"Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature . . ."—Michael Faraday

"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him."—Jonathan Swift

First, two noteworthy CDs. San Francisco's Cypress String Quartet, whose set of Beethoven's late quartets and high-resolution downloads I praised in the April issue, is back with a new CD (Avie AV2275) that explores their musical roots.

Down deepest, beneath everything he does, underlying all the facets of his ever-expanding career in music, Terence Blanchard is still a New Orleans guy. Question that and you can hear his dander rise.

Even before I'd really listened to PSB's Alpha PS1 powered desktop speakers (see last month's column), I suspected that I'd like them: They're affordable, attractive, small enough to actually fit on my desktop, and designed and manufactured by a true high-end audio company. Besides all that, the PS1s had been highly recommended by a friend, AudioStream.com's Michael Lavorgna. I only needed the speakers to sound good in my home. And they did—clean, clear, detailed, and dynamic, with a surprisingly big and bold overall sound.

Gulp.

All the details, from the website of the New York Public Library, with critical commentary from me:

Moderat is made of Apparat’s Sascha Ring and Modeselektor’s Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary; as the album title suggests, II is their sophomore release. This is no slump, however, and the music these men make together is seamless and true: It does not sound like two distinct visions forced together, but instead reflects a natural progression of shared ideas, a tangle of conflicts, tensions, and parallels brought together to create something exhilarating.