"We tried to do some work between the legs of . . .
"Ummmm . . . that sounds weird."
Rock musicians—do they ever think about anything but sex?
Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson chuckles. He explains that what he meant to say was that he, singer-bassist Geddy Lee, and the exalted, formerly mustachioed object of Planet Earth's most fervent drummer cult, Neil Peart, were trying to write songs during a break in a recent tour.
Easily one of the music world's most polarizing acts, the objects of equal amounts of swooning and derision, Rush has become a rock institution. Those…
When asked about this and his band's stance on the ongoing loudness wars in recorded sound—ie, dynamic range vs maximum volume, much of the latter spurred by the popularity of the Apple iPod—Lifeson is quick to give his side. "Over anything else, dynamics are the most important thing to us. And it is a bit of a struggle, it is a war. Vapor Trails [2002], for example, was mastered so hot, it really wrecked the album. I can't listen to that record. It's so flat and has so much distortion that we really want to remix that record. It was out of our hands when it was mastered, and the mastering…
Logitech | UE have some big surprises in store for Fall 2012, and if you are in the New York City area, you could be one of the first audiophiles to hear them. Comment on this post for your chance to win a pair of tickets to the Logitech | UE promoted Milo Greene concert at the Bowery Ballroom (6 Delancey St, New York, NY) on Wednesday, August 29th. Milo Greene play airy indie-pop with ambient choruses of background vocals, spacious piano, and relaxed snare drums accents. Not only will you be able to tread into Milo Greene’s easy-flowing songs, you’ll also get a sneak peak at just what…
Photo of the author in Bayreuth: Paul Hyde
For audiophiles, the acoustic of the Bayreuth Festspielhause in Germany, home of the annual festival of Richard Wagner's operas, vies with Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and Vienna's Musikverein as one of the most fabled for recording as well as listening. As a participant in the Music Critics of North America 2012 institute at the Festival, I had the opportunity to not only explore the venue from a near-ideal seat in Row 25 Center, but to also visit the fabled "covered pit" from which many of the greatest Wagner conductors of the last 136 years have…
Other than the fact that they’re a bunch of cute girls with a suitably high level of cute-girl energy, Teen isn’t the sort of band I typically get into. They’re not rapping about sex and money; they’re not just turning knobs on analog synths or chopping up bits of field recordings; they’re not sampling obscure 78s; they’re not playing 24 saxophones at once; they’re not making their guitars sound like vacuum cleaners; they’re not really lo-fi, but they’re certainly not hi-fi; they’re neither terribly weird nor completely normal. They’re somewhere in between. And, if you know me, you know that…
In the old days, when audio-show reports routinely appeared in the print edition of Stereophile, life was easier. I spent my show days visiting exhibitors and listening to new gear, but I decorated those days with record shopping, dining out, and staying up late to visit with friends in the industry. And because hard-copy deadlines always seemed to be at least a few days away, I would wait until I'd returned home before doing any actual writing.
The new way is better—expecting excitement from a show report in a print magazine is like expecting carbonation from an open beer you've found…
Jarrett, Garbarek, Danielsson, Christensen: Sleeper
Keith Jarrett, piano, percussion; Jan Garbarek, tenor & soprano saxophone, flute, percussion; Palle Danielsson, double bass; Jon Christensen, drums, percussion
ECM 2290/91 (2 CDs; hi-rez FLAC files from HDTracks). 1979/2012. Manfred Eicher, prod., mix; Jan Erik Kongshaug, eng., mix. ADD. TT: 106:56
Performance *****
Sonics ****
Keith Jarrett's American quartet (with Redman, Haden, Motian) was prolifically inventive. His Standards trio (Peacock, DeJohnette) continues endlessly rich and ebullient at the end of its third…
Fred Hersch's new double-disc album (on the Palmetto label) might be called Alive at the Vanguard, instead of the customary Live at . . . , for two reasons. First, it's a declaration that Hersch, who's had HIV-positive for many years and not long ago slipped into a coma for six months, is alive. Second, this music is alive: fire-breathing with adventure, dance, spirits of all sorts.
His two post-coma albums before this one, Alone at the Vanguard and Whirl, while strong, had the feel, especially in retrospect, of recovery projects. The new one is something else, the work of a pianist—an…
One of my formative audiophile experiences was the first time I heard electrostatic speakers. I walked into an audio store and heard music played by a live jazz combo. But where were the musicians? I saw none, though I did notice a couple of room-divider panels in the part of the store where the music seemed to be coming from. Eventually, it dawned on me that these must be loudspeakers—but they sounded like no other speakers I'd ever heard, and nothing like the Advents I had at home.
Those room dividers turned out to be KLH Nine electrostatic speakers. My Advents, good as they were,…
To comply with European Union regulations for electrical equipment, the Montis's subwoofer amplifier and the bias-voltage power supply for its electrostatic panel are put in standby mode after 30 minutes of no signal input. In standby mode, the power consumption is reduced to 1W, and it takes the speaker a second or two to wake up when you start to play music again. At first I found this delay disconcerting—it made me wonder if something was wrong—but eventually I got used to it. An electrostatic's bias voltage is known cause its panels to attract dust, which requires having to occasionally…
