25 Years In The Making: A New Archival Release From the Masters of Trip-Hop
 

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I'm very excited about the latest release to arrive at Innerspace Labs. Trip-hop/downtempo gurus, Kruder & Dorfmeister have officially issued an archival double LP originally produced during the prime of their illustrious career. 1995, as it's called, was recovered from an old DAT, after which the production quality was polished and brought new life for a full-length release on 13 November, 2020.

A gatefold double-LP was issued on the duo's G-Stone Recordings label exclusively in Austria.

From the duo's official website:

The opening track, "Johnson" samples Robert Johnson to a chilling effect. An official video was produced and is available on YouTube here:



Astonishingly, even now, two weeks after its release there is very little press about the album. This is particularly surprising given all of the other 90s revivalism which is so prevalent in the current age so steeped in nostalgia. There's not even so much as a blip on boomkat, pitchfork, or any other music news site. While I understand that the downtempo genre is no longer the massive cultural phenomena it once was, news of an archival release such as this born in the halcyon days of the genre from two veterans of the industry should surely deserve more attention than it is receiving.

The only two Google search results for articles on the release are from the trusted and always reliable Ambient Music Guide and a review from Magnetic Mag.

Mike G. of Ambient Music Guide speaks positively of the album, saying:

And David Ireland of Magnetic Mag writes:

Independent reviews are beginning to appear courtesy of members of RYM, where the release title is bracketed with an "Archival" suffix. There the album holds a respectable 3.57 / 5.0 from 63 ratings.

Overall, the album is a sheer delight and a wonderful surprise to close out an otherwise tumultuous year. So kick back and dig this magnificently cool set, chillin' like it's 1995.

Rest In Beauty: Compiling an Archive in Memory of Harold Budd
 

I was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my favorite ambient composer, Harold Budd this month, who we lost to complications due to COVID-19. I've always been able to count on his ethereal soundscapes to soothe my nerves and vanquish my anxieties, so the finality of his death was a blow to my musical world.

Budd released an impressive catalog of albums over his 49-year career in music. I maintain a digital archive of 46 of his major album releases including his latest collaboration with his longtime friend, Robin Guthrie titled Another Flower, issued just days before his passing.

I feel so fortunate to have collected all of Budd's albums from the 70s and 80s comprising his first eight major releases issued on vinyl before his label switched to the then-popular compact disc format, as well as the three albums he recorded with John Foxx combined into a single deluxe vinyl box set with a signed art print by Foxx.

There is one LP which preceded his first official album, The Pavilion of Dreams - the elusive The Oak Of The Golden Dreams from 1971, copies of which command many hundreds of dollars on the rare occasion that they surface. That recording was realized on the Buchla Electronic Music System at the California Institute of the Arts (then in Burbank) in 1970 and was not an official commercial release.

I'm overjoyed to have collected all of Budd's early official vinyl releases. There are a few later albums that were issued on vinyl which I would love to own but sadly few if any have resurfaced on the used album market. Collectors purchased them directly from the label and held fast to their treasured copies, all the more so now that Budd has passed away. I watched several listed copies of his first album vanish before my eyes after news of his death spread on social media, so I had to act quickly and decisively, as I don't expect these albums to get any less expensive and will only become rarer as more time passes. (Pavilion nearly doubled in price the day the news of his death was announced.)

I ordered the LPs I was missing on December 9th. The first hundred dollar package ended up shipping from just a few miles north of my home. Had I known that I would have instead just opted to pick it up myself. Unfortunately, the US Postal Service mis-shipped the package nearly nine hundred miles off course to Alabama, delaying its delivery in the midst of the holiday season. And as insurance was not offered on the purchase, the delay was agonizing, all the more so as a replacement copy would require international shipping and would command a still higher purchase price. After working with my local Consumer Affairs Department, I eventually received the package 19 days later, thankfully intact.

Pictured below are Budd's first eight LPs, as well as the aforementioned Nighthawks, Translucence And Drift Music autographed box set issued in 2011. These are among the most-treasured LPs in my Archive. They include:

• The Pavilion of Dreams
• Ambient 2: Plateaux of Mirror
• The Serpent (In Quicksilver)
• Abandoned Cities
• The Pearl
• The Moon And The Melodies
• Lovely Thunder
• The White Arcades
• Nighthawks
• Translucence
• and Drift Music

John Diliberto of Echos published a wonderful feature on Budd to celebrate his memory, saying, "Harold Budd Has Left the Planet: Rest in Beauty."

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The Future Starts Here - John Higgs’ Latest Cultural Exploration
 

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This is the third and latest of Higgs' works on cultural criticism to enter my library, following The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band who Burned a Million Pounds and Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century and is surely his most exhaustive to date, dedicating nearly 400 pages to examining the first 18 years of the new millennium.

I discovered the book by chance while hungrily searching for cultural examinations of post-postmodernism / metamodernism and media culture. Higgs' previous works are some of the most insightful and contextual writings on contemporary culture I've ever had the pleasure to read, so the news of a new book was an absolute thrill.

Acquiring this text was a challenge amid the COVID-19 outbreak as at the time the book was only available from UK distributors in its first hardcover run, but thankfully I was able to secure a copy internationally from The Book Depository.

While his KLF book primarily examined culture through the lens of the band, Stranger Than We Can Imagine provided greater insight into global culture as a whole, so the announcement of this new book inspired immediate action on my part. I'd found my eagerness increasing with each successive chapter of Stranger Than We Can Imagine, while Higgs ushered his readers from one decade to the next. By the time I reached postmodernism (expertly described in the context of Super Mario Bros) and the pivotal transition from the hierarchical absolutist worldview to the communal network culture of the millennials, I was on the edge of my socio-cultural seat. It was a brilliant read, and just as satisfying and informative as his book on The KLF.

Eager for information on his latest book, I found that Greg Wilson published a review of it on his blog and noted that Higgs counters "the dystopian narrative that’s generally thrust upon our thoughts of the future by the various media we encounter, in favour of a much more hopeful and holistic tomorrow that makes better sense of the metamodern world in which we reside.”

The first few pages of the introduction outline how, in the 1930s, all visions of the future, like the World's Fair, depicted a marvelous utopia where mankind is free from work and want. That dream, Higgs explains, ended in the 1980s. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is cited as the last attempt at a utopian vision in mainstream culture. Back to the Future Part 2, The Walking Dead, and Children of Men painted a far more bleak image of what was to come. Higgs notes that films no longer had to preface the audience as to why the world had fallen into disarray, as it became increasingly more believable. Higgs writes:

And prophetically, Higgs then states:

That last sentence was all the more alarming as the book was published just a few months before COVID-19 shook the planet.

Each chapter of The Future Starts Here examines a facet of rapidly-changing culture and technology and frames their impact on psychology and sociology and the human race as a whole. Most of these chapters could stand well on their own as essays on their respective topics, but Higgs is an expert at demonstrating the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate subjects to paint a contextual image of cultural influence.

Much of the text examines the nature of artificial intelligence, but Higgs also dedicates a potent and impactful chapter to a comparative analysis of generational culture. I was fascinated by how he demonstrated the origins of the contrasting value sets of Boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials, and Generation Z. This was what I was most looking forward to from his latest book after enjoying the author's prior comprehensive critique of twentieth-century culture. Higgs effectively outlines the causes and effects of these generational value sets, perhaps best-demonstrated by depicting Gen Z's reaction to the John Hughes film, The Breakfast Club.

A later chapter surveys both fictional and factual phenomena of space exploration and the conflicting characteristics of various Star Trek series and films, specifically differentiating those sanctioned by and contested by Gene Roddenberry. This chapter also highlights the technological impact of Elon Musk before emphasizing the importance of the universes yet to be explored right here on Earth.

The subject matter is deeply explorative. A chapter beginning with the technological advances in virtual reality quickly reframes the potential consequences of the technology, both positive and negative, and examines it comparatively to phenomena like Skinner boxes, 'redpilling,' Gamergate, Russian troll bots, cultural Marxism, tribalism, and other psychological influencers of social imprinting, while also touching upon its potential for medical benefits and its usefulness as a proponent of social empathy. The chapter goes on to reference VR in contemporary cinema, (e.g. WALL-E and Ready Player One), as well as the Oculus VR company and its acquisition by Facebook. The chapter concludes with an examination of augmented reality, Pokemon Go, and Google Glass, and looks ahead to the potential of virtual pets and personal AI assistants, as well as the moral and ethical implications this technology would bear. As always, Higgs' writing is richly contextual.

Another chapter, fittingly titled, “Psychic Pollution,” cautions against the dire consequences of our collective addiction to social media and the disinformation it so often spreads. Higgs parallels Facebook algorithms to the history of psychologically predatory advertising and twenty four hour alarmist and sensationalist news networks. He outlines the nature of our biological addiction to dopamine and how these phenomena prey on our need for a neurochemical hit.

