LATEST ADDITIONS

Last Month, music labels, distributors, and retailers met in Las Vegas for the 41st annual <A HREF="http://www.narm.com">National Association of Recording Merchandisers</A> convention to wrestle with several new issues wrought by the digital age. NARM Chairperson Rachelle Friedman set the tone for the event when she stated in the keynote address that "for the music industry, the 21st century and the impact of the Internet have already thrust themselves upon us."

Every week we get an e-mail or two from online readers begging for a state-of-the-art set of searchable weblinks on the <I>Stereophile</I> website. Starting this week, your e-prayers have been answered. The <I>Stereophile</I> website now sports one of the Internet's most comprehensive set of qualified audio and video links---as of last count, they number more than 2500. The database is searchable in a variety of ways, and also groups similar categories.

Toronto-based Lenbrook Group announced earlier this month that it had acquired NAD Electronics from AudioNord International, a Scandinavian organization that has owned the brand for most of this decade. The deal is expected to close next week, on May 3. Lenbrook will take over NAD's worldwide marketing and distributorship, but AudioNord will continue to market the brand in Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Scandinavia. Other joint marketing ventures will follow, according to Lenbrook's public relations agent.

The Grateful Dead were the most enduring and most worshipped of all the rock groups who originated in the San Francisco scene of the 1960s. The Dead spawned Deadheads, a global family of loyal followers, who lived for the communal high of Dead concerts, where recording by fans was encouraged by the band and its management. Deadheads continue to share recordings of those concerts through a vast network, including several websites. Until recently, at least two of the sites had been providing MP3 transmissions at no charge.

<B>JOHN TAVENER: <I>Eternity's Sunrise</I></B><BR> With: <I>Song of the Angel</I>, <I>Petra: A Ritual Dream</I>, <I>Sappho: Lyrical Fragments</I>, <I>Funeral Canticle</I><BR> Patricia Rozario, Julia Gooding, sopranos; George Mosley, baritone; Andrew Manze, violin; Choir & Orchestra of the Academy of Ancient Music, Paul Goodwin<BR>Harmonia Mundi HMU 907231 (CD). 1998. Robina Young, prod.; Mike Hatch, eng. DDD. TT: 65:03<BR> Performance <B>****</B><BR> Sonics <B>****</B>

In an aggressive move into the used audio equipment market, New York retailer <A HREF="http://www.harveyonline.com">Harvey Electronics</A> announced last week that the company will begin to sell used audio products and special purchases of new merchandise on <A HREF="http://www.ebay.com">eBay</A&gt;, an online auction site, beginning June 1, 1999. The company also recently announced that it will sell merchandise through other website partnerships.

There's gold in them digital music hills. This obvious reality---supported by the music industry's near-panic in the face of the phenomenal growth of MP3 in the past year---was reinforced last week, when <A HREF="http://www.sony.com/">Sony Corporation</A> and <A HREF="http://www.ibm.com/">International Business Machines</A> announced a digital music mutual-aid pact at a press conference in Los Angeles.