On the morning of November 7, about a week after Sandy hit our area, the people behind Headphone Commute, a website devoted to the appreciation of music and high-quality sound, reached out to their favorite artists and asked if they’d like to donate tracks for a compilation, the entire proceeds of which would go to Doctors Without Borders and The Humane Society, in an effort to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

By midday, Headphone Commute had received confirmations from 10 artists, included among them acclaimed pianist Nils Frahm. Over the next several days, more artists eagerly offered contributions. Today, the roster of musicians reads like a “Who’s Who” in the worlds of modern classical, ambient electronic, and experimental music: Olafur Arnalds, Black Swan, Peter Broderick, Celer, Dakota Suite, Lawrence English, Hauschka, Ezekiel Honig, Johann Johannsson, Max Richter, Scanner, Valgeir Sigurdsson, and dozens more.

Ted Nash and Frank Kimbrough—co-founders of the Jazz Composers Collective, which I recently wrote about in this space—have new albums, and they're both among the year's best.

David Byrne & St. Vincent: Love This Giant
4AD CAD3231 (LP). 2012. David Byrne, Annie Clark, prods.; Patrick Dillett, John Congleton, asst. prods., engs.; Yuki Takahashi, Jon Altschuler, asst. engs. DDA? TT: 44:23
Performance *****
Sonics ****

The world's Web-based culture has progressed to the point that you don't need to be in the same room, or even the same general region, to be inspired by or collaborate with someone else. Ideas can fly back and forth for years across time and distance. By all accounts, the Internet played a key role in the creation of this sparkling and unexpected bit of funky world pop. This pair of wonderfully hard-to-define talents, who over a three-year gestation period seem to have found a glorious common ground for songwriting and harmonizing, has succeeded in fashioning an utterly original shard of brass-band-meets-layers-of-drum-programming, all of it overflown by the delicate voice of Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, and the recognizable keen of the Talking Heads' former big-suited frontman, David Byrne.

Every music-loving audiophile has a unique story—a story of the first time he or she was grabbed, body and soul, by a first, usually low-budget listen to a 78, LP, CD, open-reel, cassette, or MP3—a story that continues today in that audiophile's quest for high-end bliss. For me, it was my desire to move closer to the voices of the singers I most loved.

We received the following press release last night. No more information was available and there was no word when this story was first posted on whether or not Thiel cofounder Kathy Gornik will remain with the company. Since then, however, CEPro.com has reported that Kathy and her daughter Dawn Cloyd, who was director of international sales, will both leave Thiel. Why the sale? Our suspicion is that while Thiel remains a great brand, it is too small a company, with no access to a significant source of capital, to be able to compete effectively in today's market.

At least 2,500 audiophiles attended the November HiFi Show at the luxurious Dusit Thani hotel in Manila, Philippines on November 10 and 11, 2012. The show featured thirty-nine exhibition rooms with a total of thirty plus dealers exhibiting products from across the globe.

Amidst the concrete bodegas and basketball court fences of Bushwick, there rests a blue-lit doorway hiding strange and warm sounds. A sustained piano, tinkling cymbals, and alien coos float across a colorful hall of books and busted boomboxes. A trumpet blasts and whizzes downwards as the bass plods on. What you hear is Attention Screen, a free-jazz-something super-group featuring budget loudspeaker specialist and all-around nice guy Bob Reina on the piano and special guest Stereophile Editor John “Entwistle” Atkinson on the electric bass. The show takes place at 8pm this Friday, November 30th at Goodbye Blue Monday (1087 Broadway) in Brooklyn, NY.