On Tuesday night, while on their way to Seattle to play a show with Of Montreal, the four young women who make up the great new band La Luz suffered a frightening accident. Losing control of their van, they slid across black ice, and slammed into a concrete highway divider. The band managed to maneuver their van to the side of the road, where they called for help. Then, almost incredibly, while waiting for the police and a tow truck to arrive, their van was hit by a semi-trailer truck. The van, all of the band’s gear, and many of their belongings were completely destroyed.

To get a sense of the impact, see a photo of the van here. Fortunately, it was a 12-passenger van, and La Luz were using the entire back half as cargo space for their gear and belongings. The women were seated up front when their van was rear-ended by the semi-truck, sending them toppling into a ditch. Moments later, a third van slid across the freeway and collided into the semi! Aside from bruises, broken bones, and the major disappointment of having to cancel the rest of their tour, all members of La Luz are fine, as are the drivers of the other vehicles.

A message from La Luz’s official website:

High-performance audio has always been and will probably remain a cottage industry perpetuated by talented and visionary individuals whose products reflect their singular visions and whose companies often bear their names, though of course there are notable exceptions. One of them is Constellation Audio. No single star dominates the appropriately named Constellation Audio, which arrived on the scene at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show with a seemingly impossible debut roster of products: stereo and monoblock amplifiers, preamplifiers, digital file player/DACs, and phono preamplifiers, each category of component represented by members of two distinct lines: no compromise and some compromise.

Whenever I'm moved by an artist whose work I've never before heard or seen, my first impulse is to wonder: What else has this person done while I slumbered in ignorance?

The long-anticipated opening of Brian Berdan’s high-performance audio store, Audio Element, took place on November 1 and 2 in Pasadena, CA. The store’s prime location in the heart of Pasadena’s retail- and restaurant-rich Oldtown helped sweeten the unveiling of America’s newest high-end emporium.