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The first time I ran across "digestive biscuits" was in Japan years ago. I was like, pfft! Stupid Japanese don't know how to use English. Then I found out that "digestive biscuit" is an actual thing from England. Stupid me.
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Best Soundtrack to the Worst Movie of All Time!
ATTENTION fellow MSTies! The moment I learned that this existed, I tracked down the tiny record label and snatched up a copy for myself!
Here's the cover art for the red and black swirl vinyl limited edition soundtrack to the worst film ever made - MANOS: The Hands of Fate! http://i.imgur.com/iDGn6MDl.jpg Produced from the original 35mm soundtrack negative, restored to all its craptastic glory by Steve Addabbo at Shelter Island Sound in New York City; this is the definitive audio edition of MANOS! https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...anosposter.jpg Only $18 from a crazy tiny label called ShiptoShore PhonoCo in Brooklyn, the MANOS soundtrack LP is the ultimate cult keepsake for any vinyl collector who grew up with MST3K. It's so wonderful to see the great care taken to restore and re-release this bizarre 1966 cult film, written, directed by, and starring a fertilizer salesman from El Paso, Texas who made the film on a bet. The film remained largely unknown for nearly 30 years until it was featured on what became one of the most beloved episodes of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in 1993. And after the original 16 mm work print was discovered in California in 2011, a Kickstarter project led to the production of a vastly superior Blu-Ray edition and this terrible soundtrack! BUT WAIT -- THERE'S MORE! The HD restored Soundtrack of Fate is available in its entirety in multiple formats on Bandcamp for any price you like via a Creative Commons license! The site accepts donations to the restoration project, and in addition to the soundtrack offers special edition posters and t-shirts as well as the restored Blu-Ray release of this bafflingly awful film! http://i.imgur.com/nAgH2Til.jpg Visit their official Bandcamp page and name your price for the score to this stinking cinematic suppository. http://i.imgur.com/HSLQtsIl.jpg "The Master will approve!" |
A Milestone of Digital Media
http://i.imgur.com/PILKu5Ml.jpg
Now Playing: Thom Yorke's Tomorrow's Modern Boxes deluxe vinyl edition. Noteworthy as the first album released using BitTorrent's "pay-gate" feature, Yorke expressed that it was "an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work." He explained in his press release: "It's an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around … If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work. Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves. Bypassing the self-elected gatekeepers. If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done." A commercial and critical success, the album was downloaded over a million times within six days of release, and became the most-downloaded legal torrent of 2014; by February 2015, it had been downloaded over 4.5 million times. I made sure to purchase the vinyl edition to serve not just as an agent for music but as a historical artifact of the war over digital media. |
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Reclaiming Our Independence Day
On this day of nationalistic fanfare, let us not lose sight of the battle for Independence which lies before us - to free ourselves from the plutocratic slavery of corporate capitalism. It's unsustainable lust for profit, deregulation, and institutionally-bred consumer culture is accelerating toward a brick wall of unemployment, environmental consequence, and mass poverty resulting from the ever-growing concentration of wealth. The system is rotten at its core - sacrificing the health, education, and well-being of its working citizens in favor of cheaper outsourced labor in nations with little to no environmental or safety standards.
Our consumer culture was carefully and intentionally implemented in the early 1920s through the birth of Edward Bernays' Public Relations propaganda, (such as with "Torches of Freedom"), the standardization of planned obsolescence (beginning notably with The Phoebus Cartel), and through the gang-like territorial division of geographic regions to perpetuate the monopolistic powers of the handful of corporations which control customers in the US who are left with no alternative providers to choose from. The social conditioning of consumer culture is such a fundamental core principle of American life that it would take a complete restructuring of the national educational system to counter the billions of dollars of marketing strategies implemented by private corporations each year to keep us buying what we don't need. Sadly, as this would work against the national economic interest in the short term, and as our political process is largely controlled by corporate lobbyists, it is highly unlikely that this will ever come to pass by the United States’ own action. Regardless of our action or inaction, the capitalist system of infinite consumption and increased corporate deregulation is a principally unsustainable model. The system will collapse, either by the majority of the workforce being displaced by outsourced labor and by continued advancements in automation, or by the system's inherent destruction of the world it occupies. And the visibly corrupt campaign finance system, along with voter fraud at the hands of the DNC and RNC, and the media blackout of “revolutionary” candidates like Sanders work tirelessly to ensure that the plutocracy remains and that the public voice is silenced. But the revolution has begun. Without the help of mass media or corporate donations Sanders continues to pack stadiums beyond capacity with citizens dedicated to taking an active role in the democratic process. The internet and social media affords citizens decentralized access to news and journalism outside the scripted verbiage of the status quo. And the voice of dissent grows louder every day. Our Independence Day is coming. What part will you play? http://i.imgur.com/gqkxO2Fl.gif |
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Viva l'oppressión! http://kate-upton.photo-joy.com/inde.../image3891.jpg |
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And a FANTASTIC 5 minute vid explaining the findings of the Princeton study of over 40 years of Congressional activity which proves that "CONGRESS LITERALLY DOESN'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK."
