Impex Records is celebrating the 30th anniversary of Jennifer Warnes' 1992 album The Hunter with a limited edition, individually numbered LP pressed on crystal clear, HQ-180 green vinyl. With compact discs ruling the marketplace at the time of its release, Warnes' Grammy-nominated follow-up to her classic Famous Blue Raincoat was never made available as a catalog LP by Arista Records (now part of Sony/BMG). The Hunter was co-produced by Jennifer Warnes, Roscoe Beck, and Elliot Scheiner; Scheiner also engineered, recorded, and mixed the album, and the original release was mastered by Bernie Grundman. Impex's new offering is a one-time pressing run that's strictly limited to 3000 individually numbered LPs pressed at RTI. The LP is an all-tube remaster that was analog mixed and mastered, and was cut from Jennifer Warnes' personal original analog master tapes by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering. You can order a copy of The Hunter HERE.
A Little Background…
My journey to an appreciation of the music of Jennifer Warnes followed a circuitous path that spiraled across decades. I literally stumbled onto a compact disc of Famous Blue Raincoat a couple of years following its release, and that started a personal love affair with the album that has endured to this day. But until I started writing for audio publications around 2001, I had no idea the album had such a following in the audiophile community. My CD copy was a Cypress label original, and despite its non-audiophile provenance, the disc's sound quality was surprisingly great. Being a relative newbie at the time in terms of my audiophile street cred, I don't think I was even aware that a remastered disc existed. Besides, my relatively mid-fi system back then probably wouldn't have benefitted from any improvement offered by an audiophile version, anyway.
Around that same time, my brother Harold and his family relocated back to the Atlanta area after having been away for a number of years. One day out of the blue, he came over to check out my stereo system, and brought a CD with him; the disc was Jennifer Warnes' The Hunter. I don't think he had any awareness of my fascination with Jennifer Warnes, and I hadn't at that point extended my embrace of her music to anything beyond Famous Blue Raincoat. His reason for bringing the disc over was to play a particular track that he said would challenge the limits of my audio system's capabilities, "Way Down Deep." Not only did the track challenge my system, it quite nearly destroyed it!
We first played the preceding track, "Lights of Lousianne," to set the volume to what I considered a "reference" level—relatively loud, but just such that it should sound as if Jennifer Warnes were actually in the room. The sound was as close to perfection as my then system could muster, but when Paulinho de Costa and Lenny Castro's talking drum, congas, and percussion joined with Jorge Calderon's subterranean bass during the intro to "Way Down Deep," the mid-bass panels of my Magneplanars distorted with the kind of unearthly rattle that shook the entire speaker frame. I wasn't really doing much then in terms of resonance control in my room, and the walls and ceilings shook and vibrated so excessively, I thought the house might collapse. Harold laughed with great hilarity during the demonstration, but I had several key takeaways from that experience: 1) I needed to significantly upgrade my audio setup, 2) I needed to investigate sound reinforcement for my room, and 3) I definitely needed to do a deeper dive into Jennifer Warnes' music! At the very least I was able to get my own copy of The Hunter on CD, along with her 2001 release The Well—everything else took a bit more time.
Jennifer Warnes, The Hunter. Crystal Green 180 gram Impex Records LP, $42.99 MSRP
The Hunter arrived encased in a Stoughton-style, tip-on, heavy gatefold jacket; as always, Impex LPs set the industry standard for the excellent quality of their packaging, which definitely justifies any uptick in price you might pay. The cover art has impressive clarity for a catalog album that's over three decades old, with deeply saturated colors—this is an exceptionally good-looking album cover. The 180 gram LP was inserted into a premium, non-scratch poly inner sleeve, which is always a very nice touch that minimizes any chance of scratching the LP, and eliminates the possibility the disc will be peppered with paper dust. And there's a printed insert that contains the song lyrics, album credits, and performance and technical specifications. Impex's Robert Sliger has done another outstanding job with this excellent album package.
The LP was pressed on crystal clear, HQ-180 green vinyl at RTI; the record was perfectly flat, and the surfaces were beautifully glossy and completely free of any marks or irregularities. Mastering engineer Chris Bellman's initials were clearly visible in the dead wax area, although when Impex describes the vinyl used for this LP as "crystal clear" they're not kidding. It's maybe the most translucent album I've ever seen, and I had to do a double take to read the deadwax information. The engraved information on the flipside was visible with such clarity that it quite nearly obscured my ability to read the side I was looking at! As with all their releases—and even their 24K Gold CDs, for that matter—Impex has gone the extra mile with this LP issue of The Hunter. Giving us an audiophile-grade playback experience that makes for a totally compelling listen!
The Hunter was recorded at various studios scattered across New York City and Los Angeles, and was released on June 9, 1992. Album sales were driven by the single "Rock You Gently," and the record easily cracked the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The core group of players on the album included Robben Ford and Michael Landau on guitars; Roscoe Beck on basses, synths and drum programming; Judd Miller on synths; Vinnie Colaiuta on drums; and Lenny Castro on percussion. Countless other A-list musicians contributed to the individual songs.
