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Nice, I'll give those a whack. One that I use is a program that uses last.fm called whatthe****shoukdilistentonow.com (you're going to have to put the url in the search and type in fuck yourself because of the forum censors).
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The Illectrik Hoax - Waking up from a Lifelong Retromusical Hibernation
I'm feeling incredibly inspired. It'd been a week of stagnation; I'd looked at my record collection and had said to myself, "wow... I've successfully built an autobiographical library of the greatest examples of each niche genre I love - downtempo electronic, avant-garde jazz, the Berlin School... and many others. But NOW what do I do?
With the purchase of Underworld's 20th anniversary deluxe edition of their masterwork, Dubnobasswithmyheadman, I'd come full circle to the album which first-inspired my life-long musical journey. But something was missing. The majority of my knowledge of electronic music focuses on early revolutionaries of the genre - the tinkerers and innovators of monstrous noise machines. I've archived classic milestones from the grating clamor of Luigi Russolo to the soothing sounds of 20th century ambient music, concluding with Basinski's soundtrack to 9/11. But I'd really lost touch with modern music, instead obsessing over the rich and vibrant sounds of 1969-1973. Thankfully, a siren sound lured me to the official website of DJ Food in the last few weeks, and, on a whim, I compiled an archive of his 35 Solid Steel Radio shows, and with the entire weekend ahead of me pledged to dedicate some serious listening time to these programs. These would be the first "modern" recordings I'd heard since the dream pop halcyon revival of the late 90s and first years of the new millennium. And with the opening minutes of the very first set, my ears piqued and I was swept away. His "A Weird World Reader" mix is described as a trip through the recent EP 'One Man's Weird Is Another Man's World' featuring tracks, samples and influences that make it what it is. The first track is a 17 minute tour de force collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous - a track called, "The Illectrik Hoax." 10 minutes passed in a single breath and as the track concluded and I returned to the physical world, I leapt from my listening chair. Locating my girlfriend and fellow music junkie, I fit my studio monitors firmly upon her ears and cued the track up a second time. Her eyes closed and her head began to groove with the rhythm. I paused the track asking what she thought, but her only response was a whine of discontent translating to, "play more!" Minutes later I had the full album playing in my studio and was absolutely enamored by the mysterious, sci-fi soundscapes of the record. Best-absorbed in its entirety from start to finish - this is a concept record of infectious rhythms and strange sounds which successfully transport the listener to the "Weird World" Food alluded to in the Reader mix. Long before the end of the album, I'd searched Discogs.com for a copy and phoned my local shop to order one for my library. The Search Engine is a 4LP set of 45RPM discs housed in a magnificent quad-gatefold sleeve. True to DJ Food's usual form, it features eye-popping artwork that is best-viewed in its proper 12" format. http://i.imgur.com/TshABS9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/dLttfXU.jpg http://i.imgur.com/P1ta4cQ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Koc9uRq.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IKzyPl8.jpg Discogs classifies the record as "Abstract, Breakbeat, Broken Beat, Downtempo, Experimental, Hip Hop, Leftfield music." - effectively a mishmash of all my very favorite words. Thank you, DJ Food for breaking me of my pretentious retomusical fanaticism, and for initiating me into the music of the now. Here's the track that broke me - "The Illectrik Hoax". But again, for the full-flavor of the album, it is best taken in as a whole. UPDATE: New findings reveal that the 17-minute mix is exclusive to the 2012 Record Store Day smokey psychedelic wax vinyl edition, limited to 1500 copies worldwide. I've just tracked down a sealed copy and it's on its way to me now. |
The Best Concert of 2015
Tonight I was privileged enough to be in attendance at a small but incredibly exciting musical event in Buffalo, NY.
At 7pm my beloved musical cohort and I braved the maddened event parking at the local university, and worked our way past the velvet ropes and bustling crowds who apparently were awaiting a performance by The Decemberists. We continued down a nondescript narrow corridor to an intimate black box theater - the locale for the REAL excitement of the evening. Black Box 2015 was presented by The Lejaren Hiller Computer Music Studios at The University at Buffalo. The annual multi-channel electroacoustic event was hosted by the Studio’s director, Professor Lippe. Lippe's compositions have received numerous international prizes, and he studied under composers including Boulez, Stockhausen, and Xenakis - some of the most prominent figures of 20th century electronic sound. Below is a brief summary of the featured works of the evening. Lippe's Ivocean (1978) was created using early analog synthesizers (Moog IIIP, Buchla, et al.), using these instruments to craft new timbres which still sound exciting and undated nearly 40 years after their recording. Maggie Payne's Crystal (1982) consists of muti-tracked shimmering tones which slowly washed over and around the theater much in the same way that light plays upon a crystalline prism. Gayle Young's Avalon Shorelines (2015) is a multi-channel soundscape which uses recordings of the titular waterfront toward the construction of an elaborate and multi-dimensional sonic landscape. Field recordings of crashing waves were accompanied by her performance on an Amaranth - an instrument of her invention played with two bows and reminiscent of a Japanese koto. The instrument produced a range of sounds all of which conjured images of a steel ship groaning and rollocking against the waves of an angry sea. Brett Masteller’s electro-acoustic work, Trio of Duets was a modern drone piece built from instrumental sound samples, enveloping the theater in an impenetrable fog somewhere between high-volume broadcast static and moving through a gale in slow motion. John Chowning’s Phoné (1981) was an exciting experience. Chowning is best-known for having discovered the FM synthesis algorithm in 1967, which allowed for the synthesis of simple but rich sounding timbres. The sounds experienced in Phoné calls to memory many of the pivotal recordings of electronic sound. There are skittering, playful melodic fragments, sudden bursts of white noise, and microtonal runs much like