Fat Cats

Rating:
Summary: Great recording and a great story
Review: As always, ZBS Foundation has delivered pushed binaural recording technology to the limits. Listen to this with headphones and you literally feel like you're in the middle of the action. And there is a lot of action on the two-CD set. This is a very stylish update of the film noir genre with nice, quirky characters ZBS fans will recognize from Saratoga Springs and Travels with Jack.

Rating:
Summary: Murder, Mystery, Abbie Hoffman
Review: Fat Cats is an audio production of exceptional quality. A multi-layered production in both story and sound, Fat Cats is recorded with a Neumann ku8li binaural microphone. This technique produces "3-D" sound. With head phones on, the sound swallows you up, enveloping you in a way no other medium can match.

I have experienced a few of these 3-D recordings before, and this is the first one I found where the story makes good use of the technique. Bill Raymond plays a painter, Willie, who fantasizes about being a detective. Willie floats in and out of the adventures of his hero, the hard boiled detective Short Top Detroit. He is hired to paint the house of Lucas Trust, a billionaire who's girlfriend is a prominent wet T-shirt model, Christie Adair. This could be a recipe for cheap thrills, but the story is in ZBS' good hands. Playing against stereotypes, Christie is intelligent and sees the irony of her profession. Willie varies his time between reading cheap detective novels and listening to recordings of Abbie Hoffman. Lucas is involved in murder.

Willie tries to put the pieces together while his hero Short Top Detroit teaches him the art of sleuthing. Slowly, the lines between the two characters begin to blur.

Rating:
Summary: Murder, Mystery, Abbie Hoffman
Review: Fat Cats is an audio production of exceptional quality. A multi-layered production in both story and sound, Fat Cats is recorded with a Neumann ku8li binaural microphone. This technique produces "3-D" sound. With head phones on, the sound swallows you up, enveloping you in a way no other medium can match.

I have experienced a few of these 3-D recordings before, and this is the first one I found where the story makes good use of the technique. Bill Raymond plays a painter, Willie, who fantasizes about being a detective. Willie floats in and out of the adventures of his hero, the hard boiled detective Short Top Detroit. He is hired to paint the house of Lucas Trust, a billionaire who's girlfriend is a prominent wet T-shirt model, Christie Adair. This could be a recipe for cheap thrills, but the story is in ZBS' good hands. Playing against stereotypes, Christie is intelligent and sees the irony of her profession. Willie varies his time between reading cheap detective novels and listening to recordings of Abbie Hoffman. Lucas is involved in murder.

Willie tries to put the pieces together while his hero Short Top Detroit teaches him the art of sleuthing. Slowly, the lines between the two characters begin to blur.

Rating:
Summary: Murder, Mystery, Abbie Hoffman
Review: Fat Cats is an audio production of exceptional quality. A multi-layered production in both story and sound, Fat Cats is recorded with a Neumann ku8li binaural microphone. This technique produces "3-D" sound. With head phones on, the sound swallows you up, enveloping you in a way no other medium can match.

I have experienced a few of these 3-D recordings before, and this is the first one I found where the story makes good use of the technique. Bill Raymond plays a painter, Willie, who fantasizes about being a detective. Willie floats in and out of the adventures of his hero, the hard boiled detective Short Top Detroit. He is hired to paint the house of Lucas Trust, a billionaire who's girlfriend is a prominent wet T-shirt model, Christie Adair. This could be a recipe for cheap thrills, but the story is in ZBS' good hands. Playing against stereotypes, Christie is intelligent and sees the irony of her profession. Willie varies his time between reading cheap detective novels and listening to recordings of Abbie Hoffman. Lucas is involved in murder.

Willie tries to put the pieces together while his hero Short Top Detroit teaches him the art of sleuthing. Slowly, the lines between the two characters begin to blur.

Rating:
Summary: Walter Mitty - in 3-D sound!
Review: Great use of the binaural technique, to ensure that you use headphones to catch all the fun! I jumped out of my chair when a door slams at one point - thought someone had just come into my own house! The mystery premise allows the exploration of the 'hero' Willie's relationships - and there needs to be a new word invented for this exploration, since "mature" and "adult" are taken. How about "responsible"? This responsibility is contrasted deliciously against the predictable exploits of Willie's pulp fiction detective hero (and alter ego) Short Top Detroit - after some of the teaser passages that are worked into the narrative, I'll never think of gabardine in the same way again! A fun adventure - hope there's more to come.