Ariel Bitran

I would be ashamed of myself if I did not share this with you.

Have you heard enough about Matmos from the Stereophile boys yet? Probably. Truth be told, upon first listen I didn't really like their new record The Marriage of True Minds. I found it aimless (I prefer music with intent), but I'll let Stephen tell you how he grew to love it in our upcoming April issue. Meanwhile, this remix has me thinking I should give the record another listen.

No, this will not be another monologue where I profess my undying love for Larry, our house cat, the furry little monster with a taste for human flesh and a weird fascination with the refrigerator. Larry is a music lover too. Ever since he was a kitten, we surrounded him with the sounds of Yes, Flying Lotus, and Dvorak, and now his long legs fumble into any room where music is playing. Larry will then sprawl himself out, close his eyes, and listen along.

Alright. I've broken my promise already by talking too much about Larry.

It opens in a field or maybe an orchestra house. Pastoral and slow-moving strings set the stage. Written as a musical accompaniment to Sebastian Hartmann’s theater adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Apparat’s Krieg Und Frieden is desolate yet tinged with reflection and hope, like Wyeth’s Christina’s World or the ending to a Kurosawa film. Harmonies in continuous ascent intersect with subdued blasts of air and dirt. The occasional soulful vocal provides a lyrical back-story to the desolation: “Deserted hopes / Deserted eyes / Deserted souls / Deserted lies,” and then an alternative, “Turn a light on, Turn a light on.” Like Tolstoy’s work, the listener is never sure if the music is about suffering or the triumph within the pain.

In the second installation of this series, the Beast invites Wolverine to his listening room.

I'm running sound at a new DIY venue in Brooklyn called The LAB, and I snag some weird stuff. Here's a sample…

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Trevor Peterson arrived with a guitar and a bevy of pedals and samplers. With the help of adaptable computer music softwares like Ableton and Logic and popular hardware like the Roland SP-404SX or the Akai APC40, the combinations of technologies passing through the Lab morphs constantly.

This morning, I revisited Stereophile's office sample of Beats Studio headphones ($299.95).

At one point, my naive ears loved these headphones.