LATEST ADDITIONS

<i>Photo: Annabel Mehran</i>

Wild Nothing is 21-year old Virginian, Jack Tatum. Last year, he released a 7" single on <a href="http://www.capturedtracks.com/index.php">Captured Tracks</a>, another one of those labels that just knows what I like. <i>Gemini</i>, his full-length debut, is scheduled to be released on May 18. You can listen to a few tracks at <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wildnothing">the Wild Nothing Myspace page</a>.

It’s been awhile since I last hooked up with Massive Attack. <i>Heligoland</i> is the unit’s fifth full-length studio release and, with collaborations from Damon Albarn, Hope Sandovol, Tunde Adebimpe, and Martina Topley-Bird, it has to be good. Right?

These are previously unreleased tracks, with a previously unknown fire and happiness. I pried the advance copy from <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/robertbaird/">Robert Baird's kung-fu grip</a>, and listened to it on the hi-fi. I don't want to say too much about it because our April issue will include a whole psychedelic feature on the topic, as well as a formal album review, so I'll just say this: I need it.

The February 2010 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. What do you think of the cover? I like it more than any cover we’ve done since <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/now_on_newsstands_stereophile… October 2009 issue</a>, which featured the lovely <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/zu_essence_loudspeaker/">Zu Essence</a> speaker. The styling of the current cover may seem a bit soft and feminine (for <i>Stereophile</i>), but I think it’s elegant and graceful, like the speaker it frames. Vienna Acoustics’ Kiss is a beautifully finished three-way design with an integral stand. It uses a 1" silk-dome tweeter coincident with a 7" proprietary Spider-Cone midrange and a 9" Spider-Cone woofer. Wes wanted to make out with it. Can you blame him? He wrote: “The Kiss was exquisitely capable of revealing the emotional core of every type of music I played through it.”

Hang around long enough, and your reward is often to be taken for granted or ignored. Canadian electronics manufacturer Bryston Ltd. has been around since the mid-1970s, and while—if coverage by Stereophile is any indication—the company has hardly been ignored, it's often taken for granted.

We crotchety middle-aged (and older) audiophiles frequently sit around and whine about the apparently rising median age of enthusiasts of two-channel audio. "We need to do something to attract the <I>youts</I> to our cause!" one of us will say. (<I>Youts</I>? See Joe Pesci in <I>My Cousin Vinny</I>.)