Patricia Barber Cafe Blue 1STEP 180g 45rpm 2LP
Patricia Barber

Genre: Jazz
Brand: Impex
Size: 12″

Additional Artists: John McLean Michael Arnopol Mark Walker
Format: 45RPM,

TAS Super LP List! Special Merit: Informal

1STEP Process 180g 45rpm Double LP Pressed on VR900-Supreme Vinyl!
Cut From Original Analog Work Masters by Kevin Gray at CoHearent Audio!
Strictly Limited To 5000 Numbered Pressings!

Impex Records, we are always looking to create new, value-added audiophile products that expand your enjoyment and immersion in great recordings. In that vein, we are excited to begin 2020 by announcing our new ultra-luxe 180-gram LP series, Impex 1STEP. As with all of our productions we supervise and create every asset by hand and never settle for any asset that isn’t The Best It Can Be.

The Impex 1STEP process relies on short, tightly-controlled runs that require a new lacquer after each 500 pressings. This unforgiving format has the lacquer skipping the regular father-mother process, going right to a single convert and then pressing. Though this dramatically increases mastering and production costs, it also assures each run is more consistent from disc to disc, with less noise, clearer details and deeper bass.

Two 180-gram 45-rpm LPs, pressed on VR900-supreme vinyl, and a deluxe booklet are packaged in a heavy-duty 3-sleeve jacket. The jacket is then placed in a cloth-bound slip case that protects your investment and brings a cool retro-modern look to your shelves. Strictly limited to 5,000 pressings!

Reducing production complexity to just a single “convert” disc between the lacquer and the press greatly improves groove integrity, diminishes non-fill anomalies and increases signal integrity from the master tape to your system.

Patricia Barber has always been an artist’s artist, harnessing a restless imagination and an intellectualized curiosity to create visionary jazz that breaks boundaries and reorders perceptions. She serves the chase: the unexpected musical note. The irreplaceable word. The irregular beating heart of jazz.

And Café Blue is the album that best personifies her genius. Spare, turbulent, quirky, and slyly humorous, there is no other jazz masterwork quite like it.

For our first collaboration with this musical vanguard, Impex’s 1STEP is exclusively cut from original analog work masters and cut by Kevin Gray at CoHearent Audio. The stunning fidelity, breathtaking dynamics and startling spacial realism surpass every other edition of this breakthrough album.