Stephen Mejias

If there's an audio company that has it all, it's Jade Design, parent of Emotiva, Emotiva Pro, and Sherbourn. Before my visit to the company headquarters, in Franklin, Tennessee, I had invariably seen in the company's founder, Dan Laufman, a special kind of contentment, an ease, a happiness. Or was he merely arrogant? I couldn't be sure.

Measuring 7.1" by 1.6" by 9.1" and with an attractive paper-over-board cover, [Talking Heads founder] David Byrne's boldly titled new book resembles the textbooks often found in public-school classrooms. If not for the author's brief lapses into street talk—he uses the word shit just a bit too freely for the youngest readers—one gets the impression that Byrne wouldn't mind having his book taught in elementary school. He quotes from Oliver Sacks's brilliant Musicophilia: "For the vast majority of students, music can be every bit as important educationally as reading or writing."

Today’s payday. These are the albums I bought.

It was around 9:30am on Monday, November 12, when my plane landed in gray and chilly London. I managed to get through Customs with nothing more than the usual amount of stress and embarrassment, satisfactorily answering all of the agent’s odd questions. That out of the way, I next had to find my host&#151KEF’s head of brand development, Johan Coorg. Because my cell phone wasn’t working, I was worried that I’d be left stranded at Heathrow, but I recognized Coorg immediately: At the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show, he had introduced me to the stunning KEF Muon, and, at KEF’s lavish 50th Anniversary celebration, he had introduced me to a delicious Pimm’s Cup. Now he was standing casually at the Arrivals gate. He wore a dark brown blazer, striped button-down shirt, gold cufflinks, faded blue jeans, shiny leather shoes, and a look of comfort. He was busy pressing buttons on an iPhone.

“Johan,” I said.

“Hello! You made it!”

He led me from the airport, through the parking garage, and to an impressive black Mercedes. After loading our bags into the trunk, I instinctively walked around to the right-hand side of the car and nearly opened the door.

“Wrong side, mate. Unless you want to drive.”

It was a mistake I’d make a few more times before our three-day trip was over.

I started this Payday Albums project in January. By February, I’d already fallen behind. So, let’s play catch-up:

Today’s payday. These are the albums I bought.

Tales of a GrassWidow, CocoRosie’s fifth full-length album and first since 2010’s excellent Grey Oceans, is scheduled to be released on May 28th. The album is being self-released, features appearances by Antony Hegarty, and was produced by CocoRosie with extraordinary Icelandic composer Valgeir Sigurdsson&#151so I expect greatness in sound and music.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Cassettivity, the new cassette-only distribution site. At the time, Cassettivity had 10 labels on its roster; now it has 14. You can also now sort Cassettivity’s offerings by “ease of listening." I think that’s cool. Currently, Cassettivity’s easiest listening experience can be found in Manchester’s The Potomac (Sixteen Tambourines), while the hardest comes via Yvonne Lovejoy’s Voice Studies 8: This is Yvonne Lovejoy (My Dance the Skull).