those employed by Stockhausen, Subotnick, Louis and Bebe Barron, Perrey & Kingsley, and Beaver & Krause during the 1960s and 70s. There is even a delightful and mischievous touch of Raymond Scott a la his adverts for the Bendix Corporation. But the crowd-favorite of the evening was the Ethan Hayden's "…ce dangereux supplément…" (2015), a dynamic and engaging piece for live and recorded voices. Hayden stepped up to a podium with several sheets of what appeared to be a random spilling of pronunciation symbols and odd scribblings. They were, in fact, intricate experimental notation in the classic form of musique concrete. For the next eight minutes, he stood, wearing a headset microphone, and produced a captivating performance of furious jabberwock-speech, tongue clicks, grunts and pops. Both his energy and skill were truly mesmerizing, and for nearly ten minutes he made an incredible amount of noise without once venturing near what anyone could call a coherent sound. His performance ended with thunderous applause - surely one to be remembered. I spoke briefly with each of the performers about their work and was excited to learn that much of the professors’ sound catalogs are available to the public at the University library. I’m planning the first of many visits this summer for further research. My readers should also take note that Hayden published a book on Sigur Rós's ( ) for the famous +33⅓ series in August of 2014. I’ll certainly be securing a copy for my library. |
How Much Do Musicians Make From Spotify & Other Services?
From data scientist David McCandless, published by informationisbeautiful.com. This is incredibly well-executed.
A newly-updated visual map of how much (or little) artists earn per song/album played/sold from each of the major distribution networks. Absolutely stunning. I would love to hear input from the artists and composers of MB - what are your feelings about the state of the music industry and of modern distribution systems? Check out the mind-blowing infographic here. http://i.imgur.com/XsNkqlO.jpg |
Hearkening Back to 4AD
This evening I found myself feeling emotionally and intellectually nostalgic for 1984-1994 ethereal wave / jangle-pop / neo-psychedelia / slowcore / art punk music which I’d only superficially explored in my college days.
This was music I emotionally-associate with the new-found independence and freedom (before the crushing reality of student loan debt sank in.) As I’m never one to take on a task lightly, I charged full-speed to RYM, building custom charts of heroin-inspired jangle-pop and dreamy drone music of the late eighties and early nineties. I consider these years sacred, before the industry latched on to the budding “alternative” rock scene and everything went to hell. These are the years before grunge hit full-swing, before megastars like Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, and Gavin Rossdale were featured every three songs on every commercial radio station in the US. The free-form college rock scene was instead dominated by unlikely and reclusive rockers like J Spaceman and Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins. Now armed with a roster of essential recordings, I’ll begin compiling the necessary albums for what will fill many evenings with the music from artists such as: Spacemen 3 Spiritualized Belly Cocteau Twins Curve Galaxy 500 The Jesus & Mary Chain Lush Medicine My Bloody Valentine Sisters of Mercy Slowdive Sparklehorse Suicide The Church Throwing Muses …and a score of other essential artists of the dreamy early-alternative and pre-grunge scene. I also count among these artists American Analog Set for their whisper-core indie music which came after the heyday of the shoegaze genre. Spacemen 3 so adequately summarized the entire scene – “Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To.” |
3-Minute Introductory Dose of Experimental Music
I took on an intriguing project this weekend. My new coworker is a wonderful addition to my team - she's highly-skilled, and we collaborate well together, but her musical interests are... well... a bit sheltered.
A twenty-something who "doesn't really use the internet much", her musical exposure is limited to what she sees on The Voice. Her favorite artists/genres include Whitney Houston, Nickelback, country pop, and crunk. But she claims she is always willing to learn new things, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Now this isn't the part where I throw on 30 minutes of Metal Machine Music or "Pena" from Trout Mask Replica. I genuinely wanted to open her mind to consider music beyond the I IV V, verse-chorus-verse world of NOW! THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC! I pored over my library, selecting historically-significant recordings, genre-defining works, and pieces which are unique but accessible. Some selections push the envelope further, like the example of musique concrete tape music, while others, like "An Ending (Ascent)" are amicable to even the most close-minded of listeners. My coworker agreed to an open-minded listen for 3-4 minutes of new music. I mixed highlights from fourteen quality tracks and will be presenting them the next time she stops by The Manor. The short, 3-minute mix breezes through the following recordings: 01 Tom Dissvelt & Kid Baltan - Pianoforte 02 Kalheinz Stockhausen - Kontakt 03 Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians - Section I 04 Fripp & Eno - Heavenly Music Corporation 05 Terry Riley - In C 06 Telefon Tel Aviv - Fahrenheit Fair Enough 07 Sun Ra - Space is the Place 08 Moondog - Symphonique #6 09 Iannis Xenakis - Orient-Occident 10 Charles Dodge - Earth's Magnetic Field 11 Salvador Dali - Oberture Et PremiŠre Entr‚e (from Etre Dieu) 12 Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Microon I 13 William Basinski - Disintegration Loops 1-1 14 Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent) The excerpt from Dali's lost opera was a selection made with her in mind, as both my coworker and her boyfriend are fans of Dali's paintings. The opening and closing pieces are critical to a mix, so I open with the highly-avant-garde "pianoforte" and I believe the Eno piece is a solid closing sample for the project. While the general focus is on electro-acoustic music, process music, chance, music for mathematics, minimalism, frippertronics, ambient, drone, noise, free jazz, third stream, and glitch musics are each touched upon in the 3-minute easily-digestible capsule of sound I've prepared. If I can open her mind to appreciate even a single one of these pieces, I will consider the effort a success. Happy Saturday everyone! |
Results of the Innerspace Labs' Music Discovery Survey
The results are in for the Innerspace Labs Music Discovery Survey! A huge thank-you to all who offered their input.
