Search - Various Artists :: Hot Dance on Gennett: The Actual Music of the Roaring Twenties

Hebden Strikes Again: Buyer Beware

Thomas Bumbera | Maplewood, NJ USA | 01/22/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

""Audio Restoration by William Hebden" is a phrase to strike terror in the hearts of vintage music collectors. His work, marked by severe over-processing, has been roundly criticized for years and his labels "Swing Time" and "Vintage Music Productions" are in themselves a warning flag. I bought this disc for some of the extreme rarities it contains (sadly this is true of many of Hebden's efforts). After a few decent tracks lulled me into a false sense of security, I hit the first disaster, loaded with digital artifacting; some tracks sound as if they were played back inside of a metal trash can, which is where Hebden's digital reprocessing equipment should go. Nobody who would care enough about obscure 20s dancebands to buy this disc would care about minor surface noise; just who does Hebden thinks is benefiting from his tin-eared digital demolition? Please, somebody, make him stop!"