It really starts to get complicated when the character finds that all the music, literature, and culture he's absorbed in the dream was in fact his own imagination and music in the real world is entirely different, so he sets out to record his own music, the ideas being his, and becomes the most respected musician ever. Or, the plot could delve into the real world's music being much better than that in his imagination.

A film directed by a collective of John Carpenter, the Wachowski Bros., Stanley Kubrick, Tarantino, the Cohens, David Fincher, and Ridley Scott.

Based on the book penned by Mark Z. Danielewski and James Joyce's brain in a jar of Irish wine.

The title is an unpronounceable squiggle.

Falling Down
 

Today has been a day of unsettling revelations and clarity about the world around me.

I'll be the first to confess that I have significant gaping holes in my understanding of contemporary society and culture, but I am doing my very best to overcome this. But from what little understanding I do have, I’ve failed to grasp how our economy functions at all with regard to the creative arts. I could not fathom how digital media markets were still a functional concept in 2016. I've had several discussions in various communities where I posed the question, “how does an industry exist selling goods which are infinitely replicable and distributable at no cost to the consumer?”

Please do not misinterpret my intent - I am a tremendous advocate for compensating content creators for their work, but the current “legitimate” system of compensation is fundamentally broken. Streaming services fail completely at this task, as only .3% of unsigned artists and 2% of signed artists featured on the world’s largest streaming network earn royalties equivalent to or exceeding that of minimum-wage. (The situation is even more dire on the largest media website, YouTube, where the percentages of minimum-wage earners are only .07% of unsigned and .5% of signed artists, respectively.) So in an economy which has completely forsaken the arts, and in light of the inherently ungovernable nature of digital media, I was perplexed how is anyone in the media arts is to make any sort of living.

And the corruption of this system continues with the purchase by the customer, as iTunes media loses 100% of its value after first-sale and purchased content can never be resold. Does this not plainly demonstrate the nonsensical nature of the digital market? How does such a business model sustain itself when it in no way rewards the efforts of the content creators whose product it sells? This was a critical fault of the music industry for nearly half a century where labels engineered a system from which artists could never profit, but which has been infinitely refined to a corrupt perfection with the latest digital model.

And if my understanding of this is at all correct, then I must ask how is this matter not the paramount priority of our culture? Artists are a society’s means of grappling with all the troubles of the world and expressing all the horrors and beauties, both intrinsic and extrinsic, which encompass its very identity. It is how we understand ourselves. Shouldn’t the well-being of the arts be regarded as something of importance?

And the ludicrousness in no way ends with the media marketplace. After today’s conversations, it would appear that my error was apparently in my attempt to apply rationality and reason to an entirely illogical system. We as a nation produce very little, so there is no means of production for the workers to reclaim. Nearly our entire brick and mortar market system is comprised of foreign (or even virtual) goods.

I worked fox a big box corporation in 2012 with entire aisles of empty boxes priced at $30-$300 containing tiny slips of paper with a download code. It made absolutely no sense. Why would a brick and mortar market exist selling literally empty boxes with a markup on a virtual good which you could simply download online, legitimately or otherwise? These industries are consuming themselves and consolidating to fewer and fewer, larger and larger corporations in an effort to maintain a positive cash flow but an ever-increasing percentage of consumers are becoming sensible enough to purchase goods direct from producers or from virtual vendors with no overhead via the web, so the days of corporate brick and mortar are truly numbered. And more and more, mass produced goods have become obsolete with the advent and affordability of on-demand custom consumer goods via services like Redbubble, Skinit, Decalgirl, and a flood of on-demand web-based businesses, rendering the traditional print and textile industries practically irrelevant.

Evidently, in a phantom economy which produces nothing and does not adequately compensate its creators nor its workers, we are all just wage slaves living day in and day out as servants of illusory corporate stability which has no real foundation nor conceivable longevity.

I need a drink.

http://i.imgur.com/wb47yqQ.jpg
Irrelevent adorable puppy in a teacup

Innerspace you should learn to play an instrument

You're gonna have to explain that one. How can you clothe 7 billion people without mass produced goods?

A curious statement! May I ask what inspired that comment?

You were born to play the hurdy gurdy.

Well, there's one thing you can't consume digitally. :)

I was talking to Qwertyy about it earlier. But I could see you playing in some weirdo electronic or folk outfit.