But not all of the twenty-first century is so dismal and worrisome. The penultimate chapter, “Fixing Things” poses the potential benefits of the American biologist E. O. Wilson's Half Earth initiative and of implementing Universal Basic Income. Higgs is certainly not without hope. From James Surwillo's feature on the book:

The closing chapter, "More Than Individual" explores American anarchist author Peter Lamborn Wilson's Immediatism and Brian Eno's scenius as examples of the interconnectedness of the twenty-first century culture. Higgs concludes his examination of the early years of this new millennium with hope and optimism. He notes that, for much of the twentieth-century, "the job of advancing what it meant to be human fell to the avant-garde and the counterculture." Contrastingly however, "since the emergence of the internet in the mid-90s," "...the work of evolving and improving the human experience falls to everyone."

The Future Starts Here is an engaging and exploratory venture into the culture and mindset of the new millennium. It’s an inspiring, informative, and contextual perspective I’m grateful to have read.

Robert Fripp Completes His Year-Long Pledge to Share Music For Quiet Moments
 

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Robert Fripp of King Crimson, photo via IMDb

It’s been quite a year for English musician, songwriter, and record producer, Robert Fripp and today marks a very special day in his musical journey. Fripp and his wife, Toyah Willcox have actively been posting lighthearted and silly rock song cover performances to Toyah’s YouTube channel each week, while simultaneously Fripp has held fast to his pledge from a year ago to post previously-unreleased weekly installments of his own ambient Frippertronic series entitled, Music For Quiet Moments.

The project was initiated on May 1st of 2020 following an announcement on Fripp’s own website. Fripp dedicated himself to release a soundscape every Friday for fifty-two weeks on DGMLive, Youtube, Spotify, Apple Music and all the main online music platforms. In the April 29th announcement, Fripp’s producer, David Singleton remarked:

The announcement was followed by a brief write-up by Fripp outlining the philosophy and concept he had in mind for the series. Fripp wrote:

Today marks the publication of the fifty-second and final installment of Fripp’s year-long series. Every Friday, the artist has faithfully shared thoughtful and introspective soundscapes which serve as a meditative medicine for melancholy during these difficult times.

Early on in the project, the ambient radio program Hearts of Space’s producer and presenter, Stephen Hill dedicated a full transmission to showcase the first four installments of the series for programme #1251 broadcast June 19th, 2020.

From the Hearts of Space website for that transmission, Hill wrote:

These Frippertronic soundscapes flow seamlessly from one track to the next. The complete library of fifty-two pieces clocks in at a total of over 8 hours and 47 minutes of contemplative music, and serves as a magnificent soundbed for work, quiet reflection, or sleep. It’s been quite a year, and at last the series is complete. Music For Quiet Moments is highly recommended as some of the finest ambient music of the pandemic period to date. For anyone who enjoyed Fripp’s prior Frippertronic soundworlds, these are definitely worth your time and exploration.

Babble on an’ Ting: Alex Paterson’s New Biography and Orbscure Recordings Label
 

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It’s a red-letter day at Innerspace Labs! Just arrived from England is a wonderful new treasure - an autographed copy of the newly-published biography on Alex Paterson of The Orb, along with an exclusive 12-track album showcasing music he intends to release on the new record label he’s started to feature up-and-coming ambient artists from around the world!

From The Orb’s official announcement:

“I decided to do a book now as I have reached one full human cycle – 60. Also, to tell my side of stories and to set the record straight on planet Orb,” says Alex. “Working with Kris was seriously brilliant fun. We have been friends and allies for decades now. He’s a beautiful man with a deep knowledge of all things secret and actually lived through some of the stories together.”

The book’s title, of course, is a reference to a Victor Lewis Smith prank call sampled by The Orb on their number one album UFOrb.

And of the new record label, they announced:

Paterson’s initial new musical project adopts the moniker, Sedibus with a full-length LP titled, The Heavens. From the official announcement:

Kris Needs is a British author and music journalist. The author bio from the official press statement for Babble on an’ Ting notes that Needs started his career writing for the seminal monthly magazine, Zigzag in the 70s, becoming editor while writing for NME and Sounds. The 352-page adventure is issued in paperback by Omnibus Press and special signed copies autographed by Paterson, himself were bundled with the 12-track sampler CD of upcoming tracks from Paterson’s new record label.

The tracklist for the Orbscure Recordings Sampler is as follows:

1. Intro - Roney FM
2. Unknowable - Sedibus
3. Wow Picasso! - OSS
4. Home - Chocolate Hills
5. Squirrels In Jumpsuits - Roland & Albert
6. Shika - Mawe
7. Latchmere Allotments – The Orb
8. America Is Unavailable - Transit Kings
9. Turn Right - Cripps Said Mason
10. The Librarian - DF Tram
11. Fara - Nick Neutronz
12. Here For Beer - High Frequency Bandwidth

Curiously, while the TownsendMusic Ltd website’s copies of the autographed book bundle, priced at just $30 plus shipping, dispatched the day before official public release on May 28, 2021, Amazon’s regular unsigned copies of the book without the Orbscure Sampler album are priced at $24.99 and will not ship until September 9th. Though Americans paid $31.50 in postage for DP US Direct Tracked shipping from the UK, the TownsendMusic Ltd offer was still incredibly alluring, especially for an historic release such as this.

I’m honored to have been able to claim a copy of this special bundle. Paterson is an ambient veteran and pioneer of an immeasurably influential genre of music - one of the most treasured artists in my library. It is a joy to see, even at the age of 60, that Alex still has fresh new ideas and is taking an active role in pushing new and emerging ambient electronic artists from around the globe to the fore.

Orbscure Recordings will be a label to watch in the months and years ahead.

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An Exploration of Musical Impressionism: Building a Library of Claude Debussy
 

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I am by no measure well-versed in the realms of classical music. The principal foci of my archive center around minimalism, ambient works, the classical avant-garde, and early milestone compositions of electroacoustic / musique concrète. But with that said, I understand and greatly revere the foundational soundworks which directly inspired much of what came to pass in 20th century music. Paramount among these are the musical impressionism of Claude Debussy, Erik Satie, and Maurice Ravel, (though Debussy, himself staunchly rejected the "impressionist" label). These composers' use of musical "color," unique chord combinations, ambiguous tonality, extended harmonies, use of modes and exotic scales, parallel motion, extra-musicality, and evocative titles were together fundamental in inspiring what came to be known as "ambient" music in the West later in the 20th century.

So it seemed only fitting that I obtain for my library the finest and most complete collection of these composers' works. For the first stage of this endeavor, I selected Debussy as the target of my research. I began by securing collections and compilations and researching the release history of interpretations of Debussy’s work by various performers, and reading up on the mastering and performative quality of each.

On compact disc I obtained -

• A multi-volume collection of Alexis Weissenberg’s interpretations of Debussy on Deutsche Grammophon issued in West Germany in 1986
  
• The Orpheus Trio’s renditions of Ravel, Faure, Debussy, and Devienne issued by Vanguard Everyman Classics in 1987/1980
  
• Four of the five volumes of the 1991/2 EMI Classics France albums comprising unparalleled performances of Debussy by Aldo Ciccolini
  
• The London Philharmonic’s performances of La Mer, Prélude à l'aprés-midi d'un Faune, and Jeux conducted by Serge Baudo issued by EMI Eminence in the UK in 1986
  
• The Solomon Trio interpreting Ravel, Debussy, and Gabriel Fauré's Piano Trio issued by Masters Pickwick Group in England from 1992
  
• Simon Rattle conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s performances of Debussy’s Images, Jeux, and Musiques pour "Le Roi Lear" issued by EMI Digital in 1990
  
• Debussy – Images performed by Simon Trpceski issued by EMI Classics in 2008

Then I collected the following digital releases -

• Claude Debussy – The Debussy Edition [17CD+18th bonus disc of historical recordings] box set issued by Deutsche Grammophon in 2012
  
• Debussy · Ravel - Orchestral Works [8CD] set directed by Jean Martinon featuring Aldo Ciccolini on piano, recorded by Sale Wagram, Paris, 1973 & 1974 issued by EMI Classics in 2002
  
• Claude Debussy - The Complete Works For Piano performed by Walter Gieseking [4CD] set issued in 2006

I found some particularly interesting details about the Gieseking 4CD set.

Cristofori on Amazon reviewing Gieseking’s The Complete Works For Piano stated:

Curiously, upon researching this release further, I discovered that the original 1990s CD release was later remastered for Super Audio CD and issued as a hybrid 4xSACD set in Europe in 2012.

