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Thank you for visiting the Impex Records site and for supporting us. We make the finest LP records and Gold CDs for the most critical listeners in the world: listeners like you.
1.9.18: Bob Levi has been one of our most active supporters and fervent fans since before we were even Impex Records. We value his peerless activism for audiophile consumers and the industry that supports them as well as our fond association and friendship through over a decade of acquaintance. He has honored us with a brightly-worded review at Positive Feedback for our latest 180-gram LP: Greensleeves . Thanks, as always, Bob! You can read Bob's review HERE.
Also new, our sublime Analog-to-DSD SACD/hybrid disc of our best-selling LEGRAND JAZZ. All of the jaw dropping audio magic captured at Columbia's 30th Street Studio, now playable in your digital listening environment! We've included a specially-designed booklet with rare, archival photographs and an expansion of the mid-century look of the 180-gram LP's inner gatefold graphic. Follow the link in the title to pick yours up at Elusive Disc, or contact your local audiophile retailer for a copy.
12.7.17: Now available for the first time: Shoji Yokouchi's wonderful GREENSLEEVES on 180-gram vinyl. Warm yourself up this winter with the sunny tone and soulful vibe of TBM's guitar master and his crack trio (and incalculably aided by organist Yuri Tashiro)! You'll hear every pluck and thump, thanks to Yoshihiko Kannari's peerless engineering and the mastering of Chris Bellman (Bernie Grundman Mastering Hollywood) and our very own Bob Donnelly. A great gift for the jazz enthusiast on your holiday list. Limited to 3,000, individually-numbered copies pressed at RTI. Have a wonderful holiday season and be safe wherever your journeys take you.
9.16.17: Our friend Tom Schnabel, fan and scholar of great music from all over the globe, has posted a fan-tastically informative article about our new Legrand Jazz 180-gram LP on KCRW's @rhythmplanetkcrw blog. His anecdotes really put into context the importance of these recording dates, the happenstance and grit that made them happen, and the influence American's major art form (and some of it's greatest musicians) had on the legendary Parisian composer. Check it out (along with all of Tom's thoughtful elucidations) on the blog, then check out the LP at Elusive Disc or your local audiophile dealer.
COMING SOON: We are excited to announce the December 2017 release of our all-new, all-analog, 33-rpm pressing of the classic "nuevo flamenco" record Friday Night in San Francisco! Fusion greats Al Dimeola (Return To Forever) and John McLaughlin (Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra), along with flamenco master Paco DeLucia, are captured in incredibly life-like recordings that recreate a moment where three giant talents came together in perfect musical synchronicity. Mastered from the original master tapes by Bernie Grundman and our own Bob Donnelly, this is a rare 33.3 rpm reissue of a seminal audiophile title. Limited to 3,000 individually numbered copies, so you'll want to preorder yours here as fast as DiMeola, Laughlin, and DeLucia play.
9.10.17: Just added: Michael Fremer's review for Legrand Jazz 180-gram LP, on his Analog Planet website. Rated 11/10 for sound! Pick yours up today and discover this analog gem for yourself! Legrand Jazz is available from Elusive Disc or your local audiophile dealer.
9.2.17: To get you jazzed up for the newly available Legrand Jazz 180-gram LP, have a look at Robert H. Levi's enthusiastic review at Positive Feedback Online. We're getting very high marks from many audiophiles and journalists, and will be posting them on our Facebook feed and on this site as they become available officially. Legrand Jazz is available from Elusive Disc or your local audiophile dealer.
Unforseen production issues have forced us to push back the release of Famous Sound of Three Blind Mice, but trust us; it's coming soon and will be worth the wait.
3.29.17: Ok, so we've been in our little bakery for the last 8 months or so. We haven't forgotten about you loyal website users, we've just been super busy making some really exciting new records for you. With the ongoing popularity of LP records in the general marketplace, turnaround times for pressing projects is incredibly long. That, along with our usual persnickity nature about production quality, has led to a ridiculously long gestation period for our three upcoming releases, coming this Summer. We can't even give you exact release dates, but we are aiming to have at least one or two out for the Los Angeles Audio Show in June (fingers crossed).
First up will be Shoji Yokouchi's under the radar Three Blind Mice classic Greensleeves. Long-time supporters will remember the Cisco Gold CD from back in the day. This one captures all the vintage TBM magic with high-quality, 180-gram vinyl goodness we're famous for. Next up is an eagerly-awaited first 180-gram LP pressing of the perennial TBM favorite Famous Sound of Three Blind Mice, spread across two LPs for maximum goodness. Getting all the disparate pieces together to make this one has taken over a year and we've "jazzed up" the release with a sparkling gatefold jacket with new art that expands upon and celebrates the TBM mid-70's aesthetic. Preorders are through the roof, so pick this 2-LP best of collection at your earliest convenience! Michel Legrand's 1958 Columbia Records classic Legrand Jazz rounds out our Summer offers with a star-studded cast (including Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Bill Evans) working through eleven great jazz standards as reinvented by the young, restless composer soon to become legendary for his iconic film/song scores for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Thomas Crown Affair. This all-analog production, with a newly sourced mix-down of the original studio work print tapes by Mark Wilder and mastered by Chris Bellman and our very own Bob Donnelly, is light years better than other LP reissues. It capturing the warmth, space and depth of a great Columbia jazz recordings featuring future legends jamming over some of the most inventive reimaginings of jazz standards ever. Sound will be simply to-die-for and a strict limited pressing of 3,000 units will guarantee collectability for years to come.
