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Sirius Satellite Radio Goes National

Sirius Satellite Radio is now available nationally.

The service went nationwide—covering the continental US—on July 1, following a ten-year development period and a few months of availability in some areas. Earlier this year, between April 1 and June 1, Sirius added 37 states to its coverage area. By July it had added the remaining ones, mostly in the West and Northeast. Sirius claims that its signals can be received clearly not only throughout the states but "hundreds of miles off the coast."

Featuring 60 channels of commercial-free music and 40 channels of news, sports, talk, and…

. . . While I Kiss the Sky. Rare Jimi Hendrix Audio Tapes Surface

The Experience Music Project (EMP), a 130,000-square-foot interactive music museum opening in Seattle in 1999, announced on April 30 that it has acquired 19 recently discovered audio tapes of rare Jimi Hendrix recordings from 1969 and 1970.

The tapes, from Hendrix's Band of Gypsys period, were acquired at international auction; terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. As a museum "dedicated to the creative process in American popular music," Experience Music Project will preserve and protect the recordings, and give museum visitors the opportunity to learn about and experience them for…

More Digital Audio Announcements From Comdex

Last week's Comdex convention in Las Vegas showcased more examples of convergence between the consumer electronics and computer industries, especially in the areas of portable devices, home theater, and digital audio. DVD-Audio also received notice at the show, as chip developer Zoran Corporation announced the Vaddis V, its latest DVD multimedia processor, slated for mass production in spring 2001.

According to Zoran, the Vaddis V will combine DVD-Video playback, DVD-Audio decoding, and web browsing. As Zoran's fifth-generation DVD system-on-a-chip, the Vaddis V, the company claims, has…

Auto Surround

A local body shop owner explained to me recently how the center brake light that began showing up on the rear deck of cars a few years ago killed business for him and his pals. Seems that all of a sudden, folks weren't rear-ending each other as often.

Then came the cell phone and business was booming again. But cell phone legislation, banning driver use in moving vehicles, threatens to put an end to the good times.

On the horizon, however, are multichannel audio systems, along with an array of disorienting surround-sound music discs. At the recent AES convention, I briefly sat through…

DVD-Audio a Hot Topic at DVD Forum Conference

Running close on the heels of the 105th AES Convention in San Francisco, the DVD Forum held its conference two days later in the posh Hyatt Regency near the SF Airport. Attended by a variety of computer and consumer-electronics industry folk who manufacture and sell DVD discs and hardware, more than half of day one was devoted to the emerging DVD-Audio format. Although the presentations became highly technical at times, the sheer variety of possible formats and applications for DVD-Audio became apparent. Whether this is a blessing or a fatal flaw, all agreed that the consumer will…

2009 Records To Die For Page 6

JOHN MARKS

BANTOCK: Omar Khayyám
Catherine Wyn-Rogers, mezzo-soprano; Toby Spence, tenor; Roderick Williams, bass; BBC Symphony Chorus, Stephen Jackson, choirmaster; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Vernon Handley, conductor
Chandos CHSA 5051 (3 multichannel SACD/CDs). 2007. Brian Couzens, prod.; Ralph Couzens, eng. DDD. TT: 2:51:31

Orientalism always exercised a tremendous pull on the British imagination, and here are nearly three hours of settings—as lush and suggestive as an Alma-Tadema nude—for vocal soloists, chorus, and orchestra, of verses by a medieval Persian poet.…

2009 Records To Die For Page 7

DAN OUELLETTE

BEN ALLISON & MAN SIZE SAFE: Little Things Run the World
Ben Allison, bass, acoustic guitar; Michael Blake, tenor & soprano saxophones; Ron Horton, trumpet, flugelhorn; Steve Cardenas, electric guitar; Michael Sarin, drums
Palmetto PM 2131 (CD). 2008. Ben Allison, prod.; Matt Balitsaris, prod., eng. DDD. TT: 53:21

Hands down, Little Things Run the World stands as bassist-composer Ben Allison's most adventurous CD, and is in the top echelon of 2008's jazz albums. It's lyrical, colorful, edgy, and teems with exuberance. Conceived with careful…

2009 Records To Die For Page 8

LELAND RUCKER

BOB DYLAN: World Gone Wrong
Columbia CK 57590 (CD). 1993. Bob Dylan, prod.; Micajah Ryan, eng. AAD. TT: 43:58

They're calling this the worst economic period since the Great Depression. Fifteen years ago Bob Dylan channeled the Mississippi Sheiks, popular among Great Depression audiences because, as he observes, "their songs are faultlessly made for these modern times." And so they are: Songs of hypocrisy, lust, and economic and political turmoil. Songs blaming the other guy. Songs, written decades ago, that show that, as a species, we haven't changed much.…

The Recording Angel

Back in the last century, I mused in this space about the essential difference between recorded sound and the real thing. I had been walking to dinner with friends when I heard the unmistakable sound of live music coming from a window. But here was the kicker: rather than the instruments being of the audiophile-approved acoustic variety, they were two amplified electric guitars. Their sounds were being reproduced by loudspeakers, yet it was unambiguously obvious that it was not a recording being played through those loudspeakers, but real instruments.

"What on earth can be the readily…

Recording of February 2010: <I>Orchestrion</I>

Pat Metheny Orchestrion
Pat Metheny, guitars, orchestrion programming.
Nonesuch 516668-2/-1 (CD/LP). 2010. Pat Metheny, prod.; eng. AAD? TT: 52:06
Performance ****
Sonics ****

As silly as it sounds now, there was a time not so long ago when musicians were certain that the drum machine was the big bad wolf. Musicians everywhere wrung their hands at how it was the beginning of the end of live music; how hordes of unemployed drummers would soon be wandering the streets; how it was only a matter of time until acoustic instruments in general were on the way out, to be replaced…