Additional commenters on Amazon described the noticeable improvements on the Super Audio edition. Leeber Cohen said:

And Thomas said:

Also, on vinyl, my library already included the following -

• The Debussy - Leonard Slatkin, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra – La Mer • Prélude À L'Après-midi D'Un Faune • Danses Sacrée Et Profane LP issued by Telarc Digital from 1982
• Tomita – Snowflakes Are Dancing (The Newest Sound Of Debussy), comprising Tomita's arrangements of Claude Debussy's "tone paintings" performed on a Moog synthesizer and a Mellotron

Snowflakes was released by RCA Victor in 1974. It was nominated for four Grammy Awards in 1975, including best classical album of the year, and it was NARM's best-selling classical album of the year.

The release notes for the La Mer Telarc Digital LP state the following about the recording and mastering:

My goal was to acquire as complete a library of Debussy’s work as was available in the vinyl format. I performed a search on the Discogs database for complete box sets of Debussy’s works issued on vinyl and I found the following:

• Claude Debussy, Werner Haas – Complete Works For Piano Solo • Das Klavierwerk • Œuvres Pour Piano Seul - 5LP (Netherlands) and 6LP (Spain) complete piano solo box set
  
• Claude Debussy, Walter Gieseking ‎– L'Œuvre De Piano - 5LP box set
  
• Claude Debussy - Louis De Froment, Orchestra Of Radio Luxembourg – His Works For Orchestra Volume I: La Mer, Prelude A L'Apres-midi D'un Faune, La Plus Que Lente, Le Martyre De Saint Sebastien, Le Triomphe De Bacchus, Le Roi Lear, Marche Ecossaise, La Boit A Joujoux, Excerpts From L'Enfant Prodigue, Berceuse Heroique - 3LP box set of Complete Orchestral Works Vol 1 which is concluded with:
  
• Debussy - Orchestra Of Radio Luxembourg, Louis De Froment – His Works For Orchestra (Complete); Vol. II - 3LP box set
• Debussy*, Peter Frankl – Complete Piano Music Volume 1 & 2 - Volume 1 is 1LP, Vol 2 is 3LPs
• Claude Debussy - Jörg Demus – Complete Piano Music - 8 single-LP volumes issued by the Musical Heritage Society

My interest was primarily in Debussy’s solo piano works, so my ideal choice of these vinyl editions appeared to be Claude Debussy, Werner Haas – Complete Works For Piano Solo • Das Klavierwerk • Œuvres Pour Piano Seul which was only issued in the Netherlands and in Spain.

When I researched the production history of that particular release further, I discovered that some of those* recordings were issued on two CDs in 2007 by Philips Classics, though reviewers on Amazon make note of the noticeably quiet mastering and subtle hiss present on the CDs.

Listener on Amazon had this to say:

This vinyl box set includes an 8-page LP-size booklet with musicological notes in English, German and French. There are a few differences between the Netherlands and Spanish editions, most noticeably the language of the cover text. The Spanish edition also includes a sixth LP, featuring the works for two pianos or piano 4-hands, but I opted for the English packaging to facilitate interpretation of the track listing.

I’ve been performing similar research for the music of Erik Satie and have selected a vinyl box set of his complete piano works but it is an exceedingly rare import so I’ll have to postpone that project for the time being. Still, Haas’ Complete Works For Piano Solo is a wonderful beginning for this journey.

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A Generous Gift: Exquisite Rarities of Harold Budd and Brian Eno
 

It’s a very special month at Innerspace Labs thanks to a gift from a very generous reader! My followers will recall my sharing my “Brian Eno Collection Milestone” from August of 2020 wherein I showcased photos and details of my Eno collection to date, as well as my “Rest In Beauty: Compiling an Archive in Memory of Harold Budd” post from December of that year where I featured my vinyl discography of the late Harold Budd. If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you are well aware that the catalogs of these two iconic veterans of ambient music are among my most-cherished musical treasures.

In September I was contacted by a reader who, himself, is quite the avid collector. He had amassed an impressively substantial library of Eno and Budd artifacts, both physically and digitally, and maintains documentation cataloging and itemizing all facets of his collection. This fellow kindly offered to share his work with me, gifting me a wealth of releases missing from my humble collection. I was honored!

In all, he gifted me 341 folders of rare album releases I was missing from Eno and Budd's catalogs, bringing my digital totals for these artists to 409 folders for Brian Eno and 82 folders for Harold Budd, respectively.

I was fascinated to learn of incalculably rare works among his library, such as Budd’s “Untitled Piece (Text-Sound composition)" from the 1969 Source Magazine #6. This release is noteworthy as, prior to its discovery, the earliest documented work by Budd was the markedly rare The Oak Of The Golden Dreams issued by Advanced Recordings in 1971 which last surfaced in 2020 and sold on Discogs for $420. The 38-minute “Untitled Piece” predates this recording by two years, and included with the recording were high-resolution PDF scans of the accompanying periodical summarizing Budd’s early composition.

Other new-to-me Budd rarities were included such as a Various Artist release, the Chicago ‘82: A Dip in the Lake cassette from Belgium which contains two tracks by Budd. Similarly, The Greetings - Piano Live 1991 is another various artist release, issued in Italy by Materiali Sonori in 1993, and an EP of Glyph Remixes by Hector Zazou & Harold Budd issued by SSR in Belgium in 1996.

A library of lone tracks and rarities were also among the collection, featuring Budd retrospectives on several experimental music podcasts. Also included were a set of unofficial live concert recordings - something I never thought I’d see for an artist of Budd’s quiet and reserved nature!

The Eno library was even more exhaustive, as one might expect from such a prolific and active artist. I took incredible care when developing a folder structure to merge our respective collections, electing to create three primary folders for Official Releases, Unofficial Releases, and Non-Album Content (Apps and Themes). These folders dive deep and reward careful exploration, as nested networks of subfolders reveal a tremendous wealth of carefully-curated content.

The additions did pose quite a challenge, however, as nearly none of the media had accurately or consistently-applied metadata, which is critical to the navigation of my archive. As such, I devoted many nights’ work to the task of reformatting all the metadata uniformly from scratch for values which were erroneous or missing. I utilized batch processing techniques wherever possible for efficiency, but the inconsistency of the tagged information required a nearly track-by-track analysis and correction.

I brought it all to as close to an archival standard as I was able by performing digital forensics for the missing or conflicting data and employed semicolon delimiters for multi-value tags like those of artist collaborations, etc. I utilized the aforementioned nested folder structure for the primary categories and for multi-disc content with a date of issue prefix to create a chronological hierarchy to facilitate navigation both by folder and by ID3-based browsing. Thereafter, I had to synchronize all the newly-introduced content with all of my various music library databases, spreadsheets, documents, and other content management systems to incorporate critical data from over 4,000 files relating to these two artists.

As I’ve said previously, I understand that there are collectors with far more vast libraries of these gentlemen’s work. I’m grateful to have been able to compile 64-discs worth of Eno’s primary discography on vinyl, all eight of Harold Budd’s original LPs, and his collaborations with John Foxx on wax as well. I am not a wealthy man but I consider myself quite rich with the beautiful library of soundworks I’ve been able to enjoy in both the digital and physical form.

I want to extend another word of heartfelt gratitude to the reader who so generously reached out and shared the fruits of his research with me. It is a gift which I will enjoy repeatedly for years to come.

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The Return of gmusicbrowser!
 

Such an exciting day! I happened to visit omgubuntu.co.uk and a headline caught my eye from December of 2020 which read, “GMusicBrowser is Back From the Dead with New GTK3 Port.”

This was thrilling news, as gmusicbrowser was my favorite large music library manager for Linux back in 2015. Back then I’d published an article after discovering the application and had described it as, “a robust utility with impressive handling for libraries in excess of 100,000 tracks, and best of all – a fully-customizable interface.” Sadly, development of the application halted several years ago and the Ubuntu Software Center retired it in favor of the simpler but powerful Clementine application. If you’re curious, Slant.co published a detailed side-by-side comparison of the two applications here.

Searching the web for more news on the release I found an article from March 1, 2021 on Linux Uprising titled, “gmusicbrowser Music Player Sees First Release In More Than 5 Years.”

While not available from the Software Center, installation is manual but fairly simple for Ubuntu users by downloading the .deb package at gmusicbrowser - download.

This however was only half the battle for me, as I had painstakingly crafted a custom application layout for gmusicbrowser to let me browse my library by folder structure and by multiple points of metadata all at once. I dove into my archived documentation and was elated to find that I’d taken detailed notes on how to install the custom layout I loved step by step.

From my notes, I saw that the layout mine was based upon was titled “laiteAraknoid2” - one of several layouts included in a package formerly available from vsido.org. Sadly, the download link from 2015 was long-since broken, but ever-the-archivist, I found that I had downloaded and saved the package to my local file system along with an instruction guide I'd written on how to restore it!

I followed my six-year-old instructions to the letter, and was overjoyed when the next launch of gmusicbrowser instantly restored my custom tweaked version of the layout along with all my folder configuration and user settings! The entire process took fewer than five minutes! All that was left to do was rescan the library for all the content I’d added in subsequent years. Three hours and 45 minutes later I was all synced up and ready to go.