I created the survey out of a personal curiosity. Sadly, I have very little contact with the general public outside of the few members of my digital publishing team at the office, and I wanted to know what impact the web has had on the ways listeners discover new sounds. I suspected listeners utilized multiple media resources in their musical explorations and that certainly proved to be the case. Contributors cited an average of 6.44 sources for new music data. The majority of the music sources I offered as options for the survey were widely-used, save for rateyourmusic.com, music subreddits, Gnoosic, and Usenet groups which each accounted for fewer than 3% of users’ musical resources. I found this particularly interesting as I visit RYM frequently as my primary ratings and review aggregator and find its information invaluable when researching artists and genres. As expected, Youtube ranked as users’ most-used resource when sampling new sounds. I was surprised, however, to find that radio, motion pictures, television, or other forms of mass media were the third-highest ranked information resource, right behind user’s own friends. While I only see ~3 new films annually, and have no exposure to television or radio, it still appears that mass media is still a significant part of most people’s lives. Spotify and other streaming services were the next-highest ranked source, accounting for 10% of listeners’ discoveries. While they are not a viable source for non-commercial or analog-only recordings, they still offer an incredible convenience for quick-and-easy personalized radio stations and there is no shortage of articles proclaiming streaming the new standard for mass media. Crate digging was another significant source, as were vinyl Facebook communities and private music forums. I’m curious whether this is representative of the public at large or just for Innerspace readers, but it is exciting nonetheless. I was similarly please by the results for music lit and other periodicals, which accounted for more than 5% of musical discovery. While 5% doesn’t sound significant on the surface, bear in mind that users cited an average of 6-7 sources for new music, so I’m considering 5% a threshold for this survey. Other sources of note are independent music blogs and local music performances, both of which were a delight to see still holding their own in the survey. After attending the latest concert at my local university, I will certainly be visiting their music library for further research into works by their professors. I’m also curious to see if torrenting will grow in popularity for general music research in the years ahead. Personally, torrenting is a critical step in my music purchasing process. I’ve yet to find a better system, whether for surveying the catalog of an artist or to compare various masters before investing my hard-earned cash. I consider the survey a success as its certainly given me a better understanding of how users find new music. Thanks once again to everyone who contributed! |
Forty Years of Ambient Bliss
Recently in The Ultimate Compilation thread Nine and I were kicking about ideas for a list of essential recordings in the Ambient umbrella of musics.
Thus far we'd come up with the following: DARK AMBIENT Bohren & der Club of Gore - Black Earth Deathprod - Morals and Dogma DRONE Fripp & Eno's (No Pussyfooting) - Side A - "The Heavenly Music Corporation" Stars of the Lid, either The Tired Sounds of... or And the Refinement of the Decline Robert Rich's 7-hour Somnium sleep concert DVD-audio album AMBIENT HOUSE Biosphere's Substrata and Microgravity LPs The KLF's Chill Out The Orb's 40:00 "Blue Room" single AMBIENT DUB The Orb's aforementioned "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain..." AMBIENT TECHNO Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92 Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children Wolfgang Vogit (as Gas) - the Nah Und Fern box set Global Communication's 76:14 TRIBAL AMBIENT Steve Roach - Dreamtime Return John Hassell & Brian Eno - Fourth World Vol 1: Possible Musics AMBIENT GLITCH Pantha du Prince - This Bliss Telefon Tel Aviv - Fahrenheit Fair Enough AMBIENT POP Air - Moon Safari BERLIN SCHOOL Klaus Schulze - X or Timewind Tangerine Dream's Phaedra Edgar Froese - Epsilon in Malaysian Pale AMBIENT CLASSICAL Popol Vuh - Hosianna Mantra AMBIENT JAZZ Miles Davis - In a Silent Way PSYBIENT Carbon Based Lifeforms - World of Sleepers Cell's "Audio Deepest Night" Shpongle - Are You Shpongled? Then today I remembered that not too long ago, I'd shot a two-part vinyl video feature as a 40-year chronology of the ambient genre. The two short videos showcased key recordings and some of my favorite records, with a few rarities thrown in for good measure. It seemed only fitting that I dig them up and share them here for anyone interested in exploring some beautiful minimal music. The retrospective begins with a summary of releases from 1973-2003. Index for the impatient... [1973] Fripp & Eno - (No Pussyfooting) [1975] Fripp & Eno - Evening Star [1982] Brian Eno - Music for Airports [2010] The Black Dog - Music for Real Airports [1980] Brian Eno - Ambient 2: Plateaux of Mirror [1982] Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land [1978] Brian Eno - Music for Films [1975] Brian Eno - Discreet Music [1980] Brian Eno & Jon Hassell - Fourth World Vol 1: Possible Musics [1983] Brian Eno - Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks [1984] Harold Budd & Brian Eno - The Pearl [1985] Brian Eno - Thursday Afternoon VHS [1981] Brian Eno - Mistaken Memories of Mediaeval Manhattan VHS [1982] Vangelis - Blade Runner (2007 RSD issue) [2002] Blade Runner: Espers 5CD Retirement Edition [1983] Mannheim Steamroller: Fresh Aire Vol 1 1974-1983 (private release) [1990] The