Recent Articles
Music,
All Shook Down
Whether playing back a symphony or heavy metal sludge, headphones such as the V-Moda Crossfade Wireless, Plantronics BackBeat PRO+ or Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 Wireless, all of which I wrote about earlier this week, make sure there is no murk…
@All Shook Down
by Tony Ware
December 31, 2015 @ 3:00 pm
Tags: Lists, speakers, marshall, 2015, Video
Music,
All Shook Down
This year, it felt like I didn’t even have time to blink before retail went from pumpkins to peppermints and flurries of Beats By Dre discounts started showering across the Internet like so much white noise. There is no…
@All Shook Down
by Tony Ware
December 28, 2015 @ 9:00 am
Tags: Lists, headphones, wireless, bluetooth, v-moda, crossfade, plantronics, PRO+, SENSE, sennheiser, MOMENTUM, oppo, PM-3, hifiman, HE-400S, beyerdynamic, 770, AKG, K712, black metal, cubicles, AptX, AAC+
Music,
All Shook Down
Band: Deafheaven Record: New Bermuda Label: ANTI- Deafheaven is not a lot of things to a lot of people. The California-based quintet — tagged black metal, shoegazer, indie rock, post-hardcore, screamo and/or post-rock, depending on outlet — is considered not true…
@All Shook Down
by Tony Ware
October 7, 2015 @ 12:20 pm
Tags: Local Releases, Reviewed, Deafheaven
Music,
Lorin Ashton's future holds sold-out arenas and packed festival grounds, but his past is full of empty spaces. There were the various beaches, the artichoke fields in Watsonville, the wooded hillsides — all places that Ashton helped scout out as…
by Tony Ware
September 23, 2015
Tags: Music
Music,
Hear This
In 1997, Failure could not have been more aptly named. Emotionally beleaguered and commercially stalled despite tours with Tool and critical acclaim, the space-rock trio split while just hitting a peak of inflammatory riffs and ignitable textures. Now, 19 years…
by Tony Ware
August 26, 2015
Tags: Hear This
Music,
All Shook Down
Even if audio streaming services haven’t been in your headphones over the last few months, they’ve undoubtedly been in your newsfeed. Sure, you might have missed when, in March, Jay-Z and his cadre of photo opportunists (Kanye, Madonna, Jack…
@All Shook Down
by Tony Ware
August 12, 2015 @ 10:26 am
Tags: Helpful Advice, Hi-Res Audio, TIDAL, Spotify, Apple, Apple Music, streaming, audiophile, headphones, earphones, in-ear monitors, planar magnetic, digital audio converter, Bluetooth, portable speakers, OPPO Digital, HiFiMAN, Audez'e, Logitech UE, Griffin Technology, Sennheiser, Plantronics, Apogee, Celsus Sound, NuForce, Beats By Dre, Dr. Dre, Beats Music, Sonic Studio, Jay-Z, Mountain View, Cupertino
Best of San Francisco,
Arts & Entertainment
hardkissmusic.com Hardkiss Music successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign to reissue a 20th anniversary remaster of Delusions of Grandeur, a long out-of-print double album of hallucinatory acid funk that revives a hedonistic, idealistic, outlaw era. Nowadays EDM is burning up the…
by Tony Ware
May 6, 2015
Music,
All Shook Down
So, you exited Christmas flush with gift cards and $12 checks from grandma. You poured over all the “Best of 2014” lists and hit up iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, etc., to cherry-pick albums you missed. As one of your New…
@All Shook Down
by Tony Ware
March 27, 2015 @ 11:56 am
Tags: Tech, CES, NAMM, Hi-Res Audio, PonoPlayer, PonoMusic, Neil Young, HDtracks, TIDAL, Spotify, streaming, audiophile, headphones, earphones, A-Audio, Sennheiser, Audio-Technica, V-MODA, Celsus Sound, Beats By Dre, Dr. Dre, Bluetooth
Music,
All Shook Down
Oakland tech-house producer Ben Versluis has been working under the moniker Worker/Parasite since 2010, sequencing systolic cadences, squelches, inversions and fibrillations into insistent robofunk. His serrated, driving, live-to-tape aesthetic balances gritty naïveté with graphic precision. Having worked with a variety of…
@All Shook Down
by Tony Ware
March 2, 2015 @ 8:05 am
Tags: Q&A, Video
Music,
Hear This
Julio Bashmore emerged from Bristol producing impeccably machined throwback house. His bouncy, synth-stabbed and cymbal-driven four-on-the-floor and reverb-washed disco gained early support from San Francisco's own Claude VonStroke and his Dirtybird imprint, followed by tremendous critical and commercial success with…
by Tony Ware
July 29, 2014
Tags: Hear This, Mezzanine
Music,
Hear This
Immunity, the latest album by East London sound designer Jon Hopkins, opens with the sound of someone unlocking a reverberant space. Whether it's a field recording of Hopkins entering his Hackney home studio or a more figurative entrance, the feeling…
by Tony Ware
July 23, 2014
Tags: Hear This, Show Preview, Mezzanine
