And, dang it, just when I thought it was safe to check my e-mail, it turns out that <a href="http://www.myspace.com/ganggangdance">Gang Gang Dance</a>’s long out-of-print 2005 release, the highly acclaimed <i>God’s Money</i>, is available again—and on vinyl, hallelujah. A note from <a href="http://www.thesocialregistry.com/index2.html">The Social Registry</a>, another one of my favorite labels:
<i>Photo: Annabel Mehran</i>
Wild Nothing is 21-year old Virginian, Jack Tatum. Last year, he released a 7" single on <a href="http://www.capturedtracks.com/index.php">Captured Tracks</a>, another one of those labels that just knows what I like. <i>Gemini</i>, his full-length debut, is scheduled to be released on May 18. You can listen to a few tracks at <a href="http://www.myspace.com/wildnothing">the Wild Nothing Myspace page</a>.
It’s been awhile since I last hooked up with Massive Attack. <i>Heligoland</i> is the unit’s fifth full-length studio release and, with collaborations from Damon Albarn, Hope Sandovol, Tunde Adebimpe, and Martina Topley-Bird, it has to be good. Right?
Any album named <i>There Is Love In You</i> is an album for me. Especially when it’s the new one from <a href="http://www.myspace.com/fourtetkieranhebden">Four Tet, aka Kieran Hebden</a>, 32-year old, post-rock/electronic DJ/musician/wizard.
These are previously unreleased tracks, with a previously unknown fire and happiness. I pried the advance copy from <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/robertbaird/">Robert Baird's kung-fu grip</a>, and listened to it on the hi-fi. I don't want to say too much about it because our April issue will include a whole psychedelic feature on the topic, as well as a formal album review, so I'll just say this: I need it.
The February 2010 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. What do you think of the cover? I like it more than any cover we’ve done since <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/now_on_newsstands_stereophile… October 2009 issue</a>, which featured the lovely <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/zu_essence_loudspeaker/">Zu Essence</a> speaker. The styling of the current cover may seem a bit soft and feminine (for <i>Stereophile</i>), but I think it’s elegant and graceful, like the speaker it frames. Vienna Acoustics’ Kiss is a beautifully finished three-way design with an integral stand. It uses a 1" silk-dome tweeter coincident with a 7" proprietary Spider-Cone midrange and a 9" Spider-Cone woofer. Wes wanted to make out with it. Can you blame him? He wrote: “The Kiss was exquisitely capable of revealing the emotional core of every type of music I played through it.”
Two audiophile buddies of mine both own Rogue Audio M-150 monoblocks. I'd always been impressed with not only the sound quality of the M-150, but also its price. For $4495/pair, I thought my friends got a whole lotta amp for notta lotta dough. In this day and age, it's a rare and wonderful thing to get a pair of monoblocks, made in the US by a real audio company, that give you 150Wpc of tube power for under $5000. When Rogue came out with an update of the M-150, the M-180 ($5495), I thought it might be a good subject for my first full review in <I>Stereophile</I>. John Atkinson thought so too. I also thought it would be interesting to compare the M-180 with the very tube-like and almost identically priced Pass Labs XA30.5 two-channel amplifier ($5500), a sample of which I had on hand. (see my <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/solidpoweramps/pass_labs_xa305_power_amplifi…; in August 2009).
We crotchety middle-aged (and older) audiophiles frequently sit around and whine about the apparently rising median age of enthusiasts of two-channel audio. "We need to do something to attract the <I>youts</I> to our cause!" one of us will say. (<I>Youts</I>? See Joe Pesci in <I>My Cousin Vinny</I>.)