Music in the Round #42
An audio/video receiver in <I>Stereophile</I>? Heresy!
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Listening #89
Nineteen days after <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/news/j_gordon_holt">J. Gordon Holt died</A>, my daughter and I drove west on NY Route 20, passing lawn sale after lawn sale on our way to the supermarket in Richfield Springs. Each sale promised a pleasant waste of time on that hot afternoon, but only one caught my eye: There, among the Avon bottles and the 8-track tape cartridges, were two large bookshelf loudspeakers, dressed in walnut veneer and light-colored fabric grilles. AR 3s, I thought. Or maybe Large Advents. "They'll still be there when we come back this way," I said, stupidly.
Don't Forget, Remember to Pick Up Some Beer
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Now On Newsstands: Stereophile, Vol.33 No.6
The June 2010 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. It opens with John Atkinson’s “iPad Daze,” an exploration of a print magazine’s inherent value in this digital age, and a piece that JA’s been thinking of writing for at least two years. He figured it’d be controversial, perhaps setting the entire World Wide Web against us, but I don’t think he expected to be <a href="http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=88273&an=0…; for his application of Sturgeon’s Law to today’s popular music:
Janelle Monae’s “Tightrope”
The word <a href="http://forum.stereophile.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=88273&an=0… our forum</a> is that 90 percent of today’s popular music is crap. Need a little proof that real talent still exists in the world of pop music? Check out Janelle Monae’s performance on last night’s Letterman show.
Rene Hell: Porcelain Opera
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>, 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.
Klangwart: Sommer
<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.
Bushman’s Revenge: Jitterbug
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.
Salon Son et Image Revisited
While John Atkinson, Art Dudley, Bob Deutsch, and I were having a great time roaming the halls of the 2010 Salon Son et Image at the Hilton Bonaventure in beautiful Montreal, Francois Caron of <a href="http://thecanadianpublic.com/">The Canadian Public</a> was lugging a Canon Vixia HF200 camcorder and Rode Stereo Videomic from exhibitor room to exhibitor room, capturing the action.
Hot Classical & Jazz Downloads
The long-awaited US launch of <A HREF="http://www.passionato.com">Passionato.com</A>, 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.