Hey, I'm down to talk about all of this again.

Because people are paying for a good/service, not for the packaging. The cost of manufacture is irrelevant when you're talking about a product of experience. For example, I could walk up to someone and sing a song for them, which wouldn't cost me anything to do. Because the song was made without expense, does that mean it is worthless? Are the feelings evoked in the listener worthless? Are they a fool for giving me a dollar for the experience?

Dude, we get it. Itunes sucks. That's because digital goods are a relatively new market, and new markets are always playgrounds for corporate corruption. Back in the day, railroad workers used to get paid next to nothing, and they were treated like slaves. Now, when the government needs to create or maintain a railroad, the people who work on them aren't beaten and starved, and get paid a fair wage. As markets and industries age they become more stable and regulated. True, corruption will always exist in some capacity, just like how some employers hire illegal immigrants so that they can force them to work for basically free under threat of deportation. But on average, things do get better over time. Bandcamp has already proven that artists don't need a massive streaming conglomerate to sell their music. They can sell it directly to their audience, for whatever price they want, with minimal middle-man fees.

Actually, digital goods can be resold. There are already many websites that pay for Steam keys, as well as digital content unlocked or purchased in-game. Not too long ago, there was a big blow-up over some websites that allowed people to gamble their weapon/skin mods, because it turned out that the people shamelessly advertising it on Youtube failed to disclose that they were the owners, and that the whole system was rigged. Just like with physical goods, digital goods have clearly shown that they have a value, and that people are willing to do whatever it takes to acquire them. Just like how you spend hundreds to find a rare pressing of an album you already own that is aurally identical, so do people buy into seedy websites and drop hundreds of dollars for a chance to win a cosmetic mod that changes nothing about the gameplay. So please, do your homework before you talk about digital media.

Oh, because the exploitation of artists is some new issue? Digital artists who sign on to large streaming networks may make little to nothing, but that's nothing compared to the physical record labels of old who intentionally put artists into debt with recording, pressing, and distribution fees. Things still suck, but not nearly as much as they used to. But yes, I also hope that people stop accepting the exploitation of artists, and demand that they receive fair wages. You should look into how video game programmers and voice actors are treated if you want some homework. Back in the day, some companies refused to even credit them. The man who designed the expertly crafted pre-rendered cutscenes in Silent Hill had to fight tooth and nail just to get his name on the project.

It's called a service economy. You may hate it, but it's what gives you the luxury to sit on the internet and complain about corporations, while waiting for your package of artisinal goods to reach your doorstep.

Someone who works two jobs just to stay alive isn't going to have the time or money for custom artisinal goods, when a one dollar t-shirt from the local thrift store or Walmart serves the same purpose at a fraction of the cost. Mass produced goods are ****ing awesome, because if you don't want them you can ignore them and buy your artisinal goods, but the people who literally need them don't have to pay big bucks just to clothe and feed themselves.

Did you know?

The world sucks. It has always sucked, and it will always suck. The rich will exploit the poor, and the poor will exploit themselves. Artists will struggle, while thieves become kings. All we can do is carry on, and to try to make things at least a little bit better. You may think digital goods are a conundrum, but guess what? They're here, and they're here to stay. Instead of stealing what you want because in your mental calculations you figure you're hurting corporations more than artists, maybe you could try to figure out a way that artists can sell their music without getting screwed? Maybe you could look at the successes and failures of Itunes and Bandcamp, and design a system that's even better, without just throwing your hands up and saying "Digital goods confuse my morality. Let's just make everything free! Now the artists that make a penny per song can make nothing per song! Yay!"

Yo, that better be an independently crafted drink. Don't want to piss off Big Hipster.

Thanks so much, everyone for reading my inane rantings, tolerating my cluelessness, and for contributing your valuable insight. My goal in all this is to develop a better understanding of the world *out there*. As you were each so kind as to read and reply, I'll address each of your comments.

You are quite right, of course. The market for artisanal goods could never, ever sustain a customer base of 7BN people. But that was not my claim. I stated that, “more and more, mass produced goods have become obsolete” and that these newer direct print businesses render “the traditional print and textile industries practically irrelevant.” That data is only relevant in the context of demographics with the ability and potential to make online purchases for reasons of cost-saving, convenience, and the additional bonus of customization. None of those attributes benefit the 2.5 billion people who are more concerned with pressing issues such as clean water and adequate sanitation. But I’ll amend my statement to be more factually precise - e-commerce (including the markets I cited) have had a profoundly negative impact on brick and mortar real-world shopping trends.


