Our always adventuresome friends at Starkland have outdone themselves this time with an ambitious  65-minute studio composition by Phil Kline commissioned specifically for high-resolution surround sound and DVD.  Around the World in a Daze offers Kline’s trademark boombox choirs, as well as (it says here) “an ethereal Ethel string quartet, a weird madrigal, hyper-dense bells (hundreds of thousands at one point), richly mournful multi-tracked vocals, soaring violinistics from Todd Reynolds, and an immersive environment of 15,000 African gray parrots.”

I’m a big fan of innovative packaging (this is one of my all-time favorite books) and Daze is an amazing example of cool presentation. The custom‑designed double digipak includes an Extras disc with a composer-produced music video, a 30-minute interview with Kline and John Schaefer, as well as a 24-page booklet.  Release date is March 24. (Yes, I know I had 4 before.)

Ok, let’s have a contest.  The first person who can correctly guess the two-part 20th century piano sonata that I would like someone like Blair or Jenny or Sarah to play at my memorial service (not currently on the calendar, as far as I know) gets a copy of Around the World in a Daze.  One small catch–you have to write a little review that we’ll publish here on the frontpage so the rest of us will know what you thought.