Another one bites the dust... Link here. But on the plus side, Telarc's old stock has been surfacing in cut-out bins for quite some time; expect another round of cheap goodies.

You need a voodoo wasp from French Polynesia. Story here -- will prove to be an inspiration of B-horror scriptwriters and "survival game" designers.

Beautiful worlds under the microscope, and sometimes polarised light. See the award winners here. Although my favorite (as well as the favorite of net voters) did not make it to the final 20

By "it" I mean releasing huge, industrial-strength, box-set at near-bargain price. 30 CDs, 50 recordings of complete works (with a leaning towards Baroque), plus a CD-rom of sung texts. Amazon has it for $90.

The results are out. I don't buy new, premium-priced recordings and so have no opinion on any of the award winners, but I'm sure people here are interested in the results.

Wondering if they taste good; looks like an ecological trouble though.

Just to share this amusing little clip.

Argo Records may not be a familiar label to many, but they used to be a wonderful source for lovers of out-of-the-mainstream British and American Classical music. Understandably, these are not particularly lucrative ventures, and they had to close doors in the late 90s. Since then, however...

Just found some local stores doing clearance on Concord Jazz titles, and I've already got quite a few CDs of Poncho Sanchez (conga), Tito Puente (latin jazz), and Rosemary Clooney (standards). As many of the artists are not familar to me, I'm wondering if anyone here can point me to the goodies...

An interesting research by an Austrian team has shown that master violin makers , who choose their wood based on age-old criteria such as color and grain, often fail to pick up the wood that performs best acoustically on laboratory measurement. Now it is up to these material scientists to...

This time by the German research ministry, who did a large literature review on published data. As to the effect of music training on children's IQ, the jury's still out.

Predictably, the DG reissues are significant improvements over the previous incarnations; certainly a must for any Joyce Hatto fans. Happy April 1st!

Just saw a performance of Tango. The dancers were spectacular, but of course what interested me most was the music. Listening to this wonderful band Orchestra El Arranque playing all-original compositions, I came to the realisation that Tango music is the dance music to end all dance music -- it...

So be careful with what you watch In essence, it was revealed that a long-standing "science documentary" program produced and broadcast by Kansai Telecasting Corporation has been putting false claims in the mouth of non-Japanese scientists, using overdubbing. Some of the fallacious claims...

The Hubble Space Telescope has been in a bad shape for some time; I think all but one of its gyroscopes have been out of order for years. After the Columbia disaster, it was considered too risky to have it repaired. Now, unfortunately, the main camera went out as well.

This is an interesting development in computing research: behold the wonders of the quantum world!

Two days ago, two fairly strong earthquakes have hit the Southwest part of Taiwan. There was widespread damage on land, claiming at least two lives. The earthquakes also destroyed at least 6 undersea fiber-optic cables that carry internet and telephone data. This has practically cut off...

New to the list of A Million Things That Make You Fat -- genes, hormones, stress, McDonalds, etc -- are the bacteria flora in your gut, as this story tells. The consolation that these bugs don't easily pass from person to person.

Ethnic fusion, street style.

This is reported in Opera News. Hope she will get well soon -- she is one of the best exponents of French vocal works nowadays.

Quite a big steaming piece of mind from Peter Jenner, covering such sensitive stuff as DRM, distribution of royalities and licencing arrangement of digital music. Read it here

Bleak prediction. If we let this happen.

According to a survey commissioned by Gramophone. The story is here. Never bought any music files; not owning an mp3 player nor desire for one -- guess I'm more senile than I thought. It is nice to note that mp3 is not hurting sales of classical CDs though.

The news here. Another step towards total domination.

Read the story here. Don't blame Microsoft: they're under pressure.