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Verity Audio Finn

Look at this thing. It’s a Verity Audio Finn in seductive Norwegian Birch. Don’t you want to just squeeze it? Don’t you want to just bring it home with you?

I first heard the adorable little Finn at Montreal’s Salon Son & Image. Paired up with an Audio Research VSi60 integrated amplifier and CD8 disc player, the Finns produced some of the most exciting, detailed, and musical sounds I heard in Montreal (other than that divine music of high heels tapping and tinkling against marble floors).

A few weeks back, during Verity Audio Night at In Living Stereo, I had a…

When I'm Gone

The Vivian Girls (from left): Ali Koehler, Cassie Ramone, and Kickball Katy. Photo: Arnaud Bianquis.

I was sort of kicking myself for scheduling a trip to Puerto Rico while, back in New York City, friends and neighbors would be swimming in vinyl at the WFMU Record Fair and getting down and dirty at the CMJ Music Marathon.

WTF? Duh, dude. What was I thinking?

Tropical sun, beaches, empandas, ice-cold cans of Medalla…whatever.

But then, on one gray and rainy weekday afternoon, I just so happen to be visiting the Vivian Girls Myspace page, and, lo and behold,…

Effi Briest's "Mirror Rim"

Effi Briest sort of reminds me of Gang Gang Dance. And I like that. Check out this dizzying video for "Mirror Rim."

If you dig that, keep your tired eyes peeled for a full-length LP to come from Sacred Bones.

TV Noir / La Vie

Hey. If you like Cold Cave, I think you'll like Bal Pare. It's pretty safe to judge a 7" by its cover, which is what I did when I saw this one winking at me from the racks at Other Music. How could it not be good, all masked and silvery and naked like that?

The four previously unreleased tracks were originally recorded from 1981 to 1984 and are pressed on luscious purple marbled vinyl. The sound is some sort of German/French industrial sex pop. Yum! Listen here and then buy it.

I mean, if you want to. Though I’m not sure why you wouldn't.

Bleach Deluxe

Now look at this and drool. You want it, you need it, you gotta have it: Sub Pop's deluxe edition of Nirvana's Bleach, available November 3.

Don’t miss out because it’ll be gone before you know it, swooped away by a bunch of vultures who’ll nibble on the edges of the outer sleeves and then sell them on eBay for ridiculous amounts of your hard-earned dough.

Super-Special-Ultra-Mega

Look at this and wonder: "Why doesn't Brother Stephen own this beautiful piece of art? It obviously has his name written all over it. What gives?"

I’ll tell you what gives: This version of Cold Cave's Death Comes Close EP is a pretty-much-impossible-to-get-super-special-ultra-mega-limited edition, and I just happened to blink while it was getting sold out.

What?! Don't look at me like that. Sometimes a dude has to blink. You'd think by now I would have people on the case for me, like a bunch of elves, or something, that would ease my weary mind and hook me up. But…

CMH

Even better than the STAX museum in Memphis however, is the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. I had friends in Nashville give me the whole rap about… “You don’t have to even know the music to love the museum”…to which I rolled my eyes, but it’s actually true. The CMH integrates music so beautifully in the museum. It could be an utter disaster in there musically, with listening stations bleeding into each other until it’s just a cacophony of noise. But through the intelligent uses of curled Nautilus shell shaped listening booths that control the sound yet still allow the listener to…

John Surman's <I>Brewster's Rooster</I>

John Surman, a saxophonist of jazz, folk, church, and avant-garde influences, has been a longtime denizen in the ECM stable without gaining much renown. When he recently played at a New York club, leading a rhythm section of guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Jack DeJohnette, he acknowledged to the crowd that he was the only player who needed introducing.

The same band plays on Surman’s latest CD, Brewster’s Rooster, and it’s the ensemble mix that makes it such a diverting pleasure. On the album’s best tracks, including the opener, “Slanted Sky,” Surman (on…

Truth + Beauty + Jazz = Herman Leonard

Gracing the 5th floor lobby of Jazz At Lincoln Center for another few months is an exhibition of the great photographer Herman Leonard, whose images of jazz musicians at work deserve the overused term “iconic.”

At recording sessions, nightclub gigs, on stage, backstage, between cuts, or in the heat of the moment, Leonard captured the spirit, joy, and intensity of the music and its whole culture more evocatively and empathically than anyone else.

His classic work comes from the late 1940s and ‘50s, featuring the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Louis…

Live Versus Recorded

A gang of Giyas prepare to stick it to a Steinway.

Friday–Saturday, November 6–7, 6pm: Stealth Audio (17600 Bowie Mill Road, Derwood, Maryland) will host a “Live Versus Recorded” music recital. In the “Live” corner, pianist George Vatchnadze will tickle the ivories of a Steinway Model D. In the “Recorded” corner, Stereophile editor John Atkinson will be packing the usual heat: mics and DACs and cables and stuff.

Vatchnadze will play and Atkinson will record. Guests will first be entertained by the live performance, then get to hear the recorded version through a hi-fi…