Stephen Mejias

I approached The xx’s self-titled debut with caution. The hype surrounding it was enough to turn me away. I remember talking about the record with Karen at Other Music. “It’s definitely one of those albums that polarizes people,” she said.

Soon, though, it became unavoidable. I might be able to hide from it at home, but I couldn’t escape it at work. By the middle of 2010, a hi-fi show wasn’t complete without The xx.

Cosmogramma, Flying Lotus’s adventurous 2010 release felt, and still feels, like a sonic joy ride, a fusion of jazz, pop, funk, and electronic music styles. Complex, playful, and sophisticated, Cosmogramma conjures 8-bit video games and Saturday morning cartoons as much as it does 1950s sci-fi, 1970s Impulse jazz, 1990s house&#151all while sounding entirely advanced, connected, soulful.

How do you follow up something like that?

Reader Robert Stewart shares “A King’s Ransom from Queens,” a truly remarkable, eclectic record collection soon to be available from Amoeba Records.

I can’t wait for this one to be released on a physical format, preferably orange vinyl (please, Island Def Jam?), but we can stream Frank Ocean’s prog/R&B/soul/funk/quiet storm epic, Channel Orange, right now via his tumblr.

From time to time, I’ve written about my interest in cassettes. While I still haven’t purchased a Nakamichi cassette deck&#151the decks are out there, I’m just waiting for the right time and the right deck&#151I’ve nevertheless kept an eye on cassette trends. For a long while, I saw very specific, very underground labels releasing tapes; and, though new cassette-only labels seemed to pop up regularly, those, too, were extremely underground and extremely independent.

Grizzly Bear’s next album will be released by Warp Records on September 17&#151one day after my birthday. Nice. Judging from the album’s lead track, “Sleeping Ute,” it’s going to be another great record and an impressive follow-up to 2009’s spectacular Veckatimest.

With New York City temperatures rising into the high 90s this afternoon, there’s no doubt that summer has officially arrived. And summer means great live music. Ask Stereophile’s editorial assistant, Ariel Bitran, who returned to the office all bronze-skinned and bleary-eyed after attending the recent Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tennessee. (He’s been wearing sandals ever since.) And, while I can understand and appreciate the desire to get away from the City during these summer months, I’m happy to know that New York will be home to another major outdoor music fest: The first Catalpa Festival will be held this July 28th and 29th, from 1 to 11pm, on Randall’s Island.