LATEST ADDITIONS

In a move sure to startle a few record retailers, English recording artists Massive Attack will make their much-anticipated new album, <i>Mezzanine</i>, available in its entirety on the Internet weeks before the May 12 in-store release date. The album will appear in stages over the course of two weeks via a <A HREF="http://www.virginrecords.com/massive_attack">special page</A> on <A HREF="http://www.virginrecords.com">Virgin Records America</A>'s web site.

You may have noticed recent news items about proposals to deregulate the electrical power industry. You may have received solicitations to sign on with some start-up utility you never heard of, promising 10% to 40% reductions in your electrical bill. The model for this deregulation---if it comes to pass---is the long-distance telephone industry.

There was something odd about the clock on Jim Thiel's office wall. I didn't get it at first, other than noting that instead of the minutes being marked off at 12 five-minute intervals, Jim's clock had 24 markings. That was it: as well as the number "12" in its usual place at the top of the face, there was another "12" at the bottom, where the "6" usually is. The clock that Jim built was typical of everything this laconic loudspeaker engineer is involved in: logical, functional, and different from what anyone else in the same field does. In his cigarette-strained drawl, Jim explained that the short hand of his clock always points toward the sun: directly up at noon, directly down at midnight. That's the way a clock should be, declared Jim, and when you're in his company, it's hard to see how he could be wrong.

On March 12, <A HREF="http://ovonic.com.">Energy Conversion Devices, Inc.</A> announced that <A HREF="http://www.sony.com">Sony Corporation</A> has expanded its royalty-bearing license under ECD's proprietary phase-change rewritable optical-memory technology to include advanced technology for use in rewritable CD and DVD optical-memory products. Phase-change technology, invented by ECD, is used in PD and CD-RW rewritable optical-memory discs.

Remember how your Uncle Charlie used to hole up in the basement with his ham radio rig? He'd spend hours down there, tweaking his equipment and chatting in an arcane jargon with fellow hobbyists around the world.

In an announcement that could stun the neophyte custom CD compilation business and concurrently impact future prospects for the $12 billion music recording industry, <A HREF="http://www.supersonicboom.com/">superSonic BOOM</A> has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Ergon Technology for a patented manufacturing process covering customized audio products. Like <A HREF="http://www.openmarket.com">Open Market</A>'s announcement last week that it had received patents from the US government for its e-commerce technology, superSonic's announcement raises more questions than it answers.

Coming soon on the <A HREF="http://www.madrigal.com">Madrigal Audio Laboratories</A> website is <i>La Folia</i>, a music webzine. Edited by Mike Silverton, <i>La Folia</i> sets out to supplement the audiophile press by directing its emphasis at recordings elsewhere neglected: present-day art music (aka "classical"), free and improvisational jazz, category-defying hybrids, and whatever else strikes their "clutch of sweet-spot stuckees as rare and well done."