LATEST ADDITIONS

This is what my life will be like starting this Thursday and ending next Tuesday. I should’ve been in this video, though. I mean, seriously: Thao, give me a call next time. What’s up?

The November 2009 issue of <i>Stereophile</i> is now on newsstands. On the cover, you’ll see a close-up of the Aerial Acoustics Model 20T V2 loudspeaker, which John Atkinson praised for its silky treble and weighty, well-defined bass. An interview with Aerial’s designer, Michael Kelly, appears <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/467/index.html">here</a&gt;, while Michael Fremer’s review of the original 20T can be found <a href="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/404aerial/index.html">here…;.

For 15 years, lovers of low-power amplifiers have clamored for more and better high-efficiency loudspeakers (footnote 1). For 15 years, their choices have remained limited to products with varying combinations of colored sound, poor spatial performance, basslessness, high cost, and cosmetics that range from the weak to the repulsive.

Right from the start&#151from the very first musical moment&#151it’s the gorgeous, spacious sound we’ve grown to love from Espers’ Greg Weeks and his <a href="http://www.myspace.com/hexhamhead">Hexham Head Studio</a> in Philadelphia. While <i>III</i>’s rather straightforward instrumentation (churning, scintillating acoustic guitars, appropriately warm, round bass, and steady, impactful drums) marks a subtle departure from the doumbek and dholak of <i><a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/facethemusic/042706espers/">II</a…;, the quality of sound is no less complex or stirring. We hear the sounds of wood and brass meeting with flesh and skin, of bow hair as it courses along cello strings, of cello moan and sigh, of the most delicious fuzzed-out guitar placed in realistic, three-dimensional space&#151all with such <i>truth</i>, such <i>blood</i>, such respect of momentum and flow, that we are fooled into thinking that the very space around us is, in fact, growing, exhaling, beating.

Espers (from left): Meg Baird, Helena Espvall, Greg Weeks, Brooke Sietinsons. Photo: Daniel Coston.

The first chapter in the history of the LAST Factory, manufacturer of LAST Record Preservative for LPs, is coming to a close. After shepherding for 30 years the Livermore, California&#150;based company he founded, LAST's president, Walter Davies, is retiring to devote his energies to still photography. With Jan and Ric Mancuso, of Trade Secrets Consulting, Davies is looking for a buyer to keep the company in operation.

Keith Jarrett’s <I>Paris/London: Testament</I> (on the ECM label), a three-CD set consisting of two live solo concerts, is a stunning album, a career peak.