Cage Against the Machine: The Quest for Quiet
Great Britain is dreaming of a silent night. A new recording of John Cage's controversial piece, “4'33",” stands a good chance of becoming Britain’s best-selling single during Christmas week. (Woo!)
LATEST ADDITIONS
McIntosh and John Varvatos
Michael Fremer wears a pair of special Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers by John Varvatos. Now, when Mikey shops for gear, he can also listen to some. John Varvatos fashion boutiques have become an official dealer for select McIntosh components, such as the MXA60 "Manhattan Home Audio System."
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Modular LP Storage from Nomad Crates
On the evening of August 18th, I made some space in my kitchen, got a beer from the fridge, pointed a fan directly at my sweaty face, and went about the simple but rewarding task of assembling a Nomad Crate.
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Ayre Acoustics DX-5 universal disc player
The old Saab slogan, "Find Your Own Road," was so good that the old General Motors, which once owned Saab, had to kill itjust as the newly revived GM tried, in a "Call It Chevrolet" memo, to kill "Chevy." GM did a U-turn on that one the very next day, but "Find Your Own Road" never returned, and is available for Ayre Acoustics to use. I can't think of a better slogan for a company that I admire almost as much as I do Saab.
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Consider this: While Ayre calls its new DX-5 ($10,000) a "universal A/V engine," the disc player doesn't have a coaxial or a TosLink S/PDIF input. That appears crazy to me, but to Ayre, no. They've found their own road.
Peachtree iDecco D/A integrated amplifier
As with so many other things, from cell phones to soy milk, the idea of a portable MP3 player was something I at first disdained, only to later embrace with the fervor of any reformed sinner. But not so the idea of a high-fidelity iPod dock: Given that I now carry around several hundred high-resolution AIFF files on my own Apple iPod Touch, the usefulness of a compatible transport seemed obvious from the start. Look at it this way: In 1970, whenever I bought a music recording, I could enjoy it on any player, in any room in the house. In 2010, why shouldn't I enjoy at least that degree of convenience and flexibilitywithout resorting to a pair of tinny, uncomfortable earbuds?
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Recording of December 2010: Blood/Candy
Having a long career in the temporal world of indie rock, as the Posies have, has its drawbacks. Before I wrote this review, someone sent me a quote about Blood/Candy from the all-powerful world of Internet music criticism, where speed trumps knowledge. "A collection that's thankfully a world away from their largely charmless and invariably dull nineties output for Geffen."
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Spectator Sports, Good and Bad
There is something about the performance of music that is in the nature of a spectator sport. By this I do not mean big-arena stagecraft and lights and fireworks and dance routines. I mean the actual making of the music.
To see Eric Johnson's fingers flying over his Fender Stratocaster as he hits "Cliffs of Dover" out of the park one more time is to enjoy something that is every bit as much an athletic performance and a spectator sport as baseball is. There is a thrill to watching people do difficult things exceptionally well, things that most of us can only take random sidelong swipes at.
A Suggestion: Important Records and Rega’s RP-1
Buy a Rega RP-1 from Important Records and choose two free LPs.
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Noveller: Desert Fires
Sarah Lipstate is Noveller. Desert Fires, her full-length follow-up to 2009’s Red Rainbows, is one of three Noveller releases I enjoyed in 2010 and one of the very few compact discs I purchased this year. Tomorrow, December 9th, Sarah Lipstate will perform an improvised set with Shahin Motia (Oneida/Inferior Amps) at Cinders Gallery (103 Havemeyer Street, Brooklyn).
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Stereophile's Products of 2010
Since 1992, Stereophile has named a few choice components as its "Products of the Year." In doing so, we happily recognize those products that are capable of providing musical pleasure far beyond our formal review period. If one of our reviewers raved in Stereophile about a component, that component is mentioned here. These are products that not only define the current audio landscape, but that we hope will someday be seen as classicsproducts to be handed down to future generations of audiophiles and music lovers.
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