KLF - Chill Out [1990] Space - Space [1991] The Orb - The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld [1992] The Orb - The Blue Room 40:00 edit [2003] REFERENCE TEXT: Mark Pendergrast - The Ambient Century And the 2nd part examines more recent developments, from 1993 to the present. [1993-2008] Pete Namlook - Fax Records (238 disc library) [1994] Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Vol II [1997] Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A#8 [1999] Sigur Ros - Ágætis Byrjun [2001] Robert Rich - Somnium (DVD-Audio) [2001] múm - Yesterday Was Dramatic Today Is Okay [2007] Pantha du Prince - This Bliss [2008] Wolfgang Voigt (as Gas) - Nah Und Fern Box Set [2009] Clint Mansell - Moon OST [2011] A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Winged Victory for the Sullen [2010] Black Swan - In 8 Movements [2011] Black Swan - The Quiet Divide [2012] William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops 9LP + 5CD + DVD Box Set [2013] The KLF Recovered & Remastered - KLF MINUS-SIX - This Is Not What Space Is About [2014] The KLF Recovered & Remastered - KLF MINUS-TWO - This Is Not What Chill Out Is About If you dig just one of these albums, then I've done my job. |
Wowee! Innerspace, I thought I was quite the music addict, but as a bald headed fellow... my hats off to you sir! I'm in literal heaven right now with all this new source material to listen to. Thank you!
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Oh absolutely! One question though.... Each of your links in your signature.......?
20th Century Electronic & Avant-Garde | Ambient | Art Rock (Eno / Byrne) | Classical (Herbert Von Karajan) | Downtempo & Future Jazz | Funk & Soul | Gravel-Throated Troubadours | Jazz | Karl Hyde Library | Kosmische Musik | Slowcore & Shoegaze | Psychedelic Folk | The Odd Bits Out Put you in the same spot and I was really trying to hit the individual arenas such as "Psychedelic Folk" which I happen to thoroughly enjoy! How to I access these arenas? |
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I'll have to come up with a solution for that. You aren't missing much from my psych folk folder, but highlights include Beck's Mutations and Sea Change LPs. Signature fix pending! |
Highlights of John Cage and Morton Feldman - Exquisite Examples of Dynamic Range
This weekend's research proved to be incredibly valuable, resulting in two wonderful musical discoveries. And it began with The S.E.M. Ensemble.
From semensemble.org: The S.E.M. Ensemble was founded in 1970 when Petr Kotik organized a group of musicians of the fellows at the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts, SUNY/Buffalo. The first S.E.M. Ensemble concert was presented in Buffalo at the Domus Theater and included works by Cornelius Cardew, John Cage, Petr Kotik and Rudolf Komorous. In 1992, the SEM chamber ensemble was expanded into The Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble with a debut concert at Carnegie Hall, presenting the first complete performance of Atlas Eclipticalis by John Cage (all 86 instruments). The concert was an internationally celebrated event, lauded by audiences and critics from across the United States, Europe and Japan. But another property unique to this performance makes it a must-own for all lovers of exceptional music. For the last several years, DR-loudness-war.info has been crowd-sourcing a massive database mapping the dynamic range, (that is, the range from the quietest to the loudest sounds occurring in piece of music) for over 77,000 albums. This database was created as a reaction to the Loudness War - the trend of record labels cutting off all the “highs” and “lows” of an album so that the entire album can be as loud as possible. It is this very recording - the S.E.M. Ensemble’s Concert for Piano & Orchestra, which tops the chart for dynamic range. In fact, the album holds both the #1 and #2 positions among all 77,522 recordings presently cataloged - one for the original CD release and the other for the subsequent digital download. The recording is unlike any other musical experience I've had with my listening equipment. The sound stage is open and well-defined and really gives the listener the feeling of a live modern classical performance. My setup has a very neutral or transparent delivery which is well-suited to the more “academic” recordings I enjoy such as Berlin School electronic, drone and ambient musics. I can say with certainty that this recording is a brilliant match for my setup and makes for a thrilling experience, both for its critical acoustic properties as well as for the cerebral pleasures it arouses in the listener. While reviewing the Dynamic Range Database’s other highest-ranked recordings, I took note of Morton Feldman’s Late Piano Works Vol.3 performed by Steffen Schleiermacher. AllMusic contributor, Blair Sanderson called the album “sublime”, speaking of the spaciousness and quietude of Feldman’s composition and of the incredible sensitivity and control with which Schleiermacher presents the featured selections. Feldman’s later piano works make for excellent study music, or simply a soundtrack for an evening of quiet reflection. The Database is certainly correct - this is a wonderfully pensive and subtle recording which is sadly (and quite literally) drowned out by more modern victims of the Loudness War. Put this on, turn down the lights, and awaken your senses to the subtle nuances of audiophilic delight. |
Ignore The Sunday Times - Today's Young Artists are doing Great Things
A headline surfaced in my news feed today - an article from The Sunday Times in the UK proclaiming, "Modern pop is rubbish, says Damon." The Blur front man says music stars of the ‘selfie generation’ should sing about politics, not just chant platitudes.
