The S&V Interview

The very idea of an Isley Brothers–Santana mashup appears to be quite the sonic dream team on paper, and I’m more than pleased to report the proof is abundantly clear in the grooves of Power of Peace’s baker’s dozen of tasty tunes. I sat down exclusively at the fabled Electric Lady Studios in the heart of Greenwich Village in New York City with both families — i.e., the Santanas (Carlos and Cindy) and the Isleys (Ernie and Ronald) — to discuss the best way to listen to Power of Peace, the DNA behind the album’s sonic template, and what each family plans on doing next.

Believe it or not, even Little Steven—Bruce Springsteen’s longtime guitar foil and songwriting soundboard in The E Street Band, and the decorated Godfather of the Underground Garage and Outlaw Country radio formats—feels the need to recharge the creative batteries every now and then. “This record turned out to be a really wonderful reset, reintroduction, and rebirth of myself,” Little Steven admits about his first solo album in 18 years, Soulfire (Wicked Cool/UMe). “It was a wonderful opportunity to start again, and really show my roots in a way I had never done before. I mean, I never put a blues song on a record before, I never did a doo-wop song before, and I never did a cover of anybody before I did this thing!”

15 Minutes with the Society for Information Display’s Dr. Taka Tsujimura

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the OLED display, we reached out to Dr. Taka Tsujimura at the Society for Information Display (SID) to discuss the past, present, and future of a TV technology whose future looks nearly as bright as it did three decades ago when researchers cobbled together the first practical OLED device.

It was 50 years ago today that. . . well, you, of course, know the rest, don’t you? For on this storied day of June 1, 1967, The Beatles transformed the album format into an artform virtually overnight when they released the long-anticipated Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. To get a relatively balanced perspective on Sgt. Pepper at age 50, I spoke with both producer Giles Martin and Little Steven Van Zandt about the album's impact on both sides of the Pond.

You may not have heard of Bruno Putzeys but if you’re an audiophile and have purchased a high-performance power amplifier in the recent past, you might know his work. Putzey’s ground-breaking NCore Class D amplifier module, created under the aegis of Netherlands-based Hypex Electronics, is used in amplifiers from ATI, Marantz, Jeff Rowland, and Bel Canto, to name a few. That Morris Kessler, founder of ATI and long-time champion of Class AB amplification, chose NCore for his new AT527NC and AT524NC amplifiers, is telling. Both models received Sound & Vision’s Top Pick designation, earning five stars in the Performance category, suggesting designs that are a far cry from Class D devices of just a few years ago. We tracked down Putzeys, now CTO at Kii Audio, to learn more about the new Class D and the apparent revolution he has started.

15 Minutes with HDMI Forum Chairman Chris Pasqualino

When HDMI hit the scene in 2003 it was welcomed as a godsend, enabling enthusiasts to replace a rat’s nest of audio and video cables with a single connection. The specification has evolved steadily over the years to keep pace with the ever-changing AV landscape and encountered a few bumps along the way. In January, the HDMI Forum announced Version 2.1, a forward-looking upgrade of the current HDMI 2.0b spec. We recently caught up with HDMI Forum Chairman Chris Pasqualino to learn about the implications of HDMI 2.1 now and in the future.

With Genesis essentially in the rearview mirror save for reissues and other archival material, Mike Rutherford, the consummate songwriter/guitarist/bassist, has focused his energies on ensuring Mike + The Mechanics remains a going concern. To that end, Rutherford and his Mechanics have collectively tinkered under the hood to engineer the quite-fine-indeed-sounding Let Me Fly (The End/BMG), out on April 7. Rutherford, 66, called in to discuss his approach to Fly, how he thinks you should listen to it, and why he no longer sings his own material.