Here is a snapshot of the layout with one of my primary audio folders selected. I have a little tidying up to do with some of the metadata but that’s an advantage of this layout scheme, as I can quickly identify and correct stray tags. This will empower me to explore my library anew! Such a great way to begin the fall season!

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"This is a journey into sound."
 

"This is a journey into sound."

Just dropping in for a quick collection update - My holy trinity of 1987. The two singles were featured prominently on mash-up culture mixes and retrospective surveys of early hip hop / dance music. The full-length LP is the rare debut album by The KLF, (Kings of the Low Frequencies / Kopyright Liberation Front), then performing as The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, and would be impossible to release in today's litigious music market.

They faced similar challenges in August of 1987, when The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society ordered The JAMs to recall and destroy all unsold copies of the record. The JAMs made a bonfire in the Swedish countryside and burnt the LPs.

Pictured:

- Eric B. & Rakim ‎– "Paid In Full (Seven Minutes Of Madness - The Coldcut Remix)"
- The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu (The KLF) ‎– 1987 What The F***'s Going On?
- Bomb The Bass ‎– "Beat Dis (Extended Dis)"

Interestingly, both "Beat Dis" and "Seven Minutes" contain samples of "Train Sequence" by Geoffrey Sumner (1958) and "Pump That Bass" by Original Concept (1986). And all three of these releases were first issued in 1987. Furthermore, M | A | R | R | S' hit, "Pump Up The Volume," also released in '87, shares its namesake titular sample with the Coldcut "Seven Minutes" mix, each lifting the spoken-word vocal from Eric B. and Rakim's "I Know You Got Soul" from their debut Paid In Full LP released earlier that same year. Whosampled dot com cites no fewer than 437 songs that went on to sample the classic hip hop track.

The Coldcut Remix is filed under Hip-Hop, "Beat Dis" is House/Breaks, and 1987 is Leftfield/Plunderphonics. Each is a milestone in the history of DJ culture.

#keepthisfrequencyclear

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Thoughts on My Research to Close Out the Year
 

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“If you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research.” -- Wilson Mizner

Friends, I've been working on writing a book, and I'd like your insight. For the last several years, I've been compiling and constructing a vast library of materials on a range of interrelated subjects. These include but are not limited to the following:

Privacy Rights, Copyright Reform, Copyleft, Open-Source, Creative Commons, Consumer Culture, Propaganda, Social Engineering, Gift Economics, various forms of Anarchism, Digital Abundance, Kopimism, the Access to Knowledge Movement, Mutual Aid, the Moral Economy, Antimarketism, the Free Culture Movement, Open Culture and Remix Culture, the Open Content Project, Free Music Philosophy, File-Sharing (a consumer gift system), Post-scarcity Economics / Digital Abundance, the Information Society / Knowledge Economy, Digital Rights, Crypto-Anarchism / Cypherpunks, as well as Mass-Surveillance and its Impacts on Journalism.

I've constructed a library of several hundred books, essays, documentary films, articles, periodicals, and other resources, and then organized the content with a network of spreadsheets, folder systems, and a notebook of rich-formatted documents linking directly to all content cited in my archive. My organizational strategies have proven useful to aid me in navigating the material.

I've employed a master spreadsheet to track which content I have in physical or digital formats, which ones I've consumed and which I have yet to explore, and I've used Google Books to dynamically extract critical content I've highlighted from those texts into a series of documents with cited excerpts for future reference. I endeavored to secure digital counterparts for all physical materials where available to facilitate content extraction and to automate progress tracking.

This research is supplemental to the work I perform managing my own media library. During the pandemic I produced a media workbook on the cloud comprising over 200 spreadsheets dynamically organizing over 26,000 of my favorite albums and published a year-end survey of metrics from 13,000 albums representing the top 1% of the artists in my archive. Perhaps I can incorporate some of those infographics and analytics into related areas of my research on the aforementioned topics and themes.

Early on in the project, I found myself disheartened that the majority of the published material on these subjects trailed off after the first decade of the new millennium, with little content examining the critical new era where streaming digital media has become the norm. Perhaps to that end I might be the one to write a book to fill that void. I just fear that my efforts as a cultural custodian are rendered moot in this age of on-demand content and that there will be no one left with any interest in my work. There are also the socio-political aspects of the subject matter which might be unwise to publish and associate with my name, so I’ve considered employing a nom de plume. I’d appreciate the insight and perspectives of my readers regarding these considerations. Is this content still relevant? Is it safe? Is there an audience who might find my work to be of merit?

I'll continue to curate and refine my notes on these materials in the years ahead. It'll be an engaging and enlightening journey.

Brian Eno Collection Milestone to End 2021
 

I’ve made it an astonishingly productive end of the year at Innerspace Labs with one of my most beloved collections!

Recently, I took a trip to my old home town and dropped by a local record shop which had posted some of their latest vinyl arrivals to social media. Among the titles my keen eye spotted My Squelchy Life - one of the few albums missing from my Brian Eno vinyl collection. I didn’t pass up on the opportunity and added it to my library.

This however, required that I restage and reshoot my photo of the updated collection, which takes exhaustive hours of work to implement. I spent a few days updating my related collection documents and staging the new photo. Then, as my silly luck would have it, the very next day I picked up five more of his albums that I was missing from another shop, and then found myself with a decision to make.

Every time I add a title to this collection, I’ve needed to update my spreadsheets for the discographic chronology, update my 55-page process guide to make sure nothing is overlooked, gather the LPs from their various filing locations and box sets, sort them in order of release date, un-polybag all releases to reduce camera glare, stage the shot, photograph them, then post-process to correct lens distortion, perspective, white balance, and other properties, update the collection photo in all of my archival documents, then publish and share the results to social media before re-polybagging and re-filing all titles.

As such, to reduce the workload, I took it upon myself to perform an itemized audit of the nearly 200 releases in Eno’s catalog to build as complete a library as possible of the artist and producer’s works issued in the vinyl format before photographing them again. After inventorying his discography and checking the complete release history of every album to see whether each was issued on vinyl, I then checked the resulting set against my own library to see what I was missing and which had the potential to be secured from various marketplaces around the web. Finally, as Eno has collaborated with hundreds of other artists, I examined the tracklist and liner notes for all missing releases to determine how essential each would be for my library, primarily based on how significant Eno’s role was for each given release.

Once I had a final list of missing titles, I secured mint sealed copies of each qualifying release at the lowest price with international shipping for all items and, as of the end of 2021, have satisfactorily constructed as complete a library of Eno’s work on wax as I’m going to be able to build. With that stage of the project complete, I set myself to the task of staging and re-photographing the collection once again, post-processed the raw images and updated all related documents.

In addition to the dozens of art prints, books, lithographs, 409 digital releases, and other miscellanea I’ve acquired, I’ve now successfully built a sizable library of most major releases issued in the vinyl format by the artist. The vinyl portion of my Eno library now comprises 49 of his best-loved works totaling 77 discs of content, including the highly sought-after Music For Installations 9LP limited edition box set.

It's a labor of love.

https://i.imgur.com/7l1Gcofl.jpg

How long does it take you to make popcorn?

I've been grappling with breaking the laws of thermodynamics to pop perfect popcorn in less than the 2 mins 30 secs spelled out on the bag. As soon as I work it out I'll post an intricately-staged process guide to share my results.

Artist Showcase: Terminus Void
 

I am honored to have the unique privilege of showcasing an emerging and impactful ambient artist operating under the moniker, Terminus Void, who is about to release his second full-length space music album, Origins Unknown. Origins follows the composer’s self-released debut album, Interstellar from 2021 issued in the middle of the global pandemic. The album’s transportive interstellar journey serves as a brilliant offering of experiential escapism to transcend the anxieties and troubles of the modern world.

From the composer’s official one-sheet press release:

I had the pleasure of engaging a dialog with the composer and he shared some of his insights and inspirations for his music project. He said that Interstellar was an enormous learning curve which he has honed and refined for the follow-up Origins Unknown album. But by no means does this suggest that Interstellar is in any way amateur or primitive. Contrarily, Smith demonstrates a magnificent proficiency in ambient soundscape composition from the very first track on his debut.

After only a few communications with Smith, it was instantly apparent that he is no dilettante by any stretch of the imagination. Smith expertly incorporates his penchant for the sciences into his musical efforts. When detailing the inspiration for Origins Unknown, he explained that the title track was inspired from Louis & Bebe Barron's pioneering works featured in the 1956 film, Forbidden Planet. On this track, Smith incorporated into the baseline modified audible wave instrument recordings from the Juno spacecraft as it passed through the magnetosphere of the Jovian moon, Ganymede on June 7, 2021.

