LATEST ADDITIONS

This sexy album cover, making glorious the embrace of sanctity and lust, belongs to Rene Hell’s <i>Porcelain Opera</i>. Rene Hell is the latest guise of noise artist Jeff Witscher, whose overwhelming mass of work, under names including Impregnable, Deep Jew, and Marble Sky, has been documented mostly to <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/why_cassettes/">cassette</a&gt;, while utilizing high-quality production. The curious might take a chance on his latest <a href="http://www.raccoo-oo-oon.org/np/">Night People</a> release.

<i>Sommer</i> from German electronic duo Klangwart (Markus Detmer and Timo Reuber) includes rare compilation tracks, remixes for other artists, and previously unreleased studio recordings.

There’s nothing like being pulverized by a Norwegian power trio in the morning. Thank you, Bushman’s Revenge. Your latest assault, <i>Jitterbug</i>, completely kills.

The long-awaited US launch of <A HREF="http://www.passionato.com">Passionato.com</A&gt;, intended as the World Wide Web's "premier destination for classical music connoisseurs," has finally happened. Passionato, which has no membership fee, offers the largest collection of classical-music downloads in CD-quality, DRM-free FLAC and 320kbps MP3 formats yet assembled online.

Take a look into the heart and soul of my favorite radio station, Jersey City’s own <a href="http://www.wfmu.org/">WFMU</a&gt;, 91.1FM.

Thursday, May 20, 6 to 9pm: <a href="http://www.meridian-audio.com/">Meridian Audio</a> and <a href="http://stereoexchange.com/">Stereo Exchange</a> will host an evening celebration to introduce the new Meridian Sooloos 2.1 music server system and Meridian 808.3 Signature Reference CD player. Wine and music will be served.

The pianist Hank Jones died on Sunday at age 91, ending one of the great jazz dynasties (his brothers were the drummer Elvin and the trumpeter-composer Thad) and taking out one more survivor of the generation that founded post-war jazz.