The article addressed today's youth culture, and pictured Taylor Swift as the spokeswoman of their generation. But The Times and Damon have got it all wrong. Pop is relatively inconsequential - like the loudmouth in the room at a party carrying on to hear himself speak... no one cares and he is forgotten when the moment has passed. I've spoken with a number of musicians from what the article dubs, "the selfie generation" and the term honestly doesn't apply. Nor does the term from a previous but similar article which called them "the Belieber generation." These kids don't revere teen pop stars as anything relevant outside of the tiny bubble that is pop music. They are interested in more socially and culturally significant concepts, like the role of technology in their lives and the globalization of culture. Or any number of other values of relevance ranging from widely-demographic to simply personal. Because that's what the youth culture is - individual, creative people, not a swarm of mindless bodies jumping up and down to whoever Disney tells them to worship. Certainly - Taylor Swift and Bieber were massively popular. It’s an inevitability because they were designed to be popular - saccharine-sweet over-simplified melodies repeated ad nauseum, super-saturating every mass-media market in the world. But outside of those irritatingly-loud broadcast spheres, in the minds of growing teens forming their own values and opinions about the world around them, those media outlets matter less and less every day. They blare on at full-volume 24/7, desperately begging consumers to buy their associated merchandise, but kids quickly grow out of that infinitesimal world and move on to something bigger and far more important in their lives. In 100 years, music history won’t droll on about Bieber or Britney, any more than they would about Frankie Avalon or Ricky Nelson. Momentary teen pop sensations are irrelevant in the grand scheme. Instead, they will teach the incredible impact of Cage and Glass the way they do today about Bach and Beethoven. Rock’s brief but vibrant life will be summarized by Dylan and The Beatles. Other than a handful of household names, the whole of teen pop will be forgotten, just as it is when it is recycled, again and again, every three to five years. I have a lot more faith in “the selfie generation.” They’re doing great things musically - you just have to listen to them. |
Love the Godspeed reference in your youtube video. Have you ever delved into music that isn't necessarily ambient but incorporates ambient into their music? I have a few suggestions. You talked about pop and I thought it'd be cool to show you some pop artists that incorporate ambient into their music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgjL...A87354D0D01A4E Felt Mountain -- Goldfrapp's debut album. It's a cross between baroque pop and ambient with elements of trip hop. It has some really great ambient atmospheres. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSGRkBiVP1Y Fever Ray -- Full blown ambient pop, elements of drone as well Also are you a fan of Tim Hecker? He's an amazing contemporary ambient artist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu-ihs4BkAs |
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The Goldfrapp track was excellent, though I wasn't so keen on the Fever Ray stuff - perhaps a bit too heavy on the "pop" for my tastes. Still, I always love hearing something new so thanks! I'll explore more of Hecker's work this week! |
The New Headphone Stand Has Arrived!
Last week I started to think that I could do better than the $9 wire banana hanger I was using for my Sennheiser monitors. http://i.imgur.com/0r58I4E.jpg Then I had a wonderful idea. It took about an hour of searching eBay to find one just the right size for the task, but in the end, it worked out beautifully. Transitional classical-to-romantic elegance with a touch of bittersweet post-modern irony (given the figure I selected). I couldn't be happier with the result. What do you think? http://i.imgur.com/FkOXJar.jpg |
If Schroeder wore headphones, that's how he would store them! :laughing:
Very nice piece on the "selfie generation". As a member of it, I appreciate what you wrote. :clap: |
Thus far, I'm enjoying just about everything you've got, even the off the beaten path material. I love that sort of thing! I'm also enjoying your articles. Excellent reading!
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[QUOTE=innerspaceboy;1579552][CENTER]Last week I started to think that I could do better than the $9 wire banana hanger I was using for my Sennheiser monitors.
Then I had a wonderful idea. It took about an hour of searching eBay to find one just the right size for the task, but in the end, it worked out beautifully. Transitional classical-to-romantic elegance with a touch of bittersweet post-modern irony (given the figure I selected). I couldn't be happier with the result. What do you think? Excellent idea, but...... but he does look a bit annoyed. I'd maybe keep him in another room away from where you sleep.:laughing: |
The Innerspace Hot 100 Chart
I see that about a year ago, someone started a Topsters.de thread, but it's been inactive for months so I'm sticking to my journal.
Topsters.de, a site that lets you build a gallery of your favorite records, has exploded in popularity once again among FB vinyl communities. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present - The Innerspace Hot 100! These are the 100 records I'd grab first in a house fire. Followed by another hundred. And so on... Spoiler for Warning - this image is fairly large. Click here to view it.:
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20th Century Electronic & Avant-Garde Collection
Keeping the Topsters.net trend going!
Here in all its glory is my 20th Century Electronic & Avant-Garde vinyl collection (plus all my super-cheesy Moog records for good measure.) The stand-out killer of this collection is Raymond Scott's Manhattan Research Inc 3LP set issued by Basta Records in Holland. Spoiler for Click to view it big, big, BIG!:
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The Case of the Ruinous RFI
In the fall of 2013, I happened upon a set of classic Sherlock Holmes radio broadcasts in a second-hand record shop which instantly sparked a curiosity within me. I’d never previously read the novels or heard any of the radio programs, and wanted to properly initiate myself into the world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Amusingly, I was also oblivious to the then-recent television dramatization starring a one, Benedict Cumberbatch. (Still entirely off my radar.)
