Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl Reissues
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About Mobile Fidelity
- Since 1977, Mobile Fidelity has been dedicated to providing the most accurate sonic reproductions possible. Our premium releases are the definitive versions of some of the best music ever recorded. These limited-edition albums are conduits for experiencing exactly what the artists and producers heard in the studio. The album in your hands is a labor of love and a tribute to the original artist.
About GAIN 2™ Ultra Analog
- The GAIN 2 Ultra Analog™ LP 180g Series stems from the use of the Gain 2 system, mastered at half speed from the original master tapes where possible, capturing and uncovering as before undiscovered sonic information.
- The GAIN 2 Ultra Analog™ system is a proprietary cutting system designed and hand-built by England's legendary audio electronic genius Tim De Paravicini. (R.I.P)
- The GAIN 2 Ultra Analog™ system is comprised of a highly modified Studer A-80 tape machine with proprietary electronics and a highly sophisticated cutting system with custom amplification to drive an Ortofon cutter head on a beautifully restored Neumann VMS 70 lathe.
About RTI Pressing Plant
- Record Technology Incorporated (RTI) is a world class record pressing plant located in Camarillo, California. We have been operating since 1974, pressing for most audiophile record labels and for many quality minded independent and major record labels from around the world.
- All records in the series are pressed on high quality 180 gram virgin vinyl in strictly limited editions to ensure the quality of the last pressing matches the first pressing by not overusing the lacquer.
- Each vinyl is individually numbered
My Aim Is True (2009)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Shawn Britton
- Pressed by – Record Technology Incorporated – Stamper: 18445
- USA tracklisting: Includes Watching The Detectives
- My Vinyl Review reviews the MFSL 180g reissue of My Aim Is True (November 22nd 2009)
- Good Times (Germany) reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of My Aim Is True (February 2010)
- Paul Hawkins reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of My Aim Is True for Hi-Fi News & Record Review, March 2010.
- Hi-Fi News reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of My Aim Is True, January 2015 (6 years after it's release?)
- Uebervinyl compares the Mobile Fidelity reissue of My Aim Is True with a 1984 Italian reissue on Stiff Records.
| Images from My Aim Is True USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-329 (2009): |
This Year's Model (2010)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Shawn Britton
- Pressed By – Record Technology Incorporated – Stamper: 19074
- USA tracklisting: Without Night Rally and including Radio, Radio
- Paul Hawkins reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of This Year's Model for Hi-Fi News & Record Review, March 2010.
- My Vinyl Review reviews the MFSL 180g reissue of This Year's Model, July 26, 2010.
- Michael Fremer reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of This Year's Model, September 1, 2010
- Claude Lemaire compares the Mobile Fidelity reissue of This Year's Model with the original Columbia Records U.S. release of the album.
- Uebervinyl compares the Mobile Fidelity reissue of This Year's Model with the original UK Stiff/Radar Records release.
| Images from This Year's Model USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-330 (2010): |
Armed Forces (2010)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Shawn Britton
- Pressed By – Record Technology Incorporated – Stamper: 19151
- USA tracklisting: Without Sunday's Best and including (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
- Michael Fremer reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of Armed Forces for Analog Planet, November 1, 2010
- Paul Hawkins reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of Armed Forces for Hi-Fi News & Record Review, March 2010.
| Images from Armed Forces USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-331 (2010): |
Get Happy!! (2011)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Shawn Britton
- Pressed by - Record Technology Incorporated - Stamper: 19716
- DOUBLE LP / 45 rpm
- Michael Fremer Reviews the Mobile Fidelity 2LP reissue of Get Happy!! for Analog Planet, September 1, 2011
| Images from Get Happy!! USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 2-334 (2011): |
Almost Blue (2012)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Krieg Wunderlich
| Images from Almost Blue USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-335 (2012): |
There are no inner sleeve images - this LP from MOFI does not have a gatefold sleeve
- Almost Blue MFSL 1-335 (Discogs)
- Michael Fremers' review of Almost Blue on MFSL (Analog Planet: Dec 2nd 2015)
- No doubt Elvis Costello knew he was no George Jones or Merle Haggard when, in the spring of 1981 he stepped before the microphone in CBS's Studio A in Nashville under the direction of veteran producer Billy Sherill (who passed away this past August), but he wanted to record an album of country covers in Nashville and following the cleansing craziness of the Trust sessions, this probably seemed like the right time.
