Bringing acoustic perfection to the public
A listening experience, with a community of music fans
Classic Album Sundays has landed in Sydney. One of the world’s most popular record clubs, these Sunday sessions allows the listener to fully immerse themselves in the music by presenting the musical context, the story behind the album and an uninterrupted replay of the album on vinyl on an audiophile hi-fi sound system (with the lights turned low, phones switched off and no conversation).
People learn about the history of the album and then hear things in the music that they have never heard before. The events are mainly attended by non-audiophiles.
Its popularity around the world is a response to the cheapening of the quality of audio that’s available to most people, and the social disconnect of more and more people listening to music only on earbuds or on laptop speakers at home.
CAS currently holds regular sessions in London, New York, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Oslo and many more cities. CAS has received amazing coverage in BBC Breakfast TV, The Guardian, Elle Magazine, NME, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and more.
Jim Poe is running the Sydney events “I was invited to start Classic Album Sundays in Sydney by my friend Colleen Murphy, who founded the series in London several years ago. She’s an old mate from New York. We were both involved with the underground house music scene there in the late ’90s; and Colleen was working with music icon David Mancuso on The Loft, a legendary underground members-only party series that is credited with inspiring the disco, garage and house scenes beginning in 1970. Later she relocated to London and started an offshoot of The Loft there. The idea for Classic Album Sundays came up because she is a vinyl collector, and she wanted a venue to listen to her records on hi-fi systems with friends.
So it started very casually but quickly became successful and spread. She got in touch with me last year about helping to kickstart Classic Album Sundays in Sydney. One thing led to another, and instead of helping I was put in charge.
Classic Album Sundays is a community of music fans as much as it’s an event or enterprise. So Colleen only entrusts the brand to people she feels will approach it with the right spirit. It’s very much a grassroots thing, though it’s also a global brand.”
Classic Album Sundays, Sydney’s monthly series of all-vinyl hi-fi listening parties, returns to The World Bar in Kings Cross on Sunday 30 April for a listening party celebrating The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, one of the greatest and most beloved albums of the 1990s. The artists vary and have included Miles Davis, so check out the schedule for a listening party to your taste.
INFO
For this week, Classic Album Sundays Sydney presents The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Sunday 30 April
The World Bar, Kings Cross (in the Bordello room)
5pm-8pm
Special guest host: Carolina De La Piedra (The Heat)
Hosts: Jim Poe (Deep House Australia), Jean-Philippe Ducharne (The Mancusian Circus)