Smith’s passions for science and space exploration have been lifelong. Over twenty years ago, he constructed a radio telescope from a satellite TV antenna, microwave amplifier and a HAM radio receiver. This fact provides a glimpse of the artist’s technical proficiency and celestial-focused scientific intellect, and reveals that the idea to process these auditory frequencies into music had been there for some time. He was kind enough to expound his compositional methodology thusly:

As Smith mentioned in his artist Bio, the Hearts of Space radio program was an incalculably influential force on his decision to begin creating his own soundworlds. He outlined this inspiration, touched upon some of the equipment he utilized to craft his music, and detailed what he desired to achieve through his composition. Smith explained:

Following a dedicated listening session with Interstellar, I encouraged Smith to send a promotional copy to Stephen Hill, remarking that his music would sit brilliantly well alongside space music veterans like Steve Roach and Robert Rich. And Interstellar's selections, "Lost In Time" and "Arrival Home" capture a serene luxuriance reminiscent of Vangelis' timeless score for the film, Blade Runner. While ambient music is notoriously difficult to articulate, I’ll do my best to highlight what I enjoyed of Smith’s work with the hope that I can inspire my readers and fellow ambient music lovers to explore this exceptional work.

I should call attention to a difference in the mixing of the material offered on the official Terminus Void YouTube channel and the content on his final albums. Smith explains that, as an incentive to his YouTube subscribers, he uses the channel to publish pre- album release tracks and that they are published as they are composed and recorded. He notes that these are non-mastered tracks and in some instances they are different from the final production in terms of length or tonality. For the truest Terminus Void experience, listeners should seek out and purchase the final mixes.

Check out the pre-mastered version of the title track from Terminus Void’s debut LP, Interstellar below.



I’ll offer a brief examination of Interstellar -

“Interstellar” is the title track and lead single for the album. Beatless, though grounded with a few anchoring bass tones, we embark into the inky-black depths of space. There is an elegant timelessness to the piece, just as the absence of day and night in an extraterrestrial journey removes our perception of its passage. The work is brimming with anticipatory excitement of the voyage that lies ahead. It is a perfectly-fitting opener to the album. This serves as an exquisite introductory selection to the artist’s oeuvre.

“Distant World” opens with haunting spectral dissonant tonalities. The sparsely-placed heavenly and alienesque timbres suggest that this may serve as a science-fiction anthem for a yet-unnamed cinematic masterpiece. We are entering a world unknown.

“Arrival Home” features majestically suspended chords and a lone synthesized disembodied vocal. Its seraphic and gossamer quality truly marks our celestial homecoming.

"Beyond Static Tolerance" introduces a fixed low-frequency sequencer pattern beneath the drifting fleeting choral tones occupying the upper register of the spectrum. The track evokes feelings of isolation and suspense as the traveler awaits the climax of their cosmic journey. Expertly-mixed NASA communication samples appear toward the end of selection enhancing the experience.

“Darkness” is dark ambient music at its most superlative. And clocking in at over eleven minutes as the album’s longest track, it rewards careful attention in your finest circumaural headphones. At times I wondered whether futurist role-players might find this album useful to enhance the atmosphere during their gaming sessions. “Darkness” especially might lend itself to such an effort. The best ambient music functions well in both dedicated conscious and background listening, and “Darkness” works fantastically in an array of listening environments and conditions.

“Nothing In The Way” returns the listener to a rhythmic territory with a classic synthesizer pattern and soaring minimalistic melodies. The deep-voiced narration element dramatically complements the suspenseful quality of Interstellar. Whether intended to inspire feelings of weightlessness or timelessness, the theme of space travel is masterfully executed here and throughout the album.

"Lost In Time" is steady and rhythmic, but maintains the empyrean thematics employed consistently in all of Smith’s work. The track conveys a gaze toward the heavens, inviting the listener one final time to leave terra firma behind.

“Distant World - (Epilog Mix)” closes Interstellar. The alien landscapes are carved and charted to remain in our memory long after the album session concludes. The traveler’s odyssey is complete.

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Terminus Void’s 2021 debut album, Interstellar

There are countless metaphors for the spacetime journeys offered to us by ambient space music artists like those showcased on Hearts of Space, and all of them are actively employed in each weekly segment of the show, now at over 1,300 episodes and counting. It is so exciting to discover a new musician who himself professes to draw inspiration from those very transmissions, and who successfully crafts soundworlds on par with the greatest veterans of the genre. What Terminus Void succeeds at accomplishing with his transportive music is to highlight the certitude that these impressioned interstellar journeys are, in truth, journeys within. As I said, I encouraged Smith to send his work to Stephen Hill, and hopefully he’ll find new fellow sonic travelers through playback on a future transmission of the program.

On February 10, 2022, Smith posted a pre-mastered demo of the title track from his upcoming second album, Origins Unknown to YouTube. It is a superb specimen of dark ambient space music, richly-organic, rewardingly nuanced, and introduces the listener to a vast and intricate world of cosmic exploration.

Of the track, YouTuber, Paradigm writes:

Tune in to the new demo here:



What I found most captivating about Terminus Void's ambient style is its balance of classical sophistication and cinematic intrigue. It's that property which inspires me to return to these songs again and again.

I was absolutely delighted to experience this music. The compositions are magnificently meditative, and certainly reward careful headphone listening. Terminus Void is otherworldly cosmic space music, and it's the subtle and slowly-unfolding properties which make the works so enjoyable. These are intimately ethereal, transcendent, and heavenly soundscapes. Highly recommended!

Terminus Void’s music is now available on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Bandcamp, Amazon and other online distributors. Or visit https://terminusvoid.com/.

I’ll close with a personal comment from Smith, who concluded a letter with a touching statement about my work as an archivist. I believe it sheds some fantastic light on the mark of his character. Smith remarked:

Thank you, J, for the kind words and for the important music like yours that we need in the world today.

Watch https://terminusvoid.com for an official announcement of the release of Origins Unknown slated for release this April.

Dark Ambient’s Terminus Void Returns with Origins Unknown
 

I'm thrilled to share the news of the release of Terminus Void's second album, Origins Unknown. My readers will recall my recent artist spotlight showcasing his debut release, Interstellar. After encouraging the artist to send the album to Stephen Hill of the long-standing radio program, Hearts of Space, he followed my suggestion and was featured on PGM No. 1314, Stellar Quest! We couldn't be more pleased to have exposure to a global audience of discerning space music listeners!

Given the incredible impact of Interstellar, I had great hope for his second effort. Thankfully, I couldn't be more elated with the resulting recording. Origins is hauntingly epic, from the opening drones of "Discovery" to the concluding atmospheric majesty of the album's finale, "Memories of Rain." Fantastically transportive, the listener is suspended in a state of experiential cosmic serenity for the entirety of the listening journey. Origins is cinematic dark ambient space music at its finest.

With his second effort, Terminus Void brilliantly channels the otherworldly film score work of Vangelis with incredible adeptness and impressively artful proficiency. This is particularly evident with the aforementioned closing selection, complete with Bladerunneresque rainfall, soaring synths, and choral effects employed throughout the track.

Origins Unknown was mastered in 24-bit hi-res audio, (unlike its predecessor, Interstellar which was mastered at 16-bit), and is officially available in lossless archival FLAC and WAV. Listeners are encouraged to secure the album at the best quality offered and to take it in using their finest listening equipment so that none of the subtly nuanced spatial qualities are lost on this exceptional recording. This is an album that, like Interstellar, rewards dedicated and attentive listening.

The album's namesake track is masterfully alienesque, brimming with lavish extraterrestrial vitality but sufficiently understated so as not to disrupt the shadowy, spectral quality of the album as a whole.

"Dark Outpost" paints a vividly ethereal tenebrous expanse - truly an effective soundscape for dark ambient voyages. And surprising cinematic elements are introduced to heighten the excitement of the album-length saga.

Each track effectively adds its own unique properties to the crepuscular ambient odyssey that is Origins Unknown. Nothing is extraneous, wasted, or omitted, making for a most-satisfying musical venture from start to finish. Origins is a triumphant successor to Terminus Void's debut, and reinforces that he is a potent and compelling figure in the dark ambient scene today.

Check out Terminus Void on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Bandcamp, Amazon and other online distributors. Or visit https://terminusvoid.com/.

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Completing My Penguin Cafe Collection

I am so excited to have achieved a new musical milestone, having assembled a complete collection of all full-length studio releases issued in the vinyl format by The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and their later incarnation, The Penguin Cafe. This includes the first-ever vinyl edition of The Penguin Cafe's 2011 debut, A Matter of Life, issued by Erased Tapes on May 6, 2022.

I've previously written about my adoration of this fine ensemble back in 2017, where I summed up the beauty of their music thusly:

The music of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra is tranquil, eclectic, and magically pastoral. The albums are classified as works of minimalism but are impressively dynamic recordings. Rich with subtly and understatedly intricate instrumentation, their music is a seamless and masterful blending of an impressive roster of genres, weaving together classical and contemporary elements. The result is magical and elegantly surreal.