- This record was not particularly well received when it was first released, surely because fans were expecting an album of new Costello songs not an album of covers—particularly C&W covers, but the album has grown in stature. The Attractions acquit themselves well bending genres and Costello's cover singing hits all the right marks though with less grace, fluidity and vulnerability than that of the great country stars whose songs he covers.
- Costello covers "Sweet Dreams", "Good Year For the Roses" among other country chestnuts as well as the Gram Parsons/Chris Ethridge penned Flying Burrito Brothers tune "I'm Your Toy" (if you see the 12" 45 of Costello performing this live backed by an orchestra, get it!).
- I compared this reissue to an F-Beat original mastered at Townhouse and an F-Beat second press mastered at Strawberry. The Townhouse cut is pleasingly heavy in the bass and produces a spacious soundstage. The Strawberry cut produces more detail but flattens the picture and cuts the bass somewhat. On both Costello's voice sounds somewhat nasal and constricted. This remaster gives you the full bottom end and all of the detail plus Costello's voice sounds best here.
- If Trust is among the most essential Costello albums, this one is the opposite: it's a dispensable album but one that's well-recorded and enjoyable to listen to. Of course the song "Almost Blue" is on Imperial Bedroom and not on this record.
Imperial Bedroom (2012)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Krieg Wunderlich
- Eric De Boer reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of Imperial Bedroom, August 11th 2012
| Images from Imperial Bedroom USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-353 (2012): |
- Imperial Bedroom MFSL 1-353 (Discogs)
- Michael Fremers' review of Imperial Bedroom on MFSL. (Analog Planet: January 3rd 2013)
- The song "Imperial Bedroom" does not appear on E.C.'s seventh album issued back in 1982 but it does as a bonus track on Rykodisc's twofer CD. The twofer's other album Almost Blue does not include the song "Almost Blue," which is on Imperial Bedroom. Got that?
- It's confusing, but not as confusing and confounding as reading the densely packed lyrics that were splayed across the original F-Beat's white and black inner sleeve minus punctuation and paragraphing. Making matters more difficult, the original inner sleeve had a hole on one side interrupting the lyrical word flow. The missing die-cutout words appeared on the second side's label. To read the lyrics in their entirety you had to insert the record in the sleeve and line it up just so.
- Imperial Bedroom was Costello's first album of original material not produced by Nick Lowe. Instead, Geoff Emerick produced at George Martin's AIR Studios—a long way in time and concept from Islington's tiny Pathway Studios where My Aim is True was recorded for about £1000.
- Costello's success gave him the financial means to play in the studio as never before and the sessions lasted three months during which time songs were written and re-written, arrangements were experimented with and Geoff Emerick was able to produce, for better or worse, complex sonics not before heard on an Elvis Costello album. The arrangements too, are varied and complex and don't follow a particular theme or style.
- Coming after the warm and inviting Trust, arguably Costello's best sounding albums, Imperial Bedroom sounded busy and at times perhaps overproduced. Some complained then and now that the sound is somewhat glazed over and compressed but perhaps there's a good reason for that. In fact, the original tracking was produced live to eight track much as Trust had been produced. Only snippets of those sessions survived and made their way onto the final album.
- But first, the music! Though Costello, perhaps ironically calls this an "optimistic" record, lyrically the songs dealing with relationships were dark! Just look at the worn, exhausted looks on the faces. "Almost Blue," clearly a result of Costello's Nashville "adventure" brought particular pain to me, entering my home after a painful breakup. The lyrics popped into my head with every pathetic dating experience thereafter. Thanks E.C.!
- I wish I could reproduce Costello's Ryko liner notes because they go into great detail about much of the production, but I can't. You can spend months to forever peering into the production's nooks and crannies to uncover things like the 12 string run through a Hammond Leslie speaker on "Shabby Doll" or some of Emerick's trademarked reverb tricks. There's so much going on beyond the sophisticated wordplay and melodic invention that some thought that between the complexity of the production, the arrangements and the all-around cleverness, core emotional values were buried under the gloss. Not what I thought, but what some did.