WSJ published an article titled, Stores Confront New World of Reduced Shopper Traffic - E-Commerce Not Only Siphons Off Sales, but Changes Shopping Habits and featured some alarming statistics about the massive downward trend in shopping center traffic. In January of 2014 when the piece was published, online sales had increased by more than double the rate of brick-and-mortar sales.

http://i.imgur.com/KtxhpvBl.jpg

So please forgive me for my narrow-sighted claim - it is e-commerce and not artisanal goods which continue to displace the brick and mortar corporate industries.

Yes. Yes, I was. (More on this after Tristan’s comment below.)

I’ll confess a dirty secret here - in art college, I had a 360-degree beard-afro and was captivated by madrigally-inspired prog. There were Tull and Gentle Giant LPs everywhere and I swooned many a lass with my 12-string acoustic guitar. I recorded a few albums back then but I don’t think the reels survived.

But then I left art school, found Eno, took a damn shower, cut my hair, and never looked back.

Funny you should mention music-making - I’m presently building an audio workstation with Ableton Live Suite, Reaktor 6 and a stockpile of VST banks. Now it’ll be MY turn to not get compensated for my work!

Touché.

Fantastic! I love having my eyes opened!

I in no way claimed the content was worthless. I claimed that the business model is wholly unsustainable as there is no incentive for the consumer to use the service. The only possible incentive is supporting the artist, which is entirely illusory as the artist only receives $0.0011 from your purchase. Even if 60 million users collectively decide to ignore the DRM-free, lossless FLAC+.cue+.log copies of the album they’re tripping over on their way to purchase the legitimate official cut, the artist is still making less than minimum wage. It makes no odds.

I’m simply claiming that that sort of a business model is patently unsustainable and unrealistic. And every few years, I create an account on Spotify and their competitors’ sites and throw a dozen or so albums at their database to see what’s available. The results have been painfully embarrassing without fail every single time. So, (speaking only for myself), streaming services are absolutely useless. They have horrifically-limited content libraries, and there is still the looming dystopian element of the fact that you don’t have any of the music you play. A corporation is in complete control of your access to that data. I’ve seen how this book ends.

An excellent point! You’re right - I haven’t given this fledgling industry a fair shot. But neither my displeasure regarding the limitations of their content libraries nor the nightmarish aspect of corporate control will likely improve without drastically serious changes to copyright law. And that’s a matter I am absolutely interested in participating in. I actively read every book and article published on Creative Commons and copyright reform, and I would love to take part in test markets of these concepts in practice.

Fascinating. Loving the new info you’re sharing. But I did do my homework. My statement was about iTunes music. And CultofMac reports that:

Correct. I made that very same argument myself a few paragraphs above the statement you contested. I never claimed this was something new, and said - “This was a critical fault of the music industry for nearly half a century where labels engineered a system from which artists could never profit, but which has been infinitely refined to a corrupt perfection with the latest digital model.”

But at least with the current situation, filesharing may help increase sales, as was reported in a study published by Queens University and featured in an article on TorrentFreak last January.

I certainly will; thank you for the suggestion!

Duly noted. I was not familiar with the term here in my tiny reality bubble. A quick Google Search yielded this article from The Washington Post with an animation of our nation’s shift from manufacturing to service courtesy of redditor, mobuco.

Acknowledged. See my amended statement in reply to Batlord’s same contentive remark above.


I’m on board. I’ll help fight to preserve net neutrality so that content distributors large and small can compete fairly, I’ll urge Congressmen to help stop corporations from telling ISPs what data to censor without following due process or filing DMCA notices, I’ll advocate for and utilize Creative Commons licensing as a better alternative to traditional copyright, I’ll promote remix culture and a society which thrives artistically with a rich public domain, and I’ll donate, vote, and fight to eliminate the media oligopoly to return distributive control to the artists. And I will support artists who offer their music direct to the listener through new and emerging services.

