Stephen Mejias

Any album named There Is Love In You is an album for me. Especially when it’s the new one from Four">http://www.myspace.com/fourtetkieranhebden">Four Tet, aka Kieran Hebden, 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 Robert">http://blog.stereophile.com/musicroom/robertbaird/">Robert Baird's kung-fu grip, 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 Stereophile is now on newsstands. What do you think of the cover? I like it more than any cover we’ve done since the">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/now_on_newsstands_stereophile… October 2009 issue, which featured the lovely Zu">http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/zu_essence_loudspeaker/">Zu Essence speaker. The styling of the current cover may seem a bit soft and feminine (for Stereophile), 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.”

On Wednesday, at around 5PM, Jon Iverson pulled off the road and snapped this shot of a complete double rainbow. The symmetry was accidental. Jon just happened to be in the right place, at the right time. Funny how things work out.

While Jon was on">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/jons_rainbow/">on his way home, I was back at Lucia">http://blog.stereophile.com/stephenmejias/lucia_lodge/">Lucia Lodge, working on “Recommended Components.” Earlier in the day, Jon and I had had a big lunch, but I knew that Tom, the lodge manager, would be expecting me for dinner at Lucia’s restaurant. Though I wasn’t particularly hungry, I shut down my laptop, and walked outside. Funny how things work out.

Lucia">http://www.lucialodge.com/mall/c121/s14406/default1.htm">Lucia Lodge was opened in the early 1900s, on land originally settled by Wilbur and Ada Harlan in 1885. The Harlan family still owns and operates the Lodge. They’re great people.

On this night, I stayed up very late working on “Recommended Components” for the upcoming April 2010 issue. Having spent the entire day all alone, I was able to get a great number of listings compiled. No, I did not freak myself out by thinking about the ghosts of the cabin’s previous inhabitants.