[78-L] Nimbus

[Alan Bunting]

--- On Fri, 17/7/09, Thomas Stern <sternth at attglobal.net> wrote:

> I thought NIMBUS was defunct.  Saw a listing of LEE WILEY on NIMBUS 
> RETROSPECTIVE 4147.  Is the label active, or is this an old item?
> Thanks, Thomas.

 
Nimbus is now owned by Wyastone Estate who issue and distribute several other labels including Retrospective and the much respected Lyrita.

With a couple of exceptions, the 35 or so Retrospective issues to date (many of them 2 CD sets) are based on material originally issued on the Living Era label, although some have been updated with tracks which were still in copyright when the original Living Era CDs were issued. They are compiled by Ray Crick (responsible for many years Living Era) and, thanks to improvements in sound restoration techniques, many of the tracks sound better than the original issues (well, I would say that, wouldn't I?).

As David Lennick says, they are indeed CD-Rs using Wyastone's "on-demand" process, as are all the labels distributed by Nimbus. Although I know that some people refuse to (knowingly) buy CD-R issued recordings, it's a sad fact that they are rapidly becoming the only way that small companies can make selling recordings of low-demand musical genres viable. The tests I have run on sample copies of Retrospective ones show that, in most cases, they have fewer errors than pressed CDs and, because of the Sony blanks being used, it is hard to tell from their appearance that they are CD-Rs. 
 
More contentious is the longevity of CD-R and here, only time will tell.

The Retrospective catalogue may be found here:

http://www.retrospective-records.co.uk/
 
Reviews of some of them are here:
 
http://www.musicweb-international.com/nostalgia/index.html
 
and Lee Wiley (and others) are reviewed here:
 
http://www.musicweb-international.com/jazz/index2009.html
 
Alan Bunting