It’s tea I had imported from a comrade in Bristol. It’s prepared with French creme and I’m sipping it through a Paragon fine bone china mustache tea cup with Royal Warrant of Appointment by Her Majesty The Queen, issued between 1933 and 1936.

It’s lovely. ;)

It's finally happened.
 

After a decade of collecting rare, import, and exclusive vinyl, I've finally, finally succumbed to the pure saccharine-soaked nostalgia of my youth and bought vinyl issues of my favorite albums from high school. (I was born in '81)

I feel a bit dirty - like I'm committing a grievous audiophile sin, but hell, it's a lot of fun to own and spin giant gatefold 180g analog editions of my adolescence.

It's also the first-ever time I've blasted rock music on my hi-fi. Really a novel and enjoyable experience!

http://i.imgur.com/pBItIcWl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/8OaGEHHl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/MRXS9Cgl.jpg

These MoV pressings are really impressive - well-mastered, heavy as hell, super glossy and solid jackets, resealable anti-static mylar bags, really nice color 12x24 inserts, audiophile 180g vinyl... well worth the $$$.

innerspaceboy listens to White Zombie!? Didn't expect that one.

I'm more surprised by Bush.

I would've told a young ISB to listen to Cows.

I was locked up from 1995-1999 so my musical exposure was sorely limited. I would often pick up busted cassette tapes from people's trash and from the gutters as a child which I'd take home and repair. That introduced me to GnR, Ugly Kid Joe, Pantera's Far Beyond Driven and Vulgar Display of Power, Iron Maiden's Fear of the Dark, Suicidal Tendencies' self-titled debut, and more. But other than that (and a copy of Carcass' Heartwork I found misshelved in a mental hospital), I had no exposure to music in the 90s.

Astro-Creep was a sample-rich horrorshow and I really enjoyed the mythos of The Electric Head. I wanted to join Psychoholics Anonymous and eventually scored an original copy of Make Them Die Slowly at a rummage sale.

Good times.

SO EXCITED!

It's coming!

http://i.imgur.com/5wxv7WI.jpg

Yes. Yes ****ing yes! I've been dabbling in sample-based instrumental hip hop like DJ Shadow, J Dilla, and Lil Ugly Mane, and this album happened to come up in my search for similar ****. Blasted my ears right off. How the world can let copyright laws get in the way of such artistically amazing music such as this is the height of bull****.

Delighted to learn of your discovery, Bat! Thanks for sharing! And I concur wholeheartedly - with their debut, The Avalanches created what may very well be the finest specimen of plunderphonia ever crafted.

I'd also suggest you track down The Original Australian Zomba Promo Mix which was the intended album before compromises had to be made to appease the label.

Cheers!

Hooray for metadata projects!
 

After discovering a fun graphical Linux desktop applet music controller for gMusicbrowser I was reminded just how many of my digital albums lack cover artwork. I decided that it was finally time to tackle an automation solution for the problem. The popular Bliss application failed to install so I explored the fetch_cover.pm plugin for gMusicbrowser, but the retrieve-cover-from-Google-or-Discogs feature isn't working correctly in the present build.

Thankfully, after a bit of experimentation, I found that Clementine's Cover Manager was well-suited to the task. It dynamically retrieves all albums missing covers and applies the logical Discogs/Picard/Google matches to the albums.

Best of all, it has a user-configurable option to export covers to image files and to nest them in album folders so that gMusicbrowser will detect and apply the artwork to my library the next time I load the application!

10,536 of my albums were missing covers and the automation is running presently. I've duplicated my library as a precautionary measure in case anything goes amiss.

CAN YOUR HEART STAND THE EXCITEMENT?

http://i.imgur.com/Vdx1Abgl.png

The Metadata Project is a SUCCESS!
 

In just 18 hours, I've automated the retrieval of the remaining 10,536 of my digital albums which were missing cover art, located and applied covers to 1,680 of them, (as the rest were non-commercial albums with no art to retrieve), and verified the applied covers with only 4 incorrectly assigned - a margin of error of just 0.23%.

For an encore, I installed a package of 66 user-configurable graphical layouts for the player application, selected my favorite and tweaked it to best fit my needs, added a lyrics plugin panel which scrolls in real-time with the audio, and activated a lovely desktop applet to control my music from the desktop.

gmusicbrowser's custom graphical interface with album art updated and newly-applied lyric plugin

http://i.imgur.com/okqqT5Ol.png

Desktop environment with interactive player applet at the left.

http://i.imgur.com/PasBbvwl.png

Example of dynamic controls from the applet.

http://i.imgur.com/Lmwi1WXl.png

Yay for productivity!