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Underworld: A Guided Tour
Underworld has been producing music, art, and film for nearly 40 years.With over 500 albums, EPs, and singles, newcomers to their work might find their catalog daunting. If you are just such a listener, this is for you. So you know “Born Slippy (Nuxx)” from Trainspotting, but are wondering where to venture next.
http://i.imgur.com/7CKGGDQl.jpg Many listeners might be inclined to snatch up one of their compilations or anthologies. In 1999 they released a 3CD Singles Box Set, but it is not an ideal entry point as it focuses too heavily on Darren Emerson's contributions and is heavily saturated with alternate mixes which do not showcase the band's true talents. The next compilation issued was in 2012. A Collection’s opening track is a strange choice - a song by High Contrast featuring Tiesto and Underworld, which few fans associate with Underworld. And track 03, "Bebop Hurry" is a collaboration between Karl Hyde and Brian Eno taken from the Underworld vs the Misterons’ Athens LP. http://i.imgur.com/PdvNMcel.jpg Unfortunately neither function well as introductory material, nor are they representative of their artistic style. Still, the other tracks on this compilation are the meat and potatoes of the band. The majority of their biggest hits are here, but for the sake of constricting it to a single disc, all of the tracks have been edited down to radio-friendly durations, sacrificing the ethereal and progressive characteristics which occupy the minutes which have been trimmed away. New listeners would benefit far more if they were to take in the tracks in their original form. http://i.imgur.com/EYMDFjUl.jpg That same year, a 3-disc collection was issued called, The Anthology: 1992 - 2012. Interestingly, this set does not serve as an off-the-shelf hits collection but instead is comprised of b-sides and odd tracks which act as snapshots of the band's development. This made it a rewarding purchase for fans who already owned all of their major LPs. It also presents the content in a chronological setting. Disc 1 is material from their Mk 2 phase around the recording of their massive breakthrough hit album, Dubnobasswithmyheadman. Disc 2 showcases recordings from around the Second Toughest in the Infants and Beaucoup Fish era, including their non-album mega-hit, "Born Slippy (Nuxx)". The fan-favorite concert closer, "Moaner" is here as well. Disc 3 offers more rarities like "The Hump", "Minneapolis", and "Why Why Why", and includes a few uptempo selections from the series of non-radio, meditative EPs released exclusively via Underworldlive.com during the early 2000s. So without an easily-digestible compilation, how is a new listener to approach the band's staggeringly large discography? Underworld is best experienced in album form. They are not a singles artist. Each record adds a contextual value to the tracks which each stand well as a packaged project of their own. My advice is to begin with Dubnobasswithmyheadman. The record marked the second incarnation of the band after its synthpop beginnings in the 80s (and a one-off garage punk single in ‘79). Dubnobass was incredibly progressive given the sound of techno and house in 1994. It contains eternal hits like "Cowgirl" and "Dark and Long". http://i.imgur.com/O8xS2NPl.jpg If you like what you hear on this album, explore their evolution into their next two records which complete the Darren Emerson trilogy before he parted from the group. These albums are Second Toughest in the Infants and Beaucoup Fish, best known for singles like “Pearls Girl”, “Cups”, "King of Snake”, and the aforementioned epic, “Moaner”. But it’s their more explorative tracks which reveal the most about the band. The opener to Second Toughest is “Juanita: Kiteless : To Dream of Love” - a monumental piece which engages the listener for over 16 minutes. And the mellow, downtempo rhythm and effect-laden vocals of “Winjer” from Beaucoup Fish will never see radio airplay, but is a fantastic and atmospheric tune. http://i.imgur.com/m0NYn2Zl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ccrajywl.jpg This era concluded with Everything Everything Live: The Definitive Underworld Experience. Pick up the DVD - it captures the incredible energy of the band performing live at the peak of their popularity in 2000. If you're interested in going deeper to explore their more intimate and cerebral work, it began in 2002 with A Hundred Days Off. Every track contributes something unique to the set. "Two Months Off" was the radio A-side but the deeper cuts are far more rewarding. http://i.imgur.com/JpSG3A0l.jpg At this point in their career, the duo embarked on a side project of web-only albums dubbed, "The Riverrun series". These include:
2007 marked their return to the commercial market with Oblivion With Bells. This album features the hit, "Beautiful Burnout" and the startlingly ambient "To Heal" which was redubbed "Capa Meets the Sun" for the film, Sunshine. http://i.imgur.com/V17TpZJl.jpg The 2010 album, Barking is their least popular record. "Always Loved a Film" and "Bird 1" saw some airplay and there was an art film of video vignettes for each track. Not their most essential work, but even Underworld's worst ain't bad. http://i.imgur.com/Bbea7wAl.jpg For years thereafter there was silence. Rick released his first solo album, Bungalow with Stairs in 2010. Karl soon followed with his own solo debut, Edgeland in 2013. It was wonderful stuff. Then he surprised and delighted fans by releasing not just one but two collaborative albums with fellow genre-defining artist and producer Brian Eno in 2014. The artists had worked together a few years earlier as members of the improvisational concert project, This is Pure Scenius! "DBF" from their first collaboration titled, Someday World was energetic and complex and instantly fascinating. Their follow-up, High Life further refined the duo's sound with an album full of brilliant tracks. As a dedicated fan of both gentlemen's work, these records were a dream come true. In 2014, the band released a special anniversary edition box set of Dubnobasswithmyheadman, newly remastered and featuring all of the odds and ends from the era, some of which were issued on The Anthology. Another remastered box set appeared the following year, this time of Second Toughest in the Infants. And further anniversary remasters are expected in the years ahead. Then in 2016, Underworld released their first new album as a band in six years. It was an absolute triumph of a record, proving to the world that these aging ravers still had what it takes to produce rich and exciting new sounds nearly 40 years into their career. With each new listen to the album, Barbara Barbara We Face a Shining Future, it becomes more and more rewarding an experience. http://i.imgur.com/4KaVkjwl.jpg So there you have it - a brief tour through the catalog of Underworld. Of course, not everything worth sampling is mentioned above. With 510 releases, as well as a library of short films, art installations, and publications for both print and web from their art collective, Tomato, it would be impossible to highlight them all. But hopefully, this guide will serve sufficiently as an introduction to their work. Happy listening! |
Thanks for the info! I know basically nothing about Underworld, but I'm going to give them a listen. Which three albums should I start with? Please, only three recs right now. ;)
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