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Stream Baby Stream: <i>The Cherry Thing</i>

Courtesy Neneh Cherry and The Thing

The Cherry Thing, the surprising album from vocalist Neneh Cherry and free-jazz trio The Thing (Mats Gustafsson on saxophones, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten on bass, Paal Nilssen-Love on drums) will be released by Smalltown Supersound on June 19th.

We listened to “Dream Baby Dream” and watched the video for “Accordion,” and now, thanks to NPR’s First Listen series, we can stream The Cherry Thing in its entirety.

If you like what you hear, you might also enjoy Four Tet’s “Dream Baby Dream” remix.

My full review of The…

Video: Ryan Teague's "Cascades"

Here’s the video for “Cascades” from Ryan Teague’s Field Drawings.

Directed and produced by Craig Ward, the video is enchanting, magical, strange. What are those delicate white lines? Icicles? Spider webs? Crystals? The press release offers only a cryptic explanation: “The movements of a music-box ballerina are reinterpreted in a groundbreaking video for British composer Ryan Teague using electromagnetic fields, subzero temperatures, and 2000 volts of electricity.”

A behind-the-scenes look offers more clues:

Craig Ward explains:

When I…

Register to Win Rega’s RP1 turntable and Fono Mini A2D phono preamp

When I started writing “The Entry Level,” my column on truly affordable hi-fi gear, I knew that the first turntable I’d feature would be the Rega RP1 ($445). In our February 2011 issue, I decided that the RP1 “looks good, is easy to set up, and plays records like it means it.”

I still feel that way, but, if you’d like a second opinion, Art Dudley provided a complete equipment report in our May 2011 issue. Art concluded, “[The RP1 is] well-made, attractive, apparently durable, and demonstrably superior to any other self-standing audio source at its price. Perhaps best of all, the RP-1…

Looking Forward: Dinosaur Jr. Returns with <i>I Bet on Sky</i>

Dinosaur Jr., one of the world’s greatest rock bands, returns on September 18 with I Bet on Sky.

This is the band’s third album since the original trio (the possessed J. Mascis on guitar, sexy librarian Lou Barlow on bass, and merciless Murph on drums) reunited in 2005, and it’s their 10th full-length since their 1985 Homestead Records debut. Amazing to think that we’ve enjoyed nearly 30 years of this blistering, pummeling music, this distinct and soaring sound. Even more amazing to know that nearly 30 years is hardly enough.

I Bet on Sky will be available from Jagjaguwar…

A Fun Set o’Cans: Sennheiser HD 428s

“Dude. Whatever,” jabbed my drummer.

“But I need new over-ears,” I pleaded.

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Nothing, I guess. Maybe show some sympathy?”

“Fuck off.”

It was getting serious. I was getting my drummer involved, but he didn’t care.

He didn’t care that my Sony MDR-V150s distorted at high volumes and always pinched out a chunk of hair from my balding scalp after I took them off. He didn’t understand that my favorite Grado SR60s (More SR60 links: Corey Greenberg’s review and Jim Austin’s review) had a broken earpiece frame…

Video: Kindness's "House"

This makes me happy. What more can we ask from a simple pop song?

The video for "House" from Kindness's debut full-length, World, You Need a Change of Mind. The single will be released by Casablanca/Terrible on June 19th.

And you can stream the entire "House" EP right here, right now:

Listening #114

In spite of having one end of my listening room devoted entirely to record shelving, there are now 15 cartons of LPs and 78rpm records scattered throughout my house, said bounty enduring as a source of distress for The Management. That prompted me to set about building a new record cabinet and equipment support to handle the spillover. That prompted me to take a fresh look at how my records are catalogued. And that prompted me to cull from my collection every mono record I own, thinking I would keep them separate from the rest.

I was suffering one of those delusions of wisdom—in…

Listening #114 Page 2

Before cracking open the Robyatt transformer, I guessed that its Hi/Low switch settings were intended for high- and low-output cartridges, respectively: the high-output/high-impedance EMT sounded best into the former (although the differences were small), while the low-output/low-impedance Miyabi Mono sounded best into the latter (and those distinctions were considerable). The Miyajima, with its 6 ohm impedance and 0.7mV output, sounded a little louder through the Robyatt transformer's Hi setting; that said, although it didn't need the extra gain—there was more than enough with the…

Listening #114 The List of the Month

Sidebar 1: The List of the Month

Audiophiles of a certain age, myself included, find it difficult to forget those dreary years when mass-market magazines were all we had to read, and when the magazines in question led us to believe that their laboratory tests said everything one needed to know about a product's sound. We find it difficult to forget, and even harder to forgive—but I think it's time to finally let go. (Besides, I have yet to find a lawyer who specializes in recovering repressed audiophile memories.) So in an effort to let the healing begin, here, in alphabetical order, is…

Listening #114 Contacts

Sidebar 2: Contacts

Miyajima Laboratory/Otono-Edison, 1-45-111, Katae 5-chome, Jounan-ku, Fufuoka 814-0142, Japan. Web: www.miyajima-lab.com
Tektron Italia. Tel: (39) 335-6693-597. Fax: (39) 06-6220-4300. Tel./Fax (US): (530) 430-3929. Web: www.tektron-italia.com
US Distributor (both): Robyatt Audio, Basking Ridge, NJ. Tel: (855) 762-9288, (908) 334-3241. Fax: (866) 576-3912. Web: www.robyattaudio.com