These records are stubbornly difficult to label or classify. Spanning a broad range of influences from classical to jazz, featuring middle eastern or perhaps Indian inspired drones, as well as Cajan, traditional folk melodies, African rhythms, and more, these elements blend seamlessly into marvelous soundscapes and musical vignettes reminiscent of Moondog’s symphoniques.

There is a timeless serenity to these recordings, and I’m grateful that I was at last ready to let them into my life at a time when they served as a sensational complement to my headspace of late.

From start to finish, The Penguin Cafe is a treasure of heady and engaging arrangements, and some of the most peaceful sounds you’ll ever hear. I really enjoyed an observation from a fellow listener named bpnicast who remarked, “The dispassionate, cerebral atmosphere here creates its own unique space that seems to slow time and demand hushed attention – an emotional connection achieved through stillness and abstraction.”

That is precisely what I enjoy about these albums. It will be a pleasure to play them again and again and to share them with those who bring joy into my life.

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New Brian Eno Documentary Announced!
 

Just a quick check-in to share the news!

2023 will see the release of a new documentary film exploring the unparalleled career of producer and self-professed non-musician Brian Eno!

The film is directed by Gary Hustwit, who produced such critically-lauded documentaries as Helvetica, Rams, I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (the Wilco documentary), Moog, and others!

Hustwit consistently showcases smart design and expertly pairs his films with music by progressive-minded artists. Both his films Objectified and Helvetica featured music by El Ten Eleven, and Eno himself provided the score to Rams.

For a taste of Hustwit's adoration of quality design aesthetics, check out his free 10-minute 2020 documentary short, The Map, about the reinvention and transformation of the NY subway system map to a living, real-time interactive application for the digital age. Watch it at https://www.hustwit.com/the-map

Watch the teaser trailer for the upcoming Eno film posted to the director's Twitter account here: https://www.twitter.com/gary_hustwit...12289589465088

I'd watch that. I could use more information on Eno. As I mentioned before, I really only know him as a producer.

Announcement: I’ve published a book of my writings!
 

Friends, I'm honored to share that I am now a published author with my book available at the link below! This book comprises the first 12 years of my publications showcasing highlights of my Archive, as well as select previously unpublished works.

There were several breakthroughs which helped me accelerate the timeline of the project. First, I amassed 339 of my articles from 12 years of publishing online in just 5.5 hours. Second, I taught myself RegEx to batch process all formatting to clean up the raw text. Third, I discovered a free extension to format 1,388 images in under 2 minutes. Then I developed a process which permitted me to burn through 1,400 pages of material in just 2 hours.

Unfortunately, the remaining work seemed insurmountable. Due to a glitch in the conversion, I had to go sentence by sentence through the remaining 2,000 pages of text to correct all the missing paragraph breaks and all 1,388 mis-positioned images. I feared I might have to quit my job and devote my full attention to the project to complete it in any reasonable span of time, but I worked hard through May and into June and by June 15th I’d completed the reformatting of all 289 finally-selected articles. I tidied up the book and carefully analyzed the subsequent text and images so as not to create more problems in the process. There were a few minor anomalies I was unable to remove without compromising the remaining text, but nothing which impairs readability so I was able to move forward.

Thereafter I proactively researched and drafted a design brief to commission the cover artwork and to register the ISBN. The brief included a short author bio, a back-cover blurb, a summary of my business brand, my target audience, values to communicate in the cover design, stylistic preferences, output specs, and example images of books by competing authors in my field. This was a serious endeavor and I worked to ensure that every aspect of the project was handled as professionally as possible.

I did discover, due to the substantial page length of my manuscript, that it exceeds the maximum length for a printable paperback or hardcover by Amazon’s terms of service, so unfortunately this will be exclusively issued in the ebook format. But as I’ve incorporated hundreds of links to web content on sites like YouTube, perhaps it will function best as a digital edition. The only other way to get a printed version would be to issue the book in a series of volumes, but I’m not ready for that presently. At least as an ebook it made the design process markedly simpler to implement.

I encountered one last critical hurdle when I attempted to upload my finalized PDF using the PDF Upload button on Amazon's Kindle Store. Tragically, the button returned a red "X" with no error message when I tried to upload my book. I contacted their support team and they explained that they only support simple PDFs without images or significant length.

They suggested I try their native ebook conversion utility, but it is only available for Windows and Mac users, and I use Linux. They offered to convert it for me manually on their end, and I similarly tried converting it locally using the popular Calibre application. Sadly, the .epub and .mobi outputs of the book compromised all formatting and it looked awful.

Undeterred and determined to succeed, I researched alternatives and successfully published through Google Books who support PDF with no conversion necessary. The book is live at last!

Publishing this book is a dream come true for me! This is particularly gratifying as my writings will remain long after I've left this earth for the whole world to enjoy and to continue inspiring rewarding listenership for years to come.

Check out The Ghost of Madame Curie: Writings from Innerspace Labs at the link below!

https://play.google.com/store/books/...d=8_J3EAAAQBAJ

https://i.imgur.com/Md0lmf2l.jpg

Well done and congratulations! A lifetime's dream fulfilled huh? Bravo!

Congratulations again, and a copy just purchased here. The TOC in itself is a feast for the eyes. And I just took a peek at Nipper on p. 47! Seriously, I can already tell that this is an incredible and unique resource. You should be very proud of your accomplishments, JP. :)

Congratulations on getting published.

Congrats! That's a really great cover design.

Years of Searching for a Community of Peers – A Few Previously Unpublished Thoughts
 

Revisiting a few of my unpublished articles, notes, and remarks from the last six years, I felt a compulsion to record them once and for all for whatever the act might be worth. I’d also dusted off my bookmarks folder of all my favorite socio-cultural blogs only to find that every one of them had since been retired and stripped from the Web. That realization reinforces my resolve to document these thoughts and questions which still remain on my mind years after penning them and my search for a community to share these ideas.

Here they are...

The following short piece was composed as a conversation with myself fleshing out the undeniable conflict surrounding the future publication of my book on mass surveillance, digital privacy, free culture, filesharing, and its impact on previously-reining media distribution models.

This write up, concluding with an intimate conversation with a scholarly peer, helped me arrive at a very difficult conclusion about my work.

And after constructing a spreadsheet and a library of over 130 books on related subject matter, I penned this note.

As we enter the closing months of 2022, I’ll continue my search for a community where these ideas are actively discussed and debated. Perhaps one day I’ll find peers with whom to engage and further this discussion.

I welcome my readers’ ideas.

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A Look at This Is What It Sounds Like: What The Music You Love Says About You
 

I've just read Susan Rogers' new book, This Is What It Sounds Like: What The Music You Love Says About You. Special thanks to my librarian cousin for the recommendation! :)

Rogers worked as a producer on albums from Prince's Purple Rain to Barenaked Ladies before securing a doctorate in psychology from McGill University. Her research focuses on auditory memory, the perception of musical signals, and the influence of musical training on auditory development. The book is written in an accessible style to readily aid any music lover in discovering their unique “listener profile.” I'll share my results from reading the text as an example of what you'll find.

Rogers' first evaluatory metric is Authenticity, characterized on a scale of “below-the-neck” to “above.” I found that I most often prefer cerebral music "from the neck up."

The next chapter is on Realism. Here, I naturally gravitate toward the pole of highly-abstract musical properties.

Then she moves on to Familiarity vs Novelty. I generally prefer novel "art music." Engaging with novel stimuli demands more cognitive effort and commitment than engaging with the routine. The greater the novelty, the heavier the cognitive load on the listener. Still, for Familiarity I enjoy the predictable properties of ambient and drone music to balance my taste for novelty.

Next up was Melody. Rogers explains that the dimension of the Melodic Spectrum has three axes - melodic range (narrow vs wide), articulation (legato vs staccato), and complexity (simple vs complex). I prefer narrower melodic contours, as employed in minimalist compositions like Glass' Koyaanisqatsi, and legato notes which float into one another like in many ethereal ambient compositions. Interestingly, I embrace both simple and complex works, from droning minimal soundscapes to the hypercomplexity of many pieces in the classical avant-garde.

Chapter 5 explores Lyrics. On the lyrical spectrum, I am most affected by the stream-of-consciousness abstract and subjectless rapid-fire lyricism of wordsmiths like Karl Hyde or M Doughty where words' semantic value takes a back seat to their rhythmic device. But one notable exception to this preference is the masterful songwriting prowess of Tom Waits. The dark, downtrodden visual worlds he paints with his lyrics are sombre, melancholic, vulnerable and hauntingly beautiful.

Chapter 6 examines Rhythm, spanning from straight to syncopated. I enjoy metronomic rhythms like those of four-on-the-floor house music and the static linearity of minimalism. But I also have a proclivity for funk's emphasis "on the one."

