

The Next Track
Doug Adams and Kirk McElhearn
Doug Adams and Kirk McElhearn discuss music and musicians, and how we listen to music, whether it be analog or digital, downloaded or streamed, audio, or video.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Apr 7, 2020 • 30min
Episode #175 - Violinist Alina Ibragimova
We chat with violinist Alina Ibragimova, who is taking advantage of the lockdown to learn the Paganini caprices in her home in London.
Guest:
Alina Ibragimova
Alina Ibragimova on Hyperion Records
The Alina Ibragimova Violin Playlist on Apple Music
Show notes:
Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien
Review of Rolf Wallin violin concerto, Proms 2018
Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin
Our next tracks:
Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time (CD); Berliner Philharmoniker & Yutaka Sado (DVD/Blu-Ray)
Zoë Keating: Into the Trees
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Special Guest: Alina Ibragimova.Support The Next Track

Apr 3, 2020 • 34min
Episode #174 - Pianist, Composer, and Author Stephen Hough
In this episode, we talk with the pianist and author Stephen Hough, about how the lockdown is affecting him, how he has "the backside of a rhinoceros," and we discuss how classical concerts could change in the future.
Guest:
Stephen Hough
Angela Hewitt on Twitter
Stephen Hough on Hyperion Records
The Stephen Hough Piano Playlist an Apple Music
Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More
Show notes:
I miss concerts but solo music-making seems more sublime than ever (Guardian)
MacArthur Fellows
Episode #18 – New Yorker Music Critic Alex Ross Discusses Listening to Classical Music
Piano Day
Our next tracks:
Nils Frahm: Empty
Fountains Of Wayne: Welcome Interstate Managers
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Special Guest: Stephen Hough.Support The Next Track

Mar 31, 2020 • 35min
Episode #173 - Pianist Angela Hewitt
In the first of a number of out-of-band episodes that we're planning to release in the coming weeks, we talk with pianist Angela Hewitt, best known for her extraordinary recordings of all of Bach's keyboard works.
Guest:
Angela Hewitt
Angela Hewitt on Twitter
Angela Hewitt on Hyperion Records
The Angela Hewitt Bach Playlist an Apple Music
The Angela Hewitt Baroque Playlist on Apple Music
Show notes:
Led by the hand (article about Murray Perahia's thumb injury)
Virtuoso mourns beloved £150,000 piano smashed by movers
Fazioli pianos
A Late Quartet
Our next tracks:
Bob Dylan: Murder Most Foul (YouTube)
Ella Fitzgerald and Oscar Peterson: Ella And Oscar
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Special Guest: Angela Hewitt.Support The Next Track

Mar 25, 2020 • 31min
Episode #172 - Social Isolation and Music
These are difficult times for many people, who are now required to stay at home. Music can help us get through this. In this "two guys not in a pub" episode, Doug and Kirk reflect on social isolation and music.
Show notes:
Bus-sized fatberg weighing 40 tonnes cleared from London sewer
GrimeGran's Twitter feed
The Dropkick Murphys - Streaming Up From Boston
Royal Shakespeare Company in cinemas
National Theatre Live
Dead & Company YouTube channel (lots of videos, including full concerts)
The Rolling Stones: Four Flicks
The Berliner Philharmoniker's Digital Concert Hall
Alex Ross's COVID-19 live streams list
TJ Connelly's "Uncertain Times" streamcast (M-F, 10-12 ET)
Rugby Meets Red Rover: Kabaddi Has Captured the Heart of India
Take Control of Working from Home Temporarily
Our next tracks:
Roger Eno and Brian Eno: Mixing Colours
Freak Power: More Of Everything For Everybody
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Support The Next Track

Mar 11, 2020 • 28min
Episode #171 - Vintage Audio Gear
While there are lots of reasons to opt for minimal audio equipment, for some people there is an enduring allure for vintage stereo amps and receivers from the hi-fi heydays of the 1970s. The time when audio gear had knobs and dials and VU meters, like the fins and grilles on 1950s cars. We discuss our lust for those baroque audio devices of yore.
Show notes:
How a Digital Guy Fell in Love with a Vintage Stereo Receiver
Braun Regie 550 CEV550 Dieter Rams Design
Flickr stream of vintage hi-fi gear
Quadraphonic sound (Wikipedia)
Onkyo RN855
Yamaha AS-801
Our next tracks:
Robert Fripp at the Kitchen 2/5/78
Hot Tuna: Hoppkorv
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Support The Next Track

