Vinyl Freak: Love Letters to a Dying Medium

For 12 years, audiophile, music critic, and author (Microgroove: Forays into Other Music) Corbett wrote a column about vinyl records for Downbeat magazine. For this collection, he augments his reviews with personal recollections: what it's like to be a collector, how he got started, his membership in the brotherhood of vinyl freaks, and, best of all, his reminiscence about the time he excavated an entire household of Sun Ra memorabilia. The result is a fascinating look at a subculture of hard-core collectors and a gold mine of information about various kinds of music and recording esoterica. Corbett's main music is jazz—he knows everyone and is longtime friends with avant saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, with whom he trades recordings when they meet—but his tastes are wide-ranging: R&B, rap, punk, heavy metal, and concrete music all fall under his scrutiny. The illustrations of the record covers under review are fascinating and the author's musical savvy is daunting.