You, sir, are a nerd's nerd.

Aww, thanks, Bat. That's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said about me.

A Hundred Days Off Revisited
 

This evening on a late night drive back to the city, I queued up one of my favorite Underworld albums that I hadn't spun in some time. I wanted to share it with various music communities online but felt an obligatory responsibility to defend the album, as it received a lot of undeserved heat upon its release.

http://i.imgur.com/CzRGjCbl.jpg

A Hundred Days Off (2002) was Underworld's first full-length LP after the departure of Darren Emerson. Darren was a critical contributor to the trademark sound of Underworld Mk2, which spanned the album trilogy of Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Second Toughest in the Infants, and Beaucoup Fish. This chapter of the band concluded with the release of their live concert DVD, Everything Everything Live in 2000.

What followed with A Hundred Days Off and Rick and Karl's subsequent LPs was a markedly more cerebral incarnation of the duo's sound. AHDO traded in the floor-stomping anthems and "lager lager lager..." lyricism for more artful explorations of electronic music. Rejected by some of the clubbing community as weak or lifeless, these listeners were too quick to reject the ambient soundscapes, natural percussion, and polyrhythmic intricacies that make A Hundred Days Off such an enjoyable and enduring record.

Call it what you like - "album-oriented techno", "progressive downtempo", or "music for aging ravers"... just know that the best of the band's recordings lie deep in the grooves beyond the club tracks of the late 1990s. And with The RiverRun Project, an array of web-only releases, and their music for both stage and screen, Underworld had an incredible wealth of music to offer after the dance floor had cleared at sunup.

Worthwhile Dilemmas
 

Today I am delighted to have become the proud owner of a deck of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's infamous Oblique Strategies cards.

http://i.imgur.com/dWG5VuOl.jpg

Subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas, these decks were first published in 1975 and are currently in their fifth edition. Each card offers a challenging constraint intended to help artists and musicians overcome mental blocks by encouraging lateral approaches to their creative works. The cards feature instructions such as:

• Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them
• Towards the insignificant
• Give way to your worst impulse
• Tape your mouth
• Do something boring
• Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
• Work at a different speed

http://i.imgur.com/4UXkxhsl.jpg
Personal photo of my newly-received deck

The letterpress printed cards are housed in a black box with gold reflective lettering. There was also a limited edition of 500 boxes in burgundy rather than black issued in 2013.

While early editions command hundreds or even thousands of dollars on eBay, (there are at present two autographed first edition decks listed for $2,499.00 and $3,299.00 respectively), I was very pleased to find decks of the latest edition available from www.enoshop.co.uk for about $46 including shipping to the United States. It really is a small price to pay for such an influential and inspirational cultural artifact.

http://i.imgur.com/i1CMiSMl.jpg
Autographed and numbered first edition deck from 1975 currently for sale on eBay


Brian Eno has been one of the most instrumental figures in my creative development. I've been following his visual works, his music, multimedia installation pieces, and his philosophy for the entirety of my adult life. In 2009, I created an infographic of his work as a writer, artist, and producer titled, Enography (The Grand Unified Theory of Contemporary Music). It really is a privilege to finally have claimed one of these decks for my own.

http://i.imgur.com/YMNK0e9.jpg

This list marks "More Songs About Buildings and Food" as a Devo album. For shame, not checking your sources thoroughly.

Wow! Thanks for the catch. The source text was extracted from an official Eno bibliography so I'm surprised by the oversight! I'll patch it immediately.

Thanks again.

Quackgiggy, brrrrrrrrr, quack, quack
 

“There’s a brand new dance that’s sweepin’ the nation
The Peanut Duck is the new sensation…”

This northern soul single was recorded by an unknown artist at Philadelphia’s Virtue studio in the mid-60s, and was never released. An acetate copy surfaced at Stafford’s Top of the World all-nighters back in the early 80s. A discussion at soulsource.co.uk revealed that John Vincent was the first to play it, but it was the instrumental version. Keb Darge later played the vocal version, naming it “The Dance Track.”