- I thought at the time that the writing took Costello's art to a new, lofty level, even if Trust, overall produced a greater emotional tug. And I still think that today. Costello runs the emotional voodoo down in that "imperial" bedroom and if you've been through the mill, you'll relate!
- Sonically, the album always had greatness underneath and glaze on top. Some of it was tracked while George Martin and Paul McCartney worked down the hall on some of Tug of War with Geoff Emerick engineering. That album was recorded analog and according to the back of the jacket was "mixed digitally." Was Imperial Bedroom produced the same way? That's kind of what it sounds like. If that's the case, as long as Mobile Fidelity got the original digital master, it wouldn't be a cover fib.
- I compared this Mo-Fi reissue with a UK original F-Beat mastered by "NOEL" (Sommerville), who worked at Pye when this album was first issued, with a German F-Beat that was mastered at the always excellent STRAWBERRY mastering, a facility owned by 10CC, with a FIEND reissue (E.C.'s label) with a Japanese pressing. Yes, clearly I like this album, with its Beatlesque orchestration on "....and in Every Home" its opening drama on "Beyond Belief," the tear jerking on "Almost Blue", the vitriol of "You LIttle Fool" the pathos of "Man Out of Time", oh I could go on!
- But maybe in part I was also searching for and never finding a really great sounding version—especially after the exquisite sounding Trust. The original F-Beat has a taut, rhythmically satisfying pace and great transparency, though it's somewhat flat and bright. The Strawberry is warmer but I prefer the original to it. The Japanese has the usual clarity, drop dead quiet backgrounds and attenuated bass and the Mobile-Fidelity is the warmest and ultimately most satisfying sounding because it adds body to both Costello's voice and the bass line without sludge-ing it up. It's got more depth than the others, plus better inner detail resolution. Any of these is better than the original Columbia version by the way, that's not even in the running.
- If you have and like an original UK NOEL cut F-Beat, you probably don't need this but otherwise, and especially if you only have the drab Columbia original, Mo-Fi's reissue breathes new life into a great E.C. album whatever the actual source technology. I write this without asking Mobile Fidelity but I'm sure if the master was analog tape I'm going to hear from them and you from me!
- I assume by now you know where the "PABLO SI" can be found on the PIcasso-inspired cover art.
Punch The Clock (2013)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Krieg Wunderlich
- Pressed By – Record Technology Incorporated – Stampers: 21011 & 21075
- Good Times (Germany) reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of Punch The Clock, February 2014
- Eric De Boer reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of Punch The Clock, January 29th 2014
| Images from Punch The Clock USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-389 (2013): |
King Of America (2013)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Krieg Wunderlich
- Michael Fremer Reviews the Mobile Fidelity 2LP reissue of King Of America for Analog Planet, April 14, 2015
| Images from King Of America USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-362 (2013): |
Trust (2015)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Krieg Wunderlich
- NuDisc reviews the Mobile Fidelity reissue of Trust, October 10th 2015
| Images from Trust USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-340 (2015): |
Goodbye Cruel World (2015)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Krieg Wunderlich
- Pressed by - Record Technology Incorporated - Stamper: 22570
- Audio Review reviews the Mobile Fidelity release of Goodbye Cruel World, April 2017.
| Images from Goodbye Cruel World USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-432 (2015): |
Blood & Chocolate (2015)
- Half-Speed Mastered By – Krieg Wunderlich
- Pressed By – Record Technology Incorporated – Stamper: 23147
- Audio Review reviews the Mobile Fidelity release of Blood & Chocolate, August 2017.
