On Tuesday, September 14th—two days before my 33rd birthday—<a href="http://www.anti.com/artists/view/43/Grinderman">Anti- Records</a> will release <i>Grinderman 2</i>, the second studio album from Nick Cave’s heathen child, Grinderman. And we are in for a treat. The review will appear in our October issue, but I’ll just let you know now: The album is violent, powerful, horrifying, and hilarious.
A clever engineer with an interest in home audio says that the real obstacle to high-fidelity sound is the adverse and unpredictable way in which speakers interact with most domestic rooms. To address that need, he brings to market a loudspeaker that disperses sound in a new and original way. Controversy ensues. Controversy endures.
Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), the Prime Minister of Prussia who brought about the unification of Germany, was not a nice man. But he was no dummy, either. One of his most prophetic remarks was in response to a journalist's question about what Bismarck thought to be the single most decisive factor in modern history: "The fact that the North Americans speak English."
<B>Keith Jarrett/Charlie Haden: <I>Jasmine</I></B><BR>
Keith Jarrett, piano; Charlie Haden, double bass<BR>
ECM 2165 (CD). 2010. Manfred Eicher, exec. prod.; Keith Jarrett, prod.; Martin Pearson, eng. DDD. TT: 62:54<BR>
Performance *****<BR>
Sonics *****
CD sales are down, online sales and streaming services are inching forward, and most record labels are in a world of hurt. What do record labels need to do to survive and thrive?
Why Not? One more shot of our favorite Muswell Hillbilly
It’s a truism that writers naturally do not want to swallow, but dammit it’s true: a picture like the one above can be worth more than a thousand words.
<i>Photo: Melissa Horn</i>
I received an interesting call today from a man named David Garrett in Atlanta, Georgia. David has 25 years of experience as an architect (in fact, he grew up in Highpoint, North Carolina—“Furniture Capital of the World”) and, for the last 13 years, has operated his own interior design company. He is aggressively and enthusiastically looking to change directions, however, and has recently started an LP rack business called Nomad Crates.
Constantine and Ann Soo deserve a huge thank you from the audiophile community. Responding to pleas from insistent dealers and distributors, who lamented the absence of an audiophile show from the San Francisco Bay Area, Constantine and dagogo.com took a huge risk.