And so, I did what any man would do in my position - I tracked down a copy of the mammoth Annotated Sherlock Holmes single-volume first edition hardcover in its oversize slipcase. It is, perhaps, a coffee table book, in that it is nearly the size of a coffee table. The treasure of a book is fully-illustrated and complete with annotated notes and maps of the where the stories take place. My search continued with the acquisition of several classic radio dramas - The Mercury Theater's The Immortal Sherlock Holmes from September 25th, 1938 CBS Radio Mystery Theater - The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 83 CD set (1939-1947) and The BBC's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 79 CD set (1989-1998) Also, for audiobook fans, you can take your pick from either the 2001 Alec Reid Recordings’ 60 CD Edition read by John Telfer, or the more recent (and certainly more manageable) MP3 CD of the 2014 Audie Award Winning Brilliance Audio Heirloom Collection as read by Simon Vance. While I’m a tremendous fan of old time radio and I absolutely recognize the cultural significance of Basil Rathbone’s performances as Holmes, I found the BBC radio dramas from the 80s and 90s more my style and happily forked over 4.67GB of my hard-earned private tracker ratio for all 79 discs of the series. Much to my dismay I found that the lady or gent who so kindly ripped this massive library of CDs to share them with the world neglected to account for the subtle but stubbornly-persistent RFI interference his PC was generating which had apparently transferred onto every minute of the catalog. I searched high and low in all corners of every tracker on the net, but to no avail. It appeared that this gentleman’s rip is the de-facto source audio for every circulating copy of the Holmes radio dramas. I even attempted to screen out the noise via Audacity. I tried noise reduction filters, limiting, leveling, and repairing the waveform. Sadly, the pulsing static persistently penetrated every part of their performance. Over the past two years I’ve repeatedly tried to listen to and enjoy A Study in Scarlet, but could not make it through 30 minutes without closing the file in frustration. A keen ear is a curse in a circumstance like this. Still there is a happy ending to my tale of woe - This morning I played the Scarlet episode for my girlfriend and she posed an interesting (though likely obvious) question - “Have you tried playing any of the other of the 79 discs?” So… funny story... it appears that, disc 1 aside, the remaining discs are entirely RFI-free. In two years, it had never occurred to me to expand the size of my survey set. And so concludes the Case of the Ruinous RFI. I am looking forward to spend my spring in the company of Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson. |
Philosophical Wax – Artistic Influence Comes Full-Circle
With the whole of my Saturday evening at my command I decided to delve deeper into the culture surrounding a yet-unread title on my bookshelf - The notorious Illuminatus! Trilogy. Little did I know that the exploration would bring a number of my artistic and musical favorites full-circle in a sphere of related influence!
Having read Malaclypse the Younger’s Principia Discordia, (a wonderful bit of counter-cultural madness), I already had a fundamental (mis)understanding of the lunacy that is Discordianism. But in my readings, there were multiple references to its earlier incarnation - the social revolutionaries known as The Situationist International. For those unfamiliar with the group, their philosophy is, for the most part, summarized thusly: [Situationism] is derived primarily from anti-authoritarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism. Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism.Essential to situationist theory was the concept of the spectacle, best-illustrated in Guy Debord’s 1967 book and found-footage film - each titled, La société du spectacle (The Society of the Spectacle). The Spectacle is a criticism of advanced Capitalism, where real-life experiences are replaced with the commodified consumerist culture of living through one’s possessions. The Situationists viewed this passive consumption as damaging to the quality of human life for both individuals and society. Instead of living vicariously through one’s purchases and property, the Situationists sought to create situations - moments of life deliberately constructed for the purpose of reawakening and pursuing authentic desires, experiencing the feeling of life and adventure, and the liberation of everyday life. The film, The Society of the Spectacle (1973) is available in its entirety, dubbed Fr subbed Eng here: And only a few years later, the film Network (1976) would similarly address the societal dangers of mass media. This philosophy was clearly an influence on the hippie art scene of the 1960 with their staging of nearly-spontaneous Happenings. I was honored to attend the first Happening of the season in Buffalo for an impromptu performance of Terry Riley’s In C with participation from children in the audience. Tracking the influence back even further (and then again, to the present) I learned of the French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou known as Lettrisme (Lettrism) and his concept of Hypergraphics in 1954. Here is an Orson Welles Interview featuring Isidore Isou and Lettrist poetry - rich with Dadaist influence. In 1958, Columbia Records issued the very first recordings of Letterist poetry - Maurice Lemaître presente le lettrisme. This poetry adds another level of historical context to the performance I attended by composer Ethan Hayden at the University at Buffalo this past January. While there was likely a Situationist influence on his work, "…ce dangereux supplément…" (2015) for solo voice (with optional electronics & video), Hayden’s piece is phonetically and linguistically more refined (though equally absurd!) both in its content and his delivery. While I absolutely recognize the importance of Isidore Isou’s philosophy and his primitivist poems, Hayden has a far-greater command of language (or perhaps of nonsense?) and I look forward to