- Good Times (Germany) reviews the Mobile Fidelity release of Blood & Chocolate, June 2015.
| Images from Blood & Chocolate USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-433 (2015): |
Painted From Memory (2017)
- Pressed by – Record Technology Incorporated – Stamper: 26252
- Limited to 3000 pressings worldwide
| Images from Painted From Memory USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-475 (2017): |
Painted From Memory (2020)
- Pressed by – Record Technology Incorporated – Stamper: 26252
- Limited to 2000 numbered pressings worldwide
- Mark Smotroff reviews Painted From Memory on MFSL "Super Vinyl" (December 3rd 2020)
- 2020 Edition pressed on "SuperVinyl™"
| Images from Painted From Memory USA Mobile Fidelity 180g Vinyl reissue MFSL 1-475 (2020): |
Pressed on "Ultra Low Noise" SuperVinyl™
Alternate label design - stickered front cover
Extract from MOFI Website on "Painted From Memory" (Super Vinyl pressing)
- Mastered from the original master tapes, pressed on dead-quiet MoFi SuperVinyl at RTI, and limited to 2,000 numbered copies, Mobile Fidelity's 180g vinyl LP of Painted from Memory transforms the 1998 set into an essential component of any library (as well as an audiophile reference disc). Always an effort that rewarded solitary listening, it now breathes with ravishing openness, reveals crystalline detail, unfolds against jet-back backgrounds, mesmerizes with a rainbow of textures, and constantly engages with its impossible smoothness. More than ever, the scope of the intricacies, nuances, and phrasings embedded in Bacharach's meticulous compositions can be experienced in full. The orbit of the bridges, refrains, and codas beguiles the senses. Ditto the poetic reach of Costello's singing and lyrics.
- Indeed, the level of care and concern invested into every passage of Painted from Memory is immediately gleaned by the ravishing sonics afforded on this super-collectable edition on which any notion of a noise floor is practically moot. Reference-grade presence, tonality, and balance help capture the sweep of the strings, colorful blush of the horn accents, and weight of the piano. Steve Nieve's keyboards, Greg Cohen's bass, Dean Parks' guitar, and Jim Keltner's drums seemingly appear right in the room. Rather than smear together or jockey for position, each instrument enjoys its own place and simultaneously sounds part of the rich, lush, complex albeit completely interwoven tapestry. Graceful, elegant, and classicist-minded, Painted from Memory is a genuine masterpiece – and a true collaboration.
- No wonder Costello dedicated a large portion of a chapter from his Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink memoir to his time with Bacharach. Among his insights, Costello explains how crafting the album forced him to be a better writer and singer – and a better listener, stating: "Writing those first songs with Burt Bacharach required me to listen to what the music was really saying to me. Sometimes it was speaking so quietly that I needed to listen very intently. I needed time for the meaning and feeling that I sensed in the music to be confirmed by my own words. The strange thing was that the title of a song often came to me in an instant, but then would begin the more excruciating task of negotiating Burt's spacious melodies and rhythmic subtleties."
- The very aspects Costello discusses come to the forefront on remarkable torch pieces such as the intensely dramatic "This House Is Empty Now," melancholic "Thief," and Grammy-winning "I Still Have That Other Girl." In addition to Bacharach's suave, sophisticated, strikingly exquisite orchestrations, Costello's vocals carry the day. Straddling two octaves and sighing with pain, bittersweet romance, and wistful reflection, his baritone stretching to convey highs and lows with crooner-like poise, breadth, and fastidiousness. Thrilling, distinctive, and memorable, the performances are just like the entirety of Painted from Memory itself – unforgettably great.
- MoFi SuperVinyl
- Developed by NEOTECH and RTI, MoFi SuperVinyl is the most exacting-to-specification vinyl compound ever devised. Analog lovers have never seen (or heard) anything like it. Extraordinarily expensive and extremely painstaking to produce, the special proprietary compound addresses two specific areas of improvement: noise floor reduction and enhanced groove definition. The vinyl composition features a new carbonless dye (hold the disc up to the light and see) and produces the world's quietest surfaces. This high-definition formula also allows for the creation of cleaner grooves that are indistinguishable from the original lacquer. MoFi SuperVinyl provides the closest approximation of what the label's engineers hear in the mastering lab.
External Links
- Shawn R Britton Mastering engineer at Mobile Fidelity (Youtube interview)
- Shawn R Britton & Rob LoVerde Discuss the Mastering process at Mobile Fidelity (Youtube video)
- Mobile Fidelity 25th Anniversary Special feature (Enjoythemusic.com)
- An Interview with Tim De Paravicini of E.A.R. / Yoshini (Creator of the GAIN 2™ Ultra Analog™ System for Vinyl)
