‘We’re going to have a tonal centre and tap our feet, and that’s the way it is.’ Steve Reich is in full flow, talking to me from his home in New York. ‘The big break, the knife down the line, was betw

Let’s start at the peak of the price list. In October last year, Steinway & Sons released the Ultra Black and Ultra White Limited Editions. Produced at the Steinway factory in Hamburg, just 52 instrum

LATE-FIFTIES OIL CAN echoes are fascinating pieces of gear. Imagine a rotating disk submerged in oil and built-in pickups that work in tandem to recreate the delay. Sounds a little wacky, right? But s

It’s so fitting, so pleasingly right, that if it weren’t true, you’d just have to make it up. The word ‘laul’ means ‘song’ in Estonian; and since Dr Indrek Laul is the maker of a brand of instrument a

I HAVE HAD a subscription to Octane for over 20 years, but I read with even more pleasure than usual your feature on driving a Lancia Lambda to Varallo in North Italy. It brought back many marvellous

Massively inclined engine, five valves per cylinder and almost vertical intakes. So is Yamaha’s FZ750 something truly special?