Producers Steve Albini and Michael Cuscuna, two key figures from the music world who departed in recent months, richly deserve to be celebrated.
Though they worked in widely disparate genres-Cuscuna primarily in jazz, Albini in punk and noise rock-they are connected by their extraordinary efforts and unfailing taste. Both were exacting, dedicated, and supremely talented. Without the passion and obsessive nature of this one-of-a-kind pair, such records as Nirvana's In Utero and Mosaic Records' boxed sets, including The Blue Note Hank Mobley Fifties Sessions, to name just two examples, would not exist. Cuscuna and Albini were guides and molders, shaping music and our perceptions of it.
Raised in Missoula, Montana, Steve Albini was into music early, playing in the Montana band Just Ducky before moving to Chicago to go to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. While there, he wrote for various local 'zines that covered the punk-rock scene and spent time at a side hustle in a photography studio while continuing to play electric guitar and learn about sound. He described himself as the one guy in the band who "could explain to the sound man how loud we want the bass drum." His bands Big Black, and later Rapeman and Shellac, played noisy punk-rock and had small but devoted followings. Albini died 10 days before the release of Shellac's sixth album, To All Trains.
Already the engineer of choice for '90sera Chicago-area bands including Veruca Salt and Urge Overkill, Albini made his name when he recorded the Pixies' Surfer Rosa (1988) and The Wedding Present's Seamonsters (1991). In 1993, he engineered Rid of Me for PJ Harvey and In Utero for Nirvana. He opened his Chicago recordingstudio complex, Electrical Audio, in 1997.
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Michael Des Barres and the Art of Aural Obsession
Listening to music inspires us to take action. Upon hearing an I.E.-Instant Earworm-we must then determine the best way we can go about listening to it again (and again) at our convenience.
PLANET OF SOUND
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T+A R 2500 R STREAMING RECEIVER PHONO MODULE
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Audia Flight FLS10
The dogma of separates has long reigned supreme among audiophiles: If you're serious about sound quality, you're supposed to need a dedicated preamp and power amp.
Totem Acoustic Element Fire V2
Totem Acoustic was founded in 1987, in Montreal, Canada, by a former high school math teacher named Vince Bruzzese. The company's first product, the Model 1 loudspeaker,' impressed me so much I bought a pair.
MoFi Electronics MasterDeck
Get two mouthy jazz drummers in a room and watch the sparks fly. Talented turntable designer Allen Perkins, the brain behind Spiral Groove,2 Immedia's RPM turntables,³ and various SOTA models, is first and foremost a jazz drummer.
Soulution 727
AImost 14 years have passed since a review of a Soulution product appeared in the pages of Stereophile.\"
The Spin Doctor checks out the Kuzma Safir 9, a superarm from Slovenia.
The British audio scene from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s was pretty strange. Audio as a hobby was a big deal, with widespread appeal to a much younger crowd than today. Audiophiles were guided by a flurry of what my friends called \"hi-fi pornos,\" audio magazines that filled the racks at the newsagents.
Alex goes to Japan
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.
Wilson Audio Specialties The WATT/Puppy
Since the original WATT/Puppy concept kicked off in the late 1980s,' there has been a 40-year evolution leading to the latest version reviewed here.
