Hot Tuna – The Phosphorescent Rat

This is one of my desert island discs. Songwriting, performance, arrangement... it's all there in spades. I purchased this LP new in 1974, I have listened to it hundreds of times and it never grows stale.

Harder edge power trio style Tuna w/ Jorma's songwriting skills to the fore on a mix of hard & acoustic blues rock w/ a bit of psych & some majestic orchestral strings in places. A special mention to for Jorma's bluesy melodic electric & acoustic guitar play (underrated in, but up with the pantheon of great 60’s guitarists) & Jack Casady’s distinctive bass tones. Nice Dadaist style cover art.
Good solid effort

Avoided picking this up for a while because of the $26 price tag in store and never heard of culture factory so who knows what the quality of this release is. Found it on sale for $16 so I bought it. It's actually a very quiet,centered, flat and well pressed record so good job on that. The sound isn't all that bad either. The mastering is really good. Acoustics are strong and bright. Drums sound decent. But separation and clarity is lacking. Vocals seem muddied and weak at times. Definitely sounds like a high res file was used as the source. But honestly, they make it sound pretty good. Tones are clean and balanced. Bass is full. You just don't get that depth and warmth that makes analog recordings so special. But for the meantime, this will work as a clean, quiet copy of a great album even if the sonics aren't quite audiophile grade. I would reccomend if you can find for less than $20