The next chapter is on Timbre. My interest in timbre is all over the sonic spectrum, ranging from frail and intimate vocals to dehumanized electroacoustic synthesis. Timbre is a complex and nuanced property of music that greatly contributes to each of our unique listening profiles.

Following Timbre, a chapter called Form and Function touches upon just a few of the near-infinite pool of decisions a record producer must resolve in order to make a great record. I developed a newer and greater appreciation for producers in the pop music sphere after reading it.

The final chapter wraps things up nicely revisiting the seven dimensions of your listener profile - the four musical dimensions of melody, lyrics, rhythm, and timbre, and the three aesthetic dimensions of authenticity, realism, and novelty and the factors which influence these aspects throughout our lives.

The one thing that is the most consistent throughout every chapter of this book is Rogers' pure love of music. And that's what made it a resonating and satisfying read. She's inspired me to listen more consciously and attentively in an effort to rediscover and refine my listener profile.

I’ll close with my favorite quote from the book - “Oh! The crystal-clear fidelity of that mix! It was beyond anything I had ever heard before, and I remember thinking, I can tell what color socks the drummer is wearing!”

Dive in at https://www.thisiswhatitsoundslike.com/.

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Sleeping to Music - Sleep Headphones and Accompanying Soundtracks for Slumber
 

Recently I had an idea to explore the market and technology of “sleep headphones” - that is, headphones designed to wear all night while the listener sleeps. As my readers know well, the ambient segment of my archive comprises over 60,000 ambient tracks from nearly 5,000 artists’ discographies. My bedroom is set up with a dedicated amplifier and a tablet wirelessly patched into my server on my home network which plays ambient music through a vintage pair of Advent One speakers my late father passed down to me for 10-12 hours each night while I sleep.

Unfortunately, as the albums must be played at a minimal volume for sleep, the environmental noise of rainfall, passing cars, and my furnace drown out much of the nuance and delicate sounds of the music. This is why I decided to explore an alternate solution.

A quick search on Amazon returns a product named as Amazon's Choice for the category of "sleep headphones” - called MUSICOZY Sleep Headphones Bluetooth Headband Wireless Music Headband Headphones. The product has 12,698 ratings and an average of 4.3 stars and is priced at just $19.99. The headband is lightweight, breathable, pairs wirelessly over Bluetooth, and the lithium ion battery lasts for ten hours on a single charge.

https://i.imgur.com/EM3NpLHm.jpg

I carefully read through the product details and was seriously considering clicking that big “buy” button, but I took some extra time to read through all of the customer reviews as well as the question-and-answer section from those who purchased the product. This revealed an undesirable property of the model - notably that the speakers emit a loud “low battery” warning every time they are in need of a charge. A few customers complained that this is jarring and wakes them up from a sound sleep.

So I searched Amazon again, and found something intriguing. I discovered a very similar model from a different manufacturer, called Perytong Bluetooth Sleep Headphones Wireless, Sports Headband Headphones. These were curiously also named as Amazon's Choice, but this time for the nearly-identical category of "sleep+headphones” (that’s with a plus symbol between the search terms). This product has 39,919 ratings - more than three times that of the former model, and matches its average of 4.3 stars. Both devices offer Bluetooth pairing and a battery life of ten hours with an approximate two-hour re-charge time. This model was priced at $39.99 marked down to a deal price of just $19.99, and it is available in a variety of colors.

https://i.imgur.com/RIcQgFmm.jpg

I carefully read through the question-and-answer section and other buyers confirmed that this model has no low battery warning sounds. I surmised that other customers had viewed and compared the same products that I had.

The most promising review came from a customer named Joshua B who said:

These headphones have become my go to for night listening and sleeping, for these reasons…

The headband feels lightweight and doesn't heat up, even during summer nights with windows open.

As long as my head is on something soft like my pillow, the round, hard plastic speakers inside the headband do not get in the way or introduce much discomfort or pain. This makes side, back, or stomach sleeping and listening comfortable. I can turn to any side and the headband remains in reasonable position on my head, and speakers in reasonable position at my ears. I make small adjustments to the speaker positions, but this is not a hardship. If I'm on my side, sometimes I can feel one of the round speakers pressuring my ear. So far it hasn't bothered me.

While both left and right speakers need to be adjusted/positioned within the headband each time I put it on, this is a minor inconvenience for comfortable listening without discomfort.

The battery life easily lasts all night and into the next morning. It lasts two nights. I find myself charging the headphones either once a day or once every two days, just to be sure they're fully charged. Charging is fast.

The plug-in side of the USB-C cable is actually tucked into the back of the headband. I can easily locate it, pull it out, and plug in. Surprisingly, it's not uncomfortable tucked back into the headband, while wearing. Do the plug and the two round, plastic speakers feel a little clunky? Yes they do. I envision this design being refined over time.

Conclusion:
Overall, this is my favorite sleeping headphone set. Battery life is great. Comfort is fine. Easily better experience than earbuds or a headphone form factor.

I did a bit of Googling outside of Amazon before finalizing my decision and found that the latter model was also the Editor's Pick on Sleepopolis’ article showcasing the best Headphones for Sleeping. For under $20 it seemed like a safe bet.

They arrived just a few days later. Exploring the modest packaging and reviewing the included instruction guide, they seemed like a very straightforward product. No USB charging brick is included, but thankfully I had a spare. And evidently the headphones only accept a charge when used with the short charging cable included with the device. The product touts a lifetime warranty, while customer service is provided via a personal gmail account address included in the manual. Hopefully the manufacturer will be around long enough to honor it. (But hey - it was only $19.99.)

There were a few key functions to note. When the headband is fully charged, (in approximately two hours), the charging light on the front of the headband turns solid blue. To connect to Bluetooth, the user presses and holds the Play/Pause button. The headphones will enter pairing mode. Turn on the Bluetooth of your device and connect to the headphones. That was a snap.

Short press the minus button to advance to the next song. Long-hold the minus button to lower the volume. Short press the plus button to reverse one song. Long-hold the plus button to raise the volume. And long-pressing the center play/pause button powers the device on and off.

And yes - the headphones work with Bluetooth phone calls.

After a brief acclimation with the product I queued up a seven-hour-long album on my tablet and scanned through the tracks adjusting the volume to make sure I wouldn’t be disturbed by a spike in sound in the middle of the night. I found I was able to rest comfortably on my back or on my sides without any pressure from the speakers. The headband was fairly comfortable and breathable like the other reviewers had described.

Of course, these are not audiophile speakers by any stretch of the imagination. They’re just small, efficient speakers for yoga, workouts, or sleep. As most of the albums I’ll be playing in them will be minimal drones at a very low volume, the music isn’t going to be pushing the limits of the speakers, and I’ll be asleep for most of the listening sessions, so I am fine with that. Once again - they were under $20.

The music was enjoyable with the Perytong headphones I selected. I did notice that a lot of the subtle detail of the raindrops in the recording were lost with these speakers, but that was to be expected. It still sounded pleasant and relaxing which is just what I need to sleep.

Unfortunately, due to a combination of my excitement at acquiring new audio tech for my favorite genre coupled with the novelty experience of my first-listen, I remained awake for nearly the entire seven-hour duration of the album. But that was a consequence of my overactive mind and not a fault of the product. I just need to get accustomed to this new listening dynamic. In time I hope to experience a more restful sleep with them on. So far, I’m pleased with the purchase.

Now on to my promised Accompanying Soundtracks for Slumber. I took a quick look and put together a brief list of highlights. Forgive me - I can do much better when I have time to dedicate to the task. But at a quick glance…

There are a few noteworthy long-form sleep albums, including:

Max Richter's Sleep (8 hours)
Robert Rich's Somnium (7 hours) - this was the album I employed for my first-listen
and Perpetual - A Somnium Continuum (8 hours)

Larger catalogs and archives for ambient listening include:

Hearts of Space (1327+ broadcast library)
Ambient Music Guide Podcast series (55 mixes)
A Strangely Isolated Place (62 mixes)
Brian Eno (the ambient portion of his 410 major releases)
William Basinski (23 albums)
selections from 36 (22 albums)
Mathias Grassow (149 albums)
Robert Rich (72 albums)
Deuter (89 albums)
Klaus Wiese (100 albums)
Harold Budd (82 albums)
Steve Roach (162 albums)
Music For Sleep (29 albums)

As well as a few sleep album favorites -

Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis ‎– Deep Listening
The KLF - Chill Out
Jimmy Cauty - Space
This Is Not What Space Is About
This Is Not What Chill Out Is About
Peter Broderick - Float
Lawrence English - A Colour For Autumn
John Foxx - Cathedral Oceans Vols I-III
Moby - Calm. Sleep.
Tom Middleton - Sleep Better

And additional albums from artists including:

Stars of the Lid
A Winged Victory For The Sullen
Deaf Center
Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto
Marconi Union
Eluvium
The Album Leaf
Tapes and Topographies
Loscil
Liquid Mind
Jóhann Jóhannsson
Ólafur Arnalds
and Nils Frahm

To supplement and introduce new content into my library for sleep accompaniment, I compiled album data from various sources around the web. I’ll share a few of those chart and list sites below for my readers to join me on my journey of exploration for quality ambient soundscapes for sleep.

