students are always exceptional, ask hard questions, and are destined to remake the music industry in better ways in coming decades. When I describe my participation as the “fly between elephants,” Don often situates me between music titans such as Sheryl Gold, Senior Vice President, Business and Legal Affairs, and Andrew Ross, Executive Vice President at Sony, or Gregg Field, uber music producer (and touring pianist with Ella Fitzgerald for many years). These friends treat little Yarlung kindly, and are often intrigued by our (to them) upside down methods of recording and representing our musicians to the world. Don enjoys sharing Yarlung’s “too small to fail” perspective with his Continue Reading →

Recorded in the Purest Possible Way, Yarlung’s “Women and War and Peace”

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[Women and War and Peace] is a musical wonder. It is a journey through time for female composers, some recognized in their day, others not. The pieces are approachable and melodic…. The Pianist: Katelyn Bouska, is extremely talented and plays with superb sophistication. With so many styles among the composers, she interprets each with an originality that is very special. I wish she was touring in America. What a magnificent pianist! Women of War and Peace is recorded in the purest possible way, sparing no expense. For a CD on a revealing system, the piano is in the room. This is very near the master tape sound with analog overtones. Textural cues are wonderful and rich. The piano image is solid and alive and exhibits no compression whatsoever. There is just enough ambiance and space to indicate a hall, with no sweetening. This is a reference piano recording of the first Continue Reading →

A Brilliant Recording by Katelyn Bouska on Yarlung Records

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02-22-2023 | By Rushton Paul | PFO, Issue 125 This is a brilliant new release by pianist Katelyn Bouska, recorded and mastered in Pure DSD256 by Bob Attiyeh of Yarlung Records. But what makes this recording truly special are the musical works selected and the stories of the composers, all women who were at the cutting edge of the contemporary music scenes in their various environments and were refugees, or barely survived, or didn’t survive the environments that made their situations so difficult. Women and War and Peace, Katelyn Bouska, piano. Yarlung Records 2023 (Pure DSD256) HERE [Alternative formats HERE] Print space is always limited, even in an online journal. But when there comes along a release of such exceptional merit, with such an exceptional story to share, and performed and recorded so brilliantly as this, then space must be made and priorities shifted. Not only is Katelyn Bouska, who teaches at the Curtis Continue Reading →

“Sangam” nominated for 2022 ALBUM OF THE YEAR!

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NativeDSD nominates “Sangam” as World Music Album of the Year. Many thanks to Paul Livingstone, sitar and Pete Jacobson, cello for this magnificent performance, and to Yarlung executive producer Arian Jansen for making this possible. Sangam… Confluence: Music from Inside the Heart of The Raga available in multiple formats. Check out Taos Mountain Meditations, also from Paul and Pete (thanks to executive producer Lucile Grieder) as well! Yarlung Records

Yarlung Interview – Analogue vs Digital Music

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Hi-Fi Choice Senior Contributor Neville Roberts interviews Yarlung’s Bob Attiyeh NR: Bob, after listening to recorded music over many decades, I’ve found that music recorded on vinyl and especially copy-masters on professional analogue tape sound so much more detailed and complete than even my best high resolution digital music files.  As a recording engineer and as a producer whose record label embraces both analogue and digital formats, why do you think this may be the case? BA: My dear Neville, you ask a question with no perfect answer, and frankly the question in general opens a can of worms in the audiophile world.  But this need not worry you or me! People who prefer analogue music reproduction and people who prefer digital music reproduction may never agree on answers to this question, or on the question itself.  I happen to appreciate the qualities of both digital and analogue recording. NR: Continue Reading →

Maria Tsakiri’s Yarlung article in “Yellowbox”

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Yellowbox Editor in Chief Theodore Bafaloukas and Staff Reporter Maria Tsakiri reached out to me in 2020 to write an article about Yarlung and our upcoming anniversary. We communicated in English, but to read the original article in Greek, please click on the magazine cover image above. What follows is an English approximation of the topics we discussed (hyperlinks added by me after the fact). Hope you enjoy! Many thanks to the musicians, board members, volunteers and companies that make our work possible. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Yellowbox is a premium bi-monthly subscription-based Audio, Video, Home Entertainment and Music magazine published in Athens. –Bob Attiyeh, producer YARLUNG RECORDS IS A SMALL, INDEPENDENT RECORD LABEL FROM THE USA, BRAINCHILD OF A VISIONARY AND REMARKABLE MAN, WHO HAS BEEN RESPECTFULLY ADMITTING FOR 15 YEARS THAT THE HIGH QUALITY OF THE LABEL’S RECORDINGS RESULTS FROM A TRUE TEAM EFFORT. Continue Reading →

Jacob Heilbrunn, Stephen Estep and Michael Johnson wax poetic about “Korppoo Trio” in The Spectator, The Absolute Sound and Analog Planet

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Executive Producer Jim Mulally’s 180 GRAM 45RPM release of Sibelius Piano Trio’s western hemisphere premiere performance of Sibelius’ Korppoo Trio excited audiophile listeners and writers around the world. Michael Leser Johnson reviews Korppoo Trio in Analog Planet, Stephen Estep writes about the release in The Absolute Sound, and Jacob Heilbrunn covers the pressing and more in The Spectator. From The Spectator: The Sibelius Piano Trio’s live concert, featuring Petteri Iivonen on violin, Juho Pohjonen on piano and Samuli Peltonen on cello, is a treat to hear. For one thing, Yarlung Records, which always goes to great lengths to ensure high recording quality, down to the microphone amplification and tape machines it employs, has produced another sonically stellar LP. The individual instruments are almost perfectly balanced and the timbral fidelity is impeccable. The pleasure that Sibelius must have had in playing with his siblings on a work that he himself had composed Continue Reading →