We're working on some other tasty treats that remain under wraps for now, but we'll give full details as they become available. Come and check all our current releases out at the Elusive Disc/Impex booth at the L.A. Audio Show and check out all the amazing recordings we have for you.
These and all available Impex Records titles are available from Elusive Disc or your local audiophile dealer.
9.07.16: We've started out September with two brief and excellent reviews by HiFi News' Ken Kessler. He calls our LP and SACD of Bennett/Brubeck Live 1962: The White House Sessions "one to treasure" and gave it a 90% (out of 100%) for sound. He also espouses the long-standing sonic virtues of our recent 33rpm pressing of Jennifer Warnes' Famous Blue Raincoat, comparing it favorably to Jazz at the Pawnshop and The Sheffield Labs Drum Record, then declaring: "Warnes' LP of Leonard Cohen covers beats most others in that category in that it's actually worth listening to for the music, not just the killer sound." He gave it a stellar 92% for sound! His reviews can be found on both LPs' pages.
These and all available Impex Records titles are available from Elusive Disc or your local audiophile dealer.
8.29.16: This month we received three excellent reviews, a brand new one from The Audio Beat's Dennis Davis and two archived ones that slipped past us by dagogo.com's Phillip Holmes. First up: Our reference-grade LP and SACD The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts, where the estiminable Mr. Davis concludes "Impex has one of the best batting averages of all reissue labels in coming up with good material, and the label deserves kudos here for selecting an obscure title with no collector value for reissue." You can find the full review link on the pages for both LP and SACD of this remarkable work. Mr. Holmes wrote about our 2013 releases Monk's Dream and A Beethoven: Piano Sonata Nos 8 & 10 with Jascha Heifetz and Emmanuel Bay. Links to his reviews can be found on those LP's pages as well.
Thanks to both Dennis and Phillip for getting the word out about our painstakingly created works. Find out for yourself what they dig about Impex at Elusive Disc or your local audiophile dealer today!
6.15.16: Another year, another fun and profitable time at The Show Newport. Maybe the foot traffic was a little light, but enthusiasm for analog and high resolution digital purchases was stronger than ever. Elusive Disc enjoyed good sales, helped by our new Bennett/Brubeck: The White House Sessions 1962 on LP and SACD (both sold out), The Three Blind Mice 45 Box and new favorite A Whisper of Love from TBM's Ayako Hosokawa on LP. Most of all, it was another opportunity to hang out with great people, discussing music in all its multi-faceted complexity, from recording to performance. The show attendees are well-informed, passionate and opinionated: just the thing for interesting dialog and discovery. We really cherish these times with our family, friends and fans. Thanks again for showing us why this challenging business is worth doing. You guys rock.
We'd like to give a BIG SHOUT OUT to Danny Kaey Hospitality Suite for hosting our recent LP introductions and being a fabulous host! The LPs sounded amazing on his system, too.
Wayne Garcia over at The Absolute Sound wrote a great review of the Bennett/Brubeck record. Check out on our LP page here.
4.19.16: After a long break from updating our lonely site, we are back with announcements of new releases and other goodies! First off: Our recent pressings of the TBM Gold CDs and Whisper of Love LP were so successful that we ran out. All of them. We even sold out of the Jennifer Warnes Gold CDs. Sorry about that. If you bought one, thank you! We are scrambling to replenish our stash, so until then, if you haven't picked yours up (you know you should!) better find a retailer that has them soon. Gold CD production has virtually disappeared and though we will find a reliable vendor, why take chances. These discs look and sound great.
In other news, we will soon be shipping two fabulous new 180-gram LPs: Bennett/Brubeck The White House Sessions, Live 1962 with both Tony Bennett and Dave Brubeck in top form AND the 1964 Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts, featuring a couple of fiddlers you may have heard of. On this classic disc, they energize Beethoven's "Trio No. 1, Op. 1," Haydn's lovely "Divertimento for Orchestra," and a breathtaking Theme and Variation from Miklos Rosza's "Double Concerto for Violin and Cello." Great stuff. Make your ears happy and play these records. Over and over.
But wait! There's more! Due to the amazing masters used on both of these LPs, we've needed to bring back an old Cisco staple to do them justice: The SACD! Both Bennett/Brubeck The White House Sessions, Live 1962 and Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts will be availabe in ultimate high rez SACDs with hybrid CD layers for your cars and such. The Heifetz-Piatigorsky Concerts even has an amazing bonus: Joaquin Turina's marvelous "Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello" from the 1967 Concerts. What a deal! Expect you-are-there sound from mastering engineer Kevin Gray and Robert Pincus.
