search

Fortunately, the two…

A health crisis was the catalyst for Matt Thomas to start Hearken Audio: A back injury caused temporary paralysis. "For lack of a better word, it was an experience," he told me in a recent phone conversation. He's now fully recovered, but the experience changed him. He decided to pursue his passion. He was already an avid audiophile and music lover; he had been…

If there's one word that best describes the sound of the Boston-bred alt-rock quartet known as Pixies, it has to be "dynamics." It's a musical milieu Pixies have deftly presented for 37 years and counting, right from the outset of the sinister janglefest known as "Caribou," the opening track on their inaugural September 1987 EP on 4AD, Come On Pilgrim.

From there, short, sanguine, sweet, succinctly titled songs like "Debaser," "Velouria," "Monkey Gone to Heaven," "Gigantic," "Here Comes Your Man," "Gouge Away," and "Where Is My Mind?" have all served to cement…

Mettler: : Are there some places where you're just singing vowel sounds and not even thinking about forming words where you'll go, "This is an 'ahh,' this is an 'eee,' this is an 'ohh,'" and then you go back into it to figure out the actual words?

Francis: : Sure. Exactly. I may even write in some of those vowel sounds on a piece of paper, or on my phone, and then begin to organize them in sequence of a rhyming scheme—whatever it is. Sometimes those sounds are very important, because they're the one thing I have going on in a song that's solid. I might have just a sound there,…

Arriving in Japan from the United States is like being turned upside down. This condition lasts for much of the first week. When I visited in November, the time difference between Tokyo and New York was 14 hours. "The floating world" is a term for the pleasure-addled urban culture of Edo-period Japan, but it's also an apt description for the twilit and not-entirely-unpleasant weirdness of first arriving in Tokyo. Everything seems slightly unreal.

I'd come to Japan for several reasons, one of which was simply to spend more time in what for me is the most enjoyable…

I was curious to see how jazz kissaten had inspired other kinds of listening spaces, and a few nights later, following a tip from a friend who had recently moved to Tokyo, I went to Studio Mule. Located on the fourth floor of a homely little building in Shibuya, the sleekly lit space is organized around a wraparound granite bar and a glass wall displaying thousands of bottles of natural wine, most from France and Italy. The interior, I learned, is the work of renowned designer Koichi Futatsumata, best known for his collaborations with Australian beauty brand Aesop…

The main focus of this Follow-Up will be the phono preamplifier on the Simaudio Moon 891 ($25,000). In his January 2025 review, JVS did not review the phono stage because he doesn't play vinyl. JA did examine the 891's phono section, declaring it of a piece with the preamp's overall "state of the art" measured performance. While I had the unit in-house, I also spent some time with the Moon MiND app, the 891's front-panel user interface, and streaming music through it with and without Roon.

Once I'd wrestled the fall-apart packaging to…

The Violent Femmes have long been known for their groundbreaking work in the post-punk and alt-country genres. This seminal record, first released in 1984, has long been celebrated for its inherent innovation, exploring American roots music through the lens of traditional folk influences and their own band's distinctive style. Here the band was joined by banjo virtuoso Tony…

Press notes describe this music as "mirroring the deep tensions of a troubled era." It is especially troubled for someone whose home country is Israel. That is where Avishai Cohen composed his five-part suite for this album. He wrote it soon after the Hamas attack on Israel and the outbreak of war in October 2023. He says that he worked "…

Film soundtracks are a broad canvas that can open many new possibilities as well as challenges for modern composers. On one hand, having an accompanying image allows for expressive freedom, but that is often offset by the often-brief duration of cues. Brief, allusive bursts can make for a jumpy, disjointed album…