Just when we are about to lose faith in the music industry’s ability to understand that we the consumers are asking for more audio performance from the $16 disc we buy, we find an AIX Records. One could call them an “audiophile” record label, but that wouldn’t be completely fair, considering the spirit of the recordings. They are much more. AIX Records, the brainchild of producer and engineer Mark Waldrep, is a label designed to highlight what is possible in high-resolution surround sound music. They almost exclusively create their own music, unlike other fine record labels such as DTS and Silverline, which focus more on remixing and remastering existing and classic material. Ask anyone with a 5.1 home theater who loves surround sound for music and they will tell you they need all of these labels (and many more – yes, we are talking about you major labels who don’t put out ...

  “In sixty-nine I was twenty-one And I called the road my own I don't even know when that road Turned onto the road I'm on.... You know I don't even know What I'm hoping to find Running into the sun But I'm running behind.” Jackson Browne was very much an unsung poet laureate of the heart and soul of young America in the ‘70s, as exemplified by songs like “A Child in These Hills’ and the elegant ecology anthem “Before the Deluge.” Running On Empty, Browne’s fifth album, was in a sense the culmination of his early songwriting burst of brilliance that had started with “These Days” and evolved into remarkable albums like For Everyman, Late for the Sky, and the commercial break-out The Pretender. Here, however, though at the peak of his popularity, he was starting to run a little thin on ideas. Since his classic paean “Take It Easy,” cowritten with ...

  Simple Minds holds a clear place in history, but it seems to be less a place in musical history than it is a place in the history of popular culture. Once Upon a Time and New Gold Dream are separate Simple Minds albums that have each been re-released in a DTS DVD-Audio format. The sound is very good, needless to say (more on that later), but I’ll point out here that Once Upon a Time is the most famous Simple Minds album, though it does not contain the most famous song by the group. That song, and the place in popular history it holds, is titled “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” the distinctively Simple Minds-sounding track that the movie “The Breakfast Club” made famous. That song does not appear on either of these albums, though, and I fear that these remarkable recordings of what was once a very promising though under-realized group ...

  Simple Minds holds a clear place in history, but it seems to be less a place in musical history than it is a place in the history of popular culture. Once Upon a Time and New Gold Dream are separate Simple Minds albums that have each been re-released in a DTS DVD-Audio format. The sound is very good, needless to say (more on that later), but I’ll point out here that Once Upon a Time is the most famous Simple Minds album, though it does not contain the most famous song by the group. That song, and the place in popular history it holds, is titled “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” the distinctively Simple Minds-sounding track that the movie “The Breakfast Club” made famous. That song does not appear on either of these albums, though, and I fear that these remarkable recordings of what was once a very promising though under-realized group ...

  Thank God for computers and the Internet -- you know, those things we slaves to Bill Gates curse all the time? Without all that comprehensive information that I remembered to turn to only at the last minute, you, the knowledgeable reader, would have most likely been distracted from the immense praise I'm going to pile on this brilliant band Porcupine Tree and their honkin' new album, Deadwing, by the silly little detail that they are not, as I've been telling everyone, this great new British group with an ass-kickin' debut. Maybe I carried that thought because I had never heard or read word one about them. Nor had any of my tuned-in music buddies. How could anyone this good be completely unknown unless they're new? Turns out Porcupine Tree has been releasing albums since 1989 … NINETEEN-EIGHTY-NINE!! 13 albums, 10 EPs, 13 limited editions, 13 promotionals and they’re included on 11 compilations. Busy ...