That will keep us pretty busy through the summer as we prepare a new slate of titles for later in 2016. Who has time to update the website when you're so hard at work on the world's best records? Ok, we're supposed to, but you know...
Finally, come join us at the Hotel Irvine in--you guessed it--Irvine for the 6th Annual The Home Entertainment Show, June 3-5. We'll be with our favorite audio co-conspirators Elusive Disc, shilling all the best new titles, including new Impex releases and some back-ordered items of last year. We look forward to seeing your sunny faces in sunny Irvine!
12.04.15: As another holiday season descends on us, we at Impex take a look back at a great year. Notwithstanding production delays that forced us to release just a small handful of titles, we loved the work we did and sales have been strong--alluding to you all liking what we did too. We've just released the first fully authorized version of Jennifer Warnes' Famous Blue Raincoat, newly remastered by Bernie Grundman on his all-tube chain. Michael Fremer calls it the best it's ever sounded. Pick one up and find out how good it really is. Shipping this month for our international clients is the new release from Lyn Stanley Interludes on 45-rpm 2 disc set and SACD. This fabulous sounding record sees the popular audiophile singer tackling classics of jazz, soul and (gasp!) Led Zeppelin. Yes, Led Zeppelin. Demand is expected to be very high for this exciting new release, so get your order in right away for guaranteed deliver. Thanks everyone for your support and facebook likes and comments and suggestions. We love hearing from you and finding ways to give you the best LPs, Gold CDs and--coming soon--SACDs in the world. We have some amazing releases lined up for 2016, so stay tuned. Keep those platters spinning and the love spreading.
7.01.15: Well, that was fast. Our entire first pressing of The Three Blind Mice 45 Box were sold before we could ship them. Thanks everyone for your support. If you missed out, no worries--we're making more. Finally shipping this month is our lovingly produced deluxe 24K Gold CD editions of Misty, Midnight Sugar and Blow Up as Impex deluxe 24-K Gold CDs. Check with your favorite retailer for them by mid-month.
We had a great time with Kevin Berg of Elusive Disc at this years The Home Electronics Show Newport. The new venue was very nice with all us software peddlers in the same room for simple one-stop shopping. Robert Sliger extolled the virtues of Impex product as well as many other fine releases available at the booth. Abey even hung out most of the time, selling, networking and generally charming everybody she spoke to. It's what she does. Hope we had the chance to meet you and say Hey! With potentially no CES/THE Show in January, it's one of the only times we can get out with audiophiles and music lovers, basking in the glow of their enthusiasm. It's why we do what we do. Hope to see everyone again next year! In the meantime, keep buying and loving your Impex Records LPs and Gold CDs. We have some really good stuff coming later this year.
12.13.14: Hot on the heels of next month's delivery of our fabulous new Three Blind Mice 45-rpm Box, we proudly announce the debut of each of the sets LPs, Misty, Midnight Sugar and Blow Up as Impex deluxe 24-K Gold CDs. Containing the same great sound as past Cisco and Impex TBM releases, but now packaged in our deluxe book packaging with photos and essays from the 45 Box. With the higher stability and clarity afforded by the 24-K gold substrate, these will be your go-to TBM releases for these legendary recordings. We are planning to begin shipping by Spring 2015, so get your preorders in to your favorite retailer soon.
Many of us are embroiled in the push and pull consumer world of the holidays here in the U.S. As we here at Impex work tirelessly to bring exciting new recordings to an energized (and expanding) audiophile market, we wanted to close our year out with a couple of thoughts. First, thank you one and all for a fabulous, roller coaster year. We have been touched by the outpouring of positive comments and the increased exposure of our LPs and Gold CDs by the audiophile press and the many consumers who purchased our "boutique" records. This stress-inducing, chaotic process of making music for consumption is so entirely rewarding to us because of your continued support. Thank you.
A second thought: For 2015, let's be good to one another. Peace.
9.26.14: After a year of development, remastering, plating, designing, production and negotiations with the fine folks at Sony Music Entertainment Japan, we are thrilled-to-death to bring you the return (and improvement) of the Three Blind Mice 45-RPM Box. The same classic TBM titles from the original box have been remade with improved jackets, our exclusive wood lift-top box (with fancy spot UV coating!) and a new insert with rare session photos of Tsuyoshi Yamamoto (Misty, Midnight Sugar) and Isao Suzuki (Blow Up) with notes by radio personality (and audiophile music lover) Tom Schnabel (Rhythm Planet, KCRW Los Angeles). For all those who missed out on that first, very limited run, here's a chance to have the Japanese jazz recordings that even 40 years later still set the standard for you-are-there reality. Limited to 3,000 total sets, so order early from your favorite dealer.
Speaking of deluxe wood boxes, we have just received our second pressing of The Well 45 RPM box set. Sorry it took so long. Those deluxe boxes take time to make just right. Contact your favorite retailer to get yours!
Just announced: Robert Sliger, our intrepid designer, will be working with our good friends at Elusive Disc at next month's Rocky Mountain Fest. We'll have all of our current releases available for sale. We'd love to see you there and help extend your collections with the world's greatest vinyl records.