LATEST ADDITIONS

For awhile, we were at our wit’s end, feeling buried alive, but everything is okay now: We just finished shipping our massive October issue to pre-press. At 212 pages, it’s our largest issue since October 2008.

We’ll see the proofs on Monday. Until then, we can relax.

To help us do that, we have Cass McCombs’ “Buried Alive,” from the achingly beautiful Wit’s End.

This is one of Jaime's favorites, and Jaime is one of mine.

Cass McCombs' Wit's End is out now on Domino Records. The album is available on CD, LP, and cassette. (Yes, cassette!)

This is absolutely outstanding. Please watch and listen as sound expert Julian Treasure offers strategies for re-tuning our ears.

Via TED. (Thanks for the link, SP.)

Talk about the R.E.M. catalog with most music people and the conversation usually comes down to albums released during the years the band spent on its original label, the late, great I.R.S. Records.

Bon Iver: Bon Iver
Jagjaguwar 52135 (CD). 2011. Justin Vernon, prod., eng.; Brian Joseph, eng.; Nate Vernon, Andy Immerman, asst. engs.; Greg Calbi, mastering. AAD. TT: 39:28
Performance ****
Sonics ****

Many, though certainly not all, musicians of most genres dream of composing, crafting, birthing a hit record—one they will forever be known for, and that will make them enough money that they'll never have to sleep on another hard floor or friend's stained couch as long as they live. Very few fulfill this dream, and those who do often don't know why or just how it happened.

The Cable Company's 16th annual Summer Against Hunger is anything but a feel-good gimmick. Thanks to ingenious leveraging by Robert Stein, company founder, every dollar spent on purchases from The Cable Company in the month of August results in almost $2 donated to a specific project of C.A.R.E., a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. Given that C.A.R.E. is one of the more efficient charities around—over 90% of donations go directly to programs and recipients, rather than to administration—this means that for every $100 purchase you make during the month of August, a donation of over $180 will go directly to people and communities in need.

Things move fast in multichannel. No, I'm not referring to the speed of sound effects as they whip around a room—let's leave that for the home-theater mags. I'm talking about audio technology. Since I began writing this column in June 2003, we've seen serious technological changes almost annually, some driven by real needs, some imposed by marketing considerations. To me, the rate of change seems strikingly rapid, compared to that of the products I review for the main portion of Stereophile, based, as they are, in the two-channel world.

I don’t really know what to say about this, so I’ll just quote the press release:

The role of an High End amplifier is to reproduce the music, all the music.

Amateur of beautiful often unique parts, GoldAmp is the Only One. An exceptional musical know-how. Celebrate interpreter who knows how to be forgot. A magnificent story which can be told by moments of complicity in the emotion. Reunion with classicals works henceforth dear to our hearts.