his future performances. And in 2007 to celebrate the life of Isou, The End of the Age of Divinity was published in his honor. The book is available for free below. Once again coming full-circle to more recent artistic movements, Lettrism brought me to aforementioned Lettrist hypergraphical art, pictured below. While I am by no means a scholar of art history, the influence here is clear as day on the 1990s typographic art of David Carson (famed for his work in Raygun Magazine and for Nine Inch Nails) and on Karl Hyde and John Warwicker’s Tomato art collective, which created the deconstructivist typographical art for Underworld’s Dubnobasswithmyheadman. The work of David Carson... http://i.imgur.com/ra5laSX.jpg and of Tomato... http://i.imgur.com/MKxgpqk.jpg Art of this nature is rooted in the cut-up technique first employed by the Dadaists in the 1920 and again in the late 1950s and early 1960s by William S. Burroughs. But it was the audio incarnation of cut-up that I first encountered in music culture, from the earliest (and quite literal) tape cut-ups of musique concrete, to the resurfacing of the method by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Eno, and others, to the explosion of sampledelica culture in 1980s and 90s hip-hop and turntablism. And around the same time, the radical and subversive art of culture jamming was born. The term, coined in 1984, refers to any form of guerilla communication, such as the vandalist works by The Billboard Liberation Front and the illegal-art sample-based music of Negativland. All of this brought me back, yet again full-circle to The KLF. The documentary, On the Passage of a few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972 contains flashes of the phrase, “The Time for Art is Over.” This very notion was later reiterated by Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond of the KLF in the K Foundation’s cryptic adverts appearing in UK national newspapers in 1993. The first ad proclaimed, It is only now that I realize that John Higgs’ endlessly fascinating book, THE KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds directly referenced the Situationists, the Discordians, Alan Moore and "Ideaspace", and Robert Anton Wilson - all of the key figures I am now exploring. Incredible discoveries are waiting to be made every day, and quiet Saturday evenings, like yesterday’s, are gleaming with potential for magic just like this. I've now a week ahead of me and a century of exciting new art to explore. |
Nerdcore Wedding Plans
MASSIVELY funky news, everyone!
I am presently planning my ultimate nerd-core wedding. The event will celebrate love, live action role playing, fandoms, filesharing, and crazy obscure cult music perfect for freaks like us. THE LOCATION - Portmeirion, UK - on the set of The 1967 BBC cult classic, The Prisoner! http://i.imgur.com/UEHhRKZ.jpg The Costumes I will be LARPing as Number 48 - the anarchistic chaotic-neutral character in the final episode. http://i.imgur.com/Re0Q8nl.png My partner will be dressed in the finest Victorian splendor and will carry a replica of Kaylee's parasol from Firefly. http://i.imgur.com/fENa2GL.jpg The Invites Each guest will receive an invitation themed in their favorite fandom, and will be invited to show up dressed as their favorite character. The Music My favorite DJ from the UK will be spinning all our favorite music - Doctor John, Tom Waits, the Funky Meters, Skull Snaps, Lemon Jelly, and other delightful madness. The Ring - A Symbol of Love... and Piracy http://i.imgur.com/OxX203F.jpg Together, my lady and I came up with the perfect concept for my ring. Pictured below is an uncirculated coin from the micronation of Sealand. It is one of the only items ever produced by the country. Sealand is the home of HavenCo - a pirate server network responsible for petabytes of filesharing traffic. Fortunately, the prince of Sealand has made piracy legal in their country by royal decree. http://i.imgur.com/gdHPZv2.jpg This coin - one of approx. 1000 in the world, will be formed into a wedding band by a silversmith in Oregon. http://i.imgur.com/V6AC8R2.jpg My lady is a proud anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist, and as such she hates diamonds and gold. Also the thrifty type, she challenged me to find a beautiful antique 1920s-era engagement and wedding ring for under $100. Mission accomplished and she is going to LOVE what I've put together for her. (Keepin' that under wraps for now.) Officially becoming Lord and Lady We are also submitting applications for Lord and Ladyship of Sealand. http://i.imgur.com/S5hpSeO.jpg The Proposal The proposal will take place at the famous Genesee Country Museum which features costumed interpreters in restored historic buildings, breathing life into an authentic 19th-Century village. We'll be dressed in full period regalia and I'll surprise her in the music parlor of the octagon house, built in 1870. http://i.imgur.com/GdB4lsS.jpg The Catering We are thrilled to have Cereal Killers - the finest selections of breakfast cereal from all over the world, catering our event! http://i.imgur.com/DBVRcod.jpg I'll likely get a projector and show a VHS of 80s cartoons during the reception. http://i.imgur.com/XhDAvI9.png We're crafting all the event decor ourselves, we're designing all the print media, and our photographer friends will capture the entire event for reddit to fawn over. It's going to be an incredible wedding. |
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Also - Mogwai's "Punk Rock." |
I believe 24-bit is a farce. I'd love to be proven wrong.
Below is an objective and thorough 24-bit vs 16-bit audio A/B test taken by 140 golden-eared audiophiles, engineers, musicians, and hardware reviewers.
In aggregate there was no evidence to show that the 140 respondents were able to identify the 24-bit sample. Check out the complete results here. Curious to see if any listeners on MB have evidence to the contrary? |
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The Personal, Portable Media Cloud
Recently, a new tech product has surfaced on the market - one that solves a very specific problem for a particular niche of media consumers.
