LATEST ADDITIONS

Perhaps the greatest praise anyone can let loose upon any silly piece of audio gear is that it inspires the discovery of new music. Right? Alright then. The Rega P3, in all its ashen splendor, does this for me. So much so that I'm going broke. I feel as though I'm single-handedly (with one hand behind my weary back, that is) revitalizing the record industry. I've spent so much money on new (used) records that I could've purchased my own P3 by now. In fact, I've decided that that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to buy my own P3. I'm in the office now, wishing I was home with the P3. I'm proofreading Michael Fremer's review of the P3-24, which will appear in our July issue, and I'm thinking, <i>I'm going to buy this thing.</i>

Today, as every Saturday, I brought my daughter to the stables where she has her riding lessons. But this time was different. As we pulled up the long gravel driveway, we found ourselves dodging a riderless horse, moving at a trot across our path. It turned out that the very cold weather had caused a latch to malfunction&mdash;"gate won't close, railing's froze"&mdash;and five horses had gotten loose.

It's said that your first experience on entering a space sets the tone for all that follows. At LP pressing plant Record Technology, Inc. (RTI), that experience is my encounter with veteran pressman Richard Lopez, who responds to my request for direction. As he leaves his vintage record press to lead me to owner Don MacInnis, Lopez reads aloud the sticker on a box of recently pressed LPs. "WORLD'S FINEST PHONOGRAPH RECORDS," he declares with pride. As I reflect on how few workers today feel so connected to the products they make, I sense that something special lies ahead.

US composer Morten Lauridsen's <I>Lux Aeterna</I> is one of the indisputable masterpieces of the 20th century. John Atkinson has recorded the male vocal group Cantus's performances of Lauridsen's <I>O Magnum Mysterium</I> (on <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/musicrecordings/1105cantus"><I>Comfort and Joy: Volume One</I></A>, Cantus CTS-1204) and <I>Ave Maria Dulcissima</I> (on <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/121007cantus"><I>Cantus</I></A&gt;, Cantus CTS-1207). (And great recordings they are&mdash;one engineer chum thinks JA's Cantus recording of <I>OMM</I> is the single best-engineered choral recording he's ever heard.)

Has John Zorn gone mellow? His two new CDs, <I>The Dreamers</I> and <I>Lucifer</I> (both on his self-owned label, Tzadik), are swaying, swinging, crazy with catchy hooks, occasionally downright mellifluous. I don’t mean to overstate the contrast with the preceding Zorn <I>oeuvre</I> (which entails over a hundred albums, at least a thousand compositions). The time has long passed when Zorn—whose name is, almost novelistically, German for “anger”—gained notoriety for squealing on the alto sax like a banshee and cutting up compositions into surreal collage. The stereotype was never right: from the start of his career, in the mid-‘70s, he could play be-bop, Hammond-based soul, and Morricone movie-themes at a high level. But in the ‘80s, he delved more avidly into ear-ripping shards-of-sound (with fitting titles like <I>Torture Garden</I> and <I>Grind Crusher</I>). When he turned to exploring chords and melodies in the ‘90s, he didn’t abandon “noise” entirely; several of his great Masada albums alternate between blues or ballads and rippers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Up to a point, I liked that stuff, too. But these two new CDs have almost none of it. They’re jammed with buoyant, playful, joyous music—and I mean that in a good way.

Swiss Precision: The Story of the Thorens TD 124 and Other Classic Turntables
Swiss Precision: The Story of the Thorens TD 124 and Other Classic Turntables
by Joachim Bung. Published by Joachim and Angelika Bung, Schmitten, Germany (info@td-124.de), 2008. Hardcover, 288 pages, four-color, ISBN 978-3-00-021162-1. Price: €59 plus overseas mailing.

<B><I>Surround Sound: Up and Running</I> (Second Edition)</B><BR>
by Tomlinson Holman. Published by Focal Press, an imprint of Elsevier (footnote 1) (Oxford, England, UK; <A HREF="http://www.elsevier.com">www.elsevier.com</A&gt;). 2008. Paperback, 248 pages, ISBN 978-0240808291. $44.95.