Feb 26, 2020 • 36min
Episode #170 - Miles Davis's Landmark Album Kind of Blue
Ashley Kahn wrote the book on Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, the jazz album everyone owns if they one at least one jazz album. We talk with Ashley about the recording of Kind of Blue, and about its legacy. (Apologies for the audio issues.)
Guest:
Ashley Kahn
Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece
Show notes:
Miles Davis: Kind of Blue
Glenn Gould's 1955 and 1981 recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations
Episode #1 – Songs to Albums to Songs
Miles Davis: Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud: Original Soundtrack
Richard Williams: The Blue Moment
Ashley Kahn: A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (documentary)
Our next tracks:
Miles Davis: Circle in the Round
Miles Davis: Bitches Brew
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Special Guest: Ashley Kahn.Support The Next Track

Feb 12, 2020 • 41min
Episode #169 - The Environmental Impact of Vinyl Records, CDs, and Data
We talk with Kyle Devine, author of a new book about the environmental impact of music recordings, which raises a number of issues that we had never previously considered.
Guest:
Kyle Devine
Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music
Show notes:
Nightmares on wax: the environmental impact of the vinyl revival
Shellac (Wikipedia)
Vinyl Record Production in Peril After Fire at California Plant
What the Vinyl Records Comeback Really Looks Like…
Phtalate (Wikipedia)
William T. Vollmann: Carbon Ideologies
Our next tracks:
Sir András Schiff plays The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (Visual Album)
Cream: Goodbye Tour - Live 1968
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Support The Next Track

Jan 29, 2020 • 37min
Episode #168 - L'Affaire Sonos and Obsolescence in Audio Equipment
Andy Doe joins us again to discuss the perils of having software-controlled audio equipment. After the Affaire Sonos, when the company announced that a lot of its older products would become "obsolete," perhaps it's time to think more carefully about how long hardware we buy will last, when it depends on software.
Guest:
Andy Doe
Show notes:
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
LSO Live
Starting in May 2020, some of our oldest products will no longer receive software updates or new features. We want to explain why and your options.
Sonos Recycling Program Just Creates Waste
Playing Multi-Room Audio After Sonos
Sonos, Squeezed by the Tech Giants, Sues Google – The New York Times
HomePod vs. Sonos One Stereo Pair Comparison
AirPlay (Wikipedia)
Sonos, Squeezed by the Tech Giants, Sues Google – The New York Times
Episode #147 - Kirk's New Sonos Amp
Ring Doorbell App Packed with Third-Party Trackers
The Cost of Avast's Free Antivirus: Companies Can Spy on Your Clicks
Internet of Shit
Our next tracks:
Yesterday
The Rezillos: Can't Stand The Rezillos
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Special Guest: Andy Doe.Support The Next Track

Jan 15, 2020 • 35min
Episode #167 - Tuning the Perfect Music Listening Room
Chris Connaker of Audiophile Style renovated the attic of his house and turned it into the ultimate listening room. He then tuned it using amazing speakers, acoustic treatment, and DSP (digital signal processing). He explains how he went about this, and how the room itself is perhaps the most important element in an audio system.
Guest:
Chris Connaker
Show notes:
A New Listening Room Part One
A New Listening Room Part Two: Acoustics, Speakers, DSP
REW (Room EQ Wizard)
DSP - Digital Signal Processing (Wikipedia)
Our next tracks:
Yes: Close to the Edge
Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here
David Bowie: Heroes
The Clash: London Calling
Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street
Brian Eno: Another Green World
The Who: Live at Leeds
Grateful Dead: Live/Dead
Bob Dylan: Blood on the Tracks
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Special Guest: Chris Connaker.Support The Next Track

Jan 2, 2020 • 35min
Episode #166 - Our Year in Music
For the first episode of the new decade - the last one recorded in the previous decade - Doug and Kirk look back on their year in music.
Show notes:
Honkyoku (Kirk's shakuhachi website)
The Zen of Everything (Kirk's podcast)
Rode Procaster microphone
Yamaha AG03 mixer
Episode #147 - Kirk's New Sonos Amp
KEF Q350 speakers
Q Acoustics 3020I speakers
Amazon Echo Dot
Tivoli Audio model One
Episode #162 - Apple's New Improved macOS Media Apps
Doug's AppleScripts
Time Out: We Don’t Give Music Enough Time to Grow on Us Anymore
John Cale: Music for a New Society
Our next tracks:
Chick Corea Trio: Trilogy
Harry Nilsson: Pussy Cats
If you like the show, please subscribe in iTunes or your favorite podcast app, and please rate the podcast.Support The Next Track