{"product_id":"fleetkilnh_2606xx","title":"Fleetwood Mac - Kiln House - Super Hot Stamper (Quiet Vinyl)","description":"\u003cp\u003eWe have a devil of a time finding these early pressings in clean shape. They didn't sell well and there aren't many of them around.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a favorite Fleetwood Mac album of ours here at Better Records and one that's very hard to find with anything resembling good sound. Grungy guitars and punchy drums in a huge acoustical space. The louder you play it, the better it sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis period of Fleetwood Mac, from Kiln House through Mystery to Me (both are the kind of records I would take to my Desert Island, has always been my favorite of the band. I grew up on this stuff, and I can tell you from personal experience, having played a dozen copies of Kiln House practically all day at some pretty serious levels for our shootout not that long ago, it is a positive \u003ci\u003ethrill\u003c\/i\u003e to hear the album sound as good as it does right here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you've got the full range dynamic speakers to play Kiln House at \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22turn-up-your-volume%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003egood loud levels\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e, you will discover, as we have, what a powerful British Rock album this is. Maybe not as bluesy as the albums that came before when Peter Greene helmed the band, but every bit as energetic and rockin'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe Sound of Vintage Analog\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis vintage Reprise pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to \"see\" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- \u003ci\u003ethis sound\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it -- not often, and certainly not always -- but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat The Best Sides Of Kiln House Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe most Tubey Magic, without which you have \u003ci\u003ealmost\u003c\/i\u003e nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%221970%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1970\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTransparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. \u003ci\u003ePlaying the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above,\u003c\/i\u003e and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eA Round Of Applause For Jeremy Spencer and Danny Kirwan\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKiln House is one of the all-time great Fleetwood Mac albums. It’s the first album they recorded after Peter Green left. With Green gone, Jeremy Spencer’s influence came to the fore. Apparently, he was quite a fan of Buddy Holly. His songs are excellent: straightforward and unerringly melodic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe co-leader for Kiln House is Danny Kirwan, and he rocks the hell out of this album. Three of the best songs Fleetwood Mac ever did, regardless of incarnation, are here: \"Tell Me All The Things You Do,\" \"Station Man\" and \"Jewel Eyed Judy,\" all written by Kirwan (with the help of others). His guitar work on these three songs is blistering.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAny Fleetwood Mac greatest hits collection would be a joke without these tracks. Of course they are consistently missing from all such compilations, at least the ones with which I am familiar. The sad fact is that few people miss them because few people have ever heard them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's amazing to realize that this album was made by just four guys. Actually that's not true. Christine McVie (known as Christine Perfect at the time) not only did the lovely artwork for the cover, but she sings uncredited background vocals on some of the songs. Her contribution to \"Station Man\" is especially lovely. She would officially join the band on their next album, a personal favorite of mine, Future Games.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For On Kiln House\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eEnergy\u003c\/strong\u003e for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen: \u003cstrong\u003epresence and immediacy\u003c\/strong\u003e. The vocals aren't \"back there\" somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt -- \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%22martin-Birch%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMartin Birch\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e in this case -- would have put them.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Big Sound\u003c\/strong\u003e comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen \u003cstrong\u003etransient information\u003c\/strong\u003e -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTight punchy bass\u003c\/strong\u003e -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNext: \u003cstrong\u003etransparency\u003c\/strong\u003e -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eExtend the top and bottom\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003ci\u003evoila\u003c\/i\u003e, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint Minus Minus and maybe a bit better is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful originals.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fleetwood Mac","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51968789250344,"sku":"fleetkilnh","price":349.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/products\/fleetkilnh.jpg?v=1779211740","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/fleetkilnh_2606xx","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}