Below is the unofficial 80s bootleg version which was released on the Joker label, which Paul Hallam was known to spin at Sneakers in Shepherd’s Bush, London.

http://i.imgur.com/NSZPz3Rl.jpg

In 2005 the song finally received an official, albeit limited vinyl release on Penniman Records out of Barcelona, Spain.

http://i.imgur.com/2gGbFhFl.jpg

The song was again credited to Marsha Gee, but contrary to the Joker release the picture sleeve claims it was written by Scott / Hairston.

The name Marsha Gee has appeared before, such as on the 1965 Uptown 704 single, “Baby I Need You,” written by Phillips-Wright. The voice sounds quite different from The Peanut Duck so the singer’s true identity remains a mystery.

The weekend of my birthday I took a trip to my hometown of Rochester, NY and made a pilgrimage to the Bop Shop. I asked Tom (the owner) if he had seen any copies of the Penniman release. He had actually seen it a while back and said that he could track it down for me.

A few weeks later I spoke with him on the phone. I mentioned that I’d seen a few copies on Discogs.com but he pointed out that the disc was long out of print and said that it would disappear from the site in the next year. Tom had talked to a Spanish woman who had connections with Penniman in Spain. It turned out that the label had two copies left! He ordered one for me, and the other for himself.

I’m so excited to finally have this disc. I’ve wanted it ever since Lemon Jelly played it on the Breezeblock in 2002. Though the official single is now sold out from the Penniman label, you can look for it on Discogs or pick the song up as part of the Rhino box set titled One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds—Lost & Found. A clean copy on Discogs will run you around $70.

Vinyl Mania Show in Buffalo, NY
 

Had a blast at Vinyl Mania tonight in Buffalo, NY. Won 2nd place for my 1960s costume (I dressed as Number 48 from The Prisoner).

A lot of the vendors were new faces - ladies and gents who were selling from their personal collections and as a result, I took home some wonderful surprise finds!

For my massive KLF collection, I picked up The History of the JAMS - an essential work of plunderphonia, as well as Drummond's first solo effort featuring "Julian Cope Is Dead".

I also grabbed an original press of Slowdive's debut album, Just For a Day and the classic ethereal wave collaboration of Harold Budd, Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie & Simon Raymonde - The Moon and the Melodies which I've wanted for several years now.

Also delighted to snatch up an original Brain press of Klaus Schulze's Moondawn, which was the next of his catalog I'd planned on purchasing.

Equally excited to find Morton Subotnick's Touch, which is the next logical investment after one acquires Silver Apples of the Moon and The Wild Bull.

And the final surprise was Pierre Henry's Le Voyage: his famous electronic score based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.

Good haul!

http://i.imgur.com/8E6Jok0l.jpg

Electronic Love
 

I've just received the most WONDERFUL Christmas gift from one of my oldest and dearest friends. If every you've asked yourself, "what is the perfect gift for the audiophile who has everything?" this is precisely the sort of gift you should consider.

This is the Electronic Love Blueprint: A History of Electronic Music*by the Dorothy design collective - an electrical schematic of a theremin mapping 200 inventors, innovators, artists, composers spanning the entire history of recorded sound. Key pioneers featured include Léon Theremin, Bob Moog, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cage, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Aphex Twin.*

It loosely groups genres, from the obscure Musique Concrète (Pierre Schaeffer) to the better known Krautrock (Kraftwerk, Can, Tangerine Dream, Neu!, Faust, Cluster, Harmonia and Amon Düül II) Synthpop (Gary Numan, Human League, Depeche Mode, Yazoo and Pet Shop Boys) and Electronica (New Order, The Prodigy, Massive Attack, LCD Sound System and Daft Punk). There are also references to the experimental BBC Radiophonic Workshop and favourite innovating record labels Mute and Warp.

This metallic silver screen print on 120gsm Keaykolour Royal Blue uncoated paper measures 60 x 80cm and will be the pride of my listening room.

I've ordered a UK frame and can't wait to display it!

http://i.imgur.com/IY2F2P1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/nvHuoHK.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/vhVfnQF.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/hBzx5Nh.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/6Rfl6eU.jpg

I remember you posting about that a while ago. Very cool!

Thanks for remembering!

