Corea-Gomez-Motian Play Evans (sort of)
Some risky business is going on at the Blue Note, the posh jazz club on West 3rd Street in Manhattan.
Some risky business is going on at the Blue Note, the posh jazz club on West 3rd Street in Manhattan.
Ain't technology grand! That's what I was thinking while driving to work this morning. Sure, the rain was coming down in buckets, but there I was sitting comfortably in a warm car, listening to music while making tracks at 50mph. A long way from horse-and-buggy days.
Beautiful plus beautiful equals more beautiful. Phoenix pairs Grizzly Bear’s “Foreground” with Brian Eno’s “Discreet Music” and offers instructions for mixing in some chance operations. Click <a href="http://wearephoenix.com/grizzly_bear_remix/">here</a> and make magic.
When asked how to create a good recording, John Atkinson will tell you to use good musicians in a good room. The people behind <a href="http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/">Benchmark Media Systems</a>, makers of some of today’s most highly regarded digital audio converters, headphone amps, and mic preamps, agree.
My love for the Vivian Girls only grows and grows: I love them more today than I did yesterday, but not as much as I’ll love them tomorrow. Their 2009 album, <i>Everything Goes Wrong</i>, continues to sound fresh and exciting with each play on my turntable. And they’ve got a new 7-inch single available from their own <a href="http://www.freewebs.com/viviangirls/wildworld.htm">Wild World Records</a>. Perfect for a sunny Cinco de Mayo like this one, the A-side has Cassie confessing, “I can hardly wait until the summer comes,” while Katy and Ali echo the feeling with handclaps and angelic backing vocals. The B-side is a cover of the Chantels’ “He’s Gone,” which I had the great and unforgettable pleasure of hearing performed live, a cappella, <a href="http://forum.stereophile.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/2149/passwor… Bamboo Beach</a> <a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/what_happened_in_puerto_rico/… Puerto Rico</a>.
Jon Iverson is going to love this.
Last night, on Later with Jools Holland, Joanna Newsom performed “81,” the lead single from her ambitious and inspired triple-LP, <i><a href="http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/bewitching_rewarding/">Have One On Me</a></i>.
As another Consumer Electronics Show rolls around, we are seeing some interesting and not-entirely encouraging things taking place in the audio field. The people for whom high fidelity was originally intended—so-called serious music listeners —have abandoned audio almost completely, leaving the pursuit of perfect music reproduction to a group of hobbyists who have more interest in hardware than in music. This, plus the recession, has almost killed middle-fi, which is now flailing out in all directions looking for a new market. Here's how it all came to pass:
<B>DANIEL LANOIS: <I>Acadie</I></B><BR>
Opal/Warner Bros. 25969-1 (LP), -2 (CD). Daniel Lanois, prod.; Malcolm Burn, Mark Howard, engs. AAA/AAD. TT: 41:19
Here's a question for a Stereophile.com poll: What's the best hi-fi value of the last 15 years? I'd bet that, 16 years after its introduction, Grado Laboratories' SR60 headphones would get more than a few votes.