There exists a digital media user base with larger-than-usual libraries. I’m speaking of anyone with multiple TB of media, whether it be audio, cinema and TV archives, CBR collections, ePub libraries, or any combination thereof. Naturally for collections of this size, these consumers have a great passion for their media, and desire full-accessibility to their content at all times. A percentage of these users have created a solution by holding-fast to their grandfathered-in unlimited cellular data plans, and use one of various dedicated home servers to make their data instantly accessible on any web-enabled device without any fear of data caps or throttling. (I am among these users.) There remains however, a less-fortunate base of media consumers who don’t have the luxury of unlimited data or a dedicated server, (Subsonic or otherwise) to grant them the freedom they desire. Which brings us to the solution of the personal, portable media cloud. Seagate now manufactures a surprisingly small Wireless Plus Portable Hard Drive with its own built-in WiFi network and a 10 hr internal battery. This device acts as your own personal (and portable) wireless network - on the road or off the grid, your media is always accessible, wirelessly to any device. It is robust enough to stream up to 3 different HD movies to 3 different devices at the same time. Use the Seagate Media App on any of your devices, or the codec-ready application of your choice. The Seagate Media App also works as a sync tool to backup your devices’ files to your portable HDD. The 1.5 TB model is $155 and the 2TB edition is $197 - a small price to pay for the freedom it will bring. This product solves a very particular problem for a very small niche of users, but for those users it is exactly what they've been looking for. http://i.imgur.com/6iN3F4x.jpg |
Early Electronic Album of the Day
The Electrosoniks (Tom Dissevelt & Kid Baltan) - Electronic Music. (1962)
My favorite of the dozen or so generically-titled electronic releases of the early 60s. Fun trivia - The UFO sound of the opening seconds from "Moon Maid" were lifted by the novelty group, The Ran Dells two years later on their mega-hit, "the Martian Hop." They were heralded for years for their "innovative" early-electronic sounds but were perhaps one of the earliest examples of illegal sampling. (Though, notably - Buchanan And Goodman beat them by several years in 1956 with the equally-successful "The Flying Saucer Pts 1 & 2") Also - Jean-Jacques Perrey visited Dissevelt and Baltan during the production of this LP and cited them as an inspiration for his move to electronic music. |
Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials! Wish I could go but I'm sure you'll both have a fantastic day. Your lady is beautiful, by the way! :thumb:
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Weekend Update:
This eve, over Chinese food, I was discussing my wish to purchase an ultra-cool 5LP import box set with my girlfriend. Fortunately, (no pun intended), my fortune cookie had my back. You cannot deny a man with this fortune cookie his beloved vinyl fix. http://i.imgur.com/WF41cgj.jpg |
An Incredible Grail and Outstanding Good Fortune
Once in a while, for no particular reason, the stars in your world align and an outstanding bit of good fortune befalls you. I was the recipient of just such a fortune this afternoon.
Every day I try to take a few minutes to explore potentially rewarding sounds that had somehow previously avoided my radar. Often I’ll review the universally-acclaimed album charts for a given genre as an interest-of-the-week on rateyourmusic.com. Sunday morning’s theme was the peak of the downtempo scene – late 1990s utlra-chilled choons filled with trip-hop rhythms, mellow minimal melodies, jazz-infused horn riffs and the sparse and fragmented fills from a Fender Rhodes. This was music generally associated with hip, urban cafes in the 90s and found widespread mainstream popularity through Ministry of Sound’s chillout compilations of the cool sounds of Ibiza. These compilations are fine if you just want an atmospheric bed of sound for your late night laptop adventures or for small gatherings, but none of these are particularly memorable. I was on the hunt for an ultra-chilled tour de force – an anthemic masterpiece of critical acclaim. That album, as I quickly learned, is Kruder & Dorfmeister’s K&D Sessions. Originally released in 1998, both the 4LP set and the double-CD versions of the album were issued exclusively in Germany. The album has since become a holy grail for lovers of dub and downtempo classics. I was disappointed to find that, bootlegs aside, the album only had one proper release 17 years ago. But that’s when I stumbled upon wonderful news – it just so happened that the album was newly-remastered by Bernie Grundman for a special 5LP audiophile edition released in March of this year! Most of the major distribution channels were sold out, with sellers in the USA asking $110-$169 for copies of the album. Thankfully, I was able to get my hands on a copy locally this afternoon for $15 and I couldn’t be happier. The audiophile edition also comes with a download code for a 24-bit digital archive of the remastered set. What an incredible addition to my electronic music library! |
Second Toughest in the Infants… at LAST!
Why have one grail when you can have TWO? Followed up yesterday’s Kruder & Dorfmeister Sessions Remastered Edition with this treasure, also from Germany – an original press of Underworld’s Second Toughest in the Infants. This was the last of their vinyl-issued albums missing from my catalog of over 375 analog and digital albums, and it is so exciting to finally claim one for my own!
And, to top everything off, the seller threw in the classic “Rez / Cowgirl” single as a surprise gift! Second Toughest was the incredible follow-up to the Underworld Mk 2 debut, Dubnobasswithmyheadman. The record is equal-parts floor-stomping club anthems and cerebral, meditative headphone music. Hyde’s stream-of-consciousness free form lyrical poetry deconstructs the objective properties of language and functions purely as a rhythmic device, complementing the subtle progression of Rick Smith’s atmospheric abstract techno. This, like all of Underworld’s recordings, is a milestone for the ages. |
I just bought Second Toughest in the Infants, actually, so good timing. I'll listen to it tomorrow, though I probably won't have as high an opinion as you do. My only experience with Underworld is the last Eno/Hyde album.
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