Over the last twenty years or so ever since I bought a CD player I have been replacing all my vinyl LPs. This is not because I have been disappointed with the performance of analogue sources but because I am one of those people who have not been able to look after my records properly. They have been played repeatedly so that they have become worn out. I have also lent them to my friends who have damaged them further.
Last week, I finally got around to replacing Caravan's If I Could Do It Again I Would Do it All Over You. I ripped the album to a WAV file for storage on a hard drive. Usually, when I rip an album, I listen to short passages of a couple of tracks to make sure everything was OK. This time, however, I could not resist playing the album all the way through. I played back using a portable DAC and good headphones.
The sound was amazing; the album sounded as fresh as I remembered it when I first bought the LP way back in 1970. Caravan were part of the Canterbury sound their first three albums were progressive rock heavily influenced by jazz. The music is full of rhythm, melody and humour.
The CD version that I bought was remastered in 2001and it has a wide dynamic range. It sounds very vibrant on my PC with the DAC and Headphones. It sounds brilliant on my main HIFI ; just as good as the vinyl LP ever was.
Hello, Hello is one of my favourite tracks. I can imagine myself wading through a stream to hear the rhythmic sounds of someone clipping away at a hedge. I urge all lovers of jazz influenced rock music to give Caravan a try and compare them to Soft Machine who also played in the same era.
I saw Caravan perform live when I was at college in the early seventies and they did not miss a beat. Theirs was one of the best live performances I have ever heard. Many of their contemporaries were awful live because they were too stoned or drunk or both to play. Caravan were a pleasant change. Listening to their bright sounding album again brought back such happy memories.
http://www.caravan-info.co.uk/
http://www.mp3lyrics.org/c/caravan/hello-hello/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIwaYwbjF3M&feature=related
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