The first is Atmospheres and Landscapes: 600 Greatest Ambient Releases from data on RateYourMusic.com:
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/Carbo...ient_releases/

Then I found a second chart on the same site from a user named wilczur for 750+ Ambient Essential Albums Ranked:
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/wilcz...bums-ranked/1/

Next I compiled a database showcasing highlights of ambient drone artists’ catalogs. Below is the introduction from the accompanying documentation I authored:

Methodology:

Artist names were sourced from music-map.com entering Stars of the Lid as the core artist value and pulling favorites from the most similar (proximate) artists in the cluster.

Each artist/composer was then run through rateyourmusic.com and all of their releases were then sorted from highest to lowest overall score from the userbase's ratings.

Albums I've already exhausted from my own library were omitted so that the list would comprise new or lesser-experienced releases of the genre.

The resulting LPs were indexed for future listening.

From that list, I assembled a roster of examples of “bleak and haunting yet beautiful music, like the emptiness of a barren and gray wasteland (Ambient, Minimal, Drone)."

Then I constructed a chronological survey of Minimal Ambient Modern Classical Music from other articles around the Web.

For more quality content, I compiled ambient titles contributed by members of the SteveHoffman music forum at the links below:

Any ambient recommendations?
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...dations.649771
and
Top Five Ambient: Your Choices?
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...hoices.457661/

And I wrapped up my research refining various incarnations of an ambient music introductory guide I'd authored and shared with friends over the years. The present iteration of my Introduction to Ambient Music (Revised Edition) was incorporated into the book I published.

There are also a variety of sleep music streaming sites and apps, including:

headspace.com/sleep/sleep-music
ambientsleepingpill.com
calm.com/music (the same as meditationoasis.com)
Ultima Thule Ambient Music Radio - Listen to Ultima Thule
sleepbot.com
and ambient-sounds.com

I've additionally bookmarked each of the generative music apps showcased at Brian Eno's generativemusic.com but haven't yet tried sleeping to them.

I’m definitely interested in continuing to expand my library of sleep music. I’m always interested in exploring more non-sequencer based, beatless ambient minimal tone poems such as Indo-Tibetan music for meditation, generative soundscapes, etc. I enjoy veteran minimalists like Harold Budd, Steve Roach, and Robert Rich who are regularly featured on transmissions of Hearts of Space. I have a complete HOS archive, as well as all the essential artist discographies, from Popol Vuh to Klaus Wiese, and their contemporaries like Music For Sleep and Stars of the Lid.

I also have complete vinyl and digital archives of foundational ambient kosmische musik discographies such as those of Cluster and Harmonia and other forebearers of the genre. I'm looking for quality catalogs beyond the common threads. Neo-classical composers like Max Richter are welcome as well. As I mentioned the ambient segment of my library clocks in at over 60,000 recordings, but I'm always interested in new discoveries. I’m ideally looking for soundscapes for work and sleep to quiet an overactive mind. I invite my readers to share any music they find well-suited to sleep-listening, or if they find any value in the selections I’ve noted above.

Forgive me for any glaring omissions in my own offerings. Happy sleeping!

An Ambient Triumph - Fred Again.. and Brian Eno’s New LP, Secret Life
 

Dearest readers, I am excited to offer this small write-up to you in the spring of 2023 as it marks my first emergence from my post-book-publication hiatus. I really felt like I’d said all I had to say about music, and the act of publishing gave me pause to contemplate the vastly-transformed landscape of how the world consumes and engages music in the 21st century and how it left me feeling “old and in the way.”

However, upon hearing the latest collaborative effort from my hero, the great Brian Eno, I felt that familiar compulsion to return to my desk and start writing once more to share the joy of my discovery. How fitting that this stimulus came from the same artist who inspired my life-long passion for the ambient music genre at a young age - that he, more than 20 years later, would continue to be a wellspring of creative force within me to reach out to my readers once again.

Eno’s representation in my archive demonstrates my commitment to his catalogue. In addition to the dozens of art prints, books, lithographs, 412 digital releases, and other miscellanea I’ve acquired, I’ve successfully built a sizable library of most major releases issued in the vinyl format by the artist. My library to date comprises 49 of his best-loved works totaling 77 discs of content, including the highly sought-after Music For Installations 9LP limited edition box set. After resolving to retire (mostly) from record collecting, I’ve yet to claim vinyl editions of his releases from 2022 forward, however the consistent quality of those works often gives me moments of reconsideration. Perhaps a few exceptions for my hero’s occasional releases are in order.

At the age of 74, Mr. Eno has shown no sign of slowing down, himself. In 2021, he and his brother Roger Eno premiered their first-ever performance together at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, an ancient theatre of the Acropolis as part of the Athens Epidaurus Festival. Then in 2022, he released the brilliant and critically-lauded album, FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE, featuring his vocals as primary focus across an entire album for the first time since 2005's Another Day On Earth. His work continued in 2023, with a special limited instrumental edition of FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE titled, Forever Voiceless for Record Store Day. And on May 5, 2023, Eno released an all-new collaborative album titled Secret Life with the young producer “Fred Again..”

Frederick John Philip Gibson, (born 19 July 1993) known professionally as Fred again.. or simply FRED, is a British record producer, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and DJ. The new album is not the first time the two composers have met. At age 16, Gibson joined an a cappella group at Brian Eno's studio in London, who was his family's neighbour at the time. And in 2014, he collaborated as co-producer and songwriter with Eno and Karl Hyde on their two project albums Someday World and High Life. This was particularly interesting as Gibson exhibits a similar approach to that of Hyde’s notable work with Underworld where his use of vocals is that of rhythmic device rather than communicating directly through language, as most-famously demonstrated in their anthem, “Born Slippy .NUXX.”

While Gibson may likely be the youngest collaborator of Eno’s to date, he is no novice to the musical world. Gibson won Producer of the Year at the Brit Awards 2020 - the youngest producer to ever win the title. And another fun bit of trivia - his artist name came from a line in the live action movie “Scooby-Doo” where Fred, (in the voice of Daphne) says: “I’m Fred Again..”.

In addition to Gibson’s own album catalogue, he collaborated with Four Tet and Skrillex on the track "Baby again.." released on the USB EP in 2022, played several shows with both artists in 2023, and performed with them for the closing set at Coachella. There are notable parallels in Gibson and Four Tet’s album production techniques and their penchant for glitchy-yet-organic lowercase-styled sonic effects, particularly with their manipulation of vocals and minimalist percussion. Secret Life was released on Four Tet’s own label, Text Records, and Four Tet called it “the most beautiful album of 2023.”

Throughout his long, illustrious career, Eno has been famously committed to never making the same album twice. And the ambient genre is a dangerous and notorious field where a composer could easily get comfortable embracing the “less-is-more” aesthetic and philosophy resulting in pleasant but well-tread, familiar territory. However, his new collaboration with Fred Again.. maintains his consistent track record of pioneering and refreshingly-contemporary content. Fred lends his unique voice (both artistically and literally), and his modern mastery of album production to Eno’s refined veteran technique and the result is purely inspiring.

Secret Life is a work of lush and ethereal ambient pop in the spirit of the finest post-minimal works. Gibson’s vocal contributions were a surprise for an ambient record, but are employed sparingly to evoke emotion and masterfully-processed such that they in no way detract from the ambience. From the delicate and longing evocations of the album’s stand-out lyrical track, “Secret” to the sparsely minimalist but soulful fragmented vocal crooning of “Chest,” Secret Life is a fragile and textural album-wide soundscape of yearning.

RYM user foxtrot_stowaway poetically summarizes the nature of the album saying, “It's incredibly beautiful but also full of these massive, aching pangs of nostalgia/regret. It is epically life affirming but also epically devastating.” This is most-evident in the chiefly-lyrical track “Secret,” with its slowly-unfolding lo-fi lyrics:

“I miss you so much… but you’re not out of sight… cause I’m still… breathing… in my secret life… hold on, hold on, my brother… my sister, hold on tight… finally found my whole life… So I've been marchin' 'til the mornin', marchin' through the night… moving cross the borders… of my secret life… of my secret life.”

This is an album that, much in its spirited thematic romanticism, stretches time, itself. It’s a newfound favourite post-minimalist work, approaching the accolades of Max Richter’s epic 8-and-a-half-hour Sleep album from 2015. The triumph here is Secret Life’s low-fidelity execution of marrying the dissonance between fractured and fragmented microtonal cut-up music and soothingly warm, organic mellow ambience. Secret Life easily charts among my top releases of 2023.

https://i.imgur.com/Q9z19ETl.jpg