Listening Results
Clicking on my name in the header above will reveal the systems I use for evaluation of music and equipment reviews. I played The Hunter on my all-analog system that features the ProJect Classic EVO turntable that's mounted with an Ortofon Quintet Bronze moving coil cartridge. It plays through a Musical Surroundings Phonomena II+ phono preamp with its dedicated Michael Yee linear power supply; the signal is then fed to a PrimaLuna EVO 300 tube integrated amplifier playing into a pair of KLH Model Five loudspeakers. Listening through tubes and classic acoustic-suspension loudspeakers gave my listening sessions an appropriately vintage but also very modern quality of sound. The PrimaLuna tube amp offers triode and ultralinear playback on the fly with the press of a button; I sampled both, but felt the extra punch of ultralinear portrayed this often dynamic music perfectly.
I'm a colored vinyl junkie of sorts, and I do enjoy getting an album I love that's been pressed in either clear, tinted, or marbled vinyl. I've had an extensive amount of experience over the last several years with LPs pressed on colored vinyl, and I've also often had the opportunity to compare standard black vinyl pressings against the colored versions, and more often than not, they generally sound very similar in quality and often exactly the same. The vinyl formulations used for color pressings have gotten much better, and generally don't exhibit any more noise than the black vinyl counterpart. With the noted exception of pressings that use a "splatter" color configuration; you can hear the "splatter" texture element during playback—I generally avoid those. The HQ-180 green vinyl Impex and RTI used for this release was impressively quiet; in a blind listening test, I would have guessed I was listening to an LP that had been pressed using Neotech's VR900 Supervinyl compound! The Hunter was as nearly noise-free as any LP I've heard all year.
From the first needle drop, Impex's The Hunter shocked me with its goodness; this is an album of many highlights, and I know this music inside and out! The side one opening track, "Rock You Gently," opens with a synth and percussion intro that literally bounced around the room—I've listened to the standard catalog CD issue of this disc countless times, but the effect never tickled my eardrums the way this new LP does! And Jennifer Warnes' crystalline voice was presented with a level of melodicism and realism that my catalog CD can't quite touch. "Somewhere, Somebody," is a sparsely instrumented tune with a brilliant walking bass line and percussion intro that leads into a call and response vocal between Jennifer Warnes and vocalist Max Carl. Carl's supporting vocal provides thrilling counterpoint to Warnes' vocal lead, and this track for me is the literal definition of that elusive audiophile technical term ear candy. "Big Noise, New York" is another jazzy paean to the Big Apple that was co-written by Donald Fagen, and the Steely Dan frontman provides backing vocals; Warnes' perfect vocal pitch is punctuated throughout by the expressiveness of Bob Malach's tenor saxophone. Robben Ford's superb guitar lead sets the tone for the Warnes original "True Emotion," and a trio of background vocalists help give the tune a very soulful presentation.
So how did my current setup respond to the track that nearly killed a less capable system years ago? Of course, my dual-system setup is quite significantly better than back then, with a much more legitimate high-end sensibility. And my all-analog setup managed "Way Down Deep" without a single issue. Once again, I cued the lilting "Lights of Lousianne" to set the playback level; the track is another Warnes original that features not only Van Dyke Parks on accordion, but also Eric Johnson and Richard Thompson on guitars. But this time, the KLH Model Fives were up to the task, reproducing the deeply percussive drum and bass whacks of "Way Down Deep" unflinchingly, and the sound was both dynamic and emotionally powerful. Jennifer Warnes and Blondie Chaplin's shared vocals are absolutely perfect; I'm pretty sure I've found a new system demo track! The album's title track, "The Hunter," follows, and features not only a string quartet, but also some serious vocal histrionics from Warnes that seem more closely akin to exotic bird calls. The closer, "I Can't Hide," features some superbly melodic slide guitar work from Eric Johnson that meshes perfectly with Roscoe Beck's fretless bass as he expertly channels his inner Jaco Pastorius.
Conclusion
My catalog issue of Famous Blue Raincoat has ticked every box for me for years, striking an emotional chord that resonated deeply within me, and even more so since my recent acquisition of Impex's 24K Gold CD. Which is far and away the finest digital version of this album that currently exists—why I didn't get the 24K Gold CD version of The Hunter at that point, I have no idea (note to self, serious mental lapse, order a copy immediately!). Because in many ways, I find The Hunter to be a vastly more dynamic but also an exceptionally entertaining album—especially in the guise of this brilliant new Impex LP. For those who've been waiting for the album's ultimate audiophile LP release—this is finally it, so don't hesitate, these LPs will sell out very quickly! Impex's numbered, limited edition release of The Hunter is not to be missed, and gets my highest recommendation!
Impex Records
Elusive Disc
All photos courtesy of Impex Records, Elusive Disc, and the author. Photograph of Jennifer Warnes by Henry Seeff.