The real excitment came with the framing - as a British size there are no frames available in the States to frame it properly. Jo-Ann's quoted me $530 discounted to $220 for a custom frame, but I thought I'd dig around online. A discount frame supplier in England can ship a ready-made frame for $60, but I kept digging and found a winner from IKEA online.

The IKEA frame is sold as a collage frame that holds 15 5x7s. It just so happens to be the exact size of my oversize art print. Their price? $19.99!

Even with $10 shipping, I'm saving a fortune.

Introductory Nomenclature
 

Just arrived from Ann Arbor's Ghostly International label - the sky blue limited edition reissue of Telefon Tel Aviv's majestic debut, Fahrenheit Fair Enough.*Fahrenheit*was originally issued by Chicago's Hefty Records, and fit smashingly alongside their other downtempo and IDM recordings.*

Ghostly International is home to Tycho, Gold Panda, Com Truise, and other crafters of what*Sundae*Club playfully dubbed*"Technostalgic*Tunes". And*Fahrenheit*is no exception. Here, Telefon Tel Aviv expertly*weaves*together sparse melodic fragments and the occasional jazzy licks with intricately complex abstract glitch patterns. What results is a marriage of the warm, nostalgic instrumentation one would expect from a band like Boards of Canada seamlessly fused with the atonal mechanical rhythmic constructions of Richard D. James.*It is a wonderfully satisfying record which*warrants repeated listenings both active and subliminal.*

This limited edition release also includes a digital download which features additional*Archive '99*material capturing more of the best sounds the artist has to offer.

A review from the BBC called the album,*"Gorgeous, yet completely devoid of cliché... a quiet, unpretentious beauty of a record."*Fahrenheit Fair Enough is certainly some of the finest downtempo IDM music released this year.

http://i.imgur.com/WUtq5nAl.jpg

Survey of Shoegaze, Noise-Pop, and Early Dream Pop Classics
 

Aim: To better acquaint myself with drone-like and ambient music staples of the rock idiom. These albums were often characterized by monorhythmic percussion, heavily layered instrumentation, and supersaturated guitar effects. Vocals were routinely deadpan with lyricism lost amidst waves of guitar feedback (in the case of male vocals), or, in the case of female singers, presented as ethereal musings transcending language and literal interpretation. Key genres include shoegaze, space rock, noise rock, and selections of post-punk and minimal/no wave. This strong ambient quality makes shoegaze a sensible bridge from my more familiar territories of The Berlin School and 20th-century classical musics into the less-familiar realms of rock and pop. The largest deterrent I’ve encountered in rock is the egocentrism and hypersexualization of the iconic rocker “frontman” and I hope that through the heroin-inspired apathy and social disconnectedness of shoegaze that I can find a more amiable listening experience.

Albums will be surveyed in their entirety, as these are not genres built of hit singles, but instead of album-length works created in the spirit of “taking drugs to make music to take drugs to.” My explorative starting point will be The Scientist’s Shoegaze volume of RYM’s Ultimate Box Set series, which offers a chronology of shoegaze, beginning with Cocteau Twin’s ethereal masterpiece, Treasure from 1984.

Further listening suggestions are welcome.

http://i.imgur.com/5CtrA8Bl.jpg

If you're looking for rock for ambient nerds then maybe drone metal or some forms of doom metal might help. That **** is about as far from rockstar **** as it's possible to get. Lot of it doesn't have vocals either. *shrug*

Earth - "Seven Angels"

[QUOTE=The Batlord;1784386]If you're looking for rock for ambient nerds then maybe drone metal or some forms of doom metal might help. That **** is about as far from rockstar **** as it's possible to get. Lot of it doesn't have vocals either. *shrug*

Thanks, Batty. Earth 2 is definitely the gateway drug of drone metal, or at least the most accessible specimen of the genre to the best of my knowledge. I've approached it a few times but it hasn't grabbed me yet. I'll give the others you've linked a listen as well. And thanks for reading!

Do you know this https://www.discogs.com/Other-Music-...elease/1989363

Yeah, early Earth is kind of sparse and no frills, but the other **** I put up has all the tempo with extra **** thrown in to grab your attention. I can only listen to Earth when I'm in a certain mood, but Bongripper and Ufomammut are anyday kind of bands.

Fantastic! Right up my alley - thank you! :)

I've known that album and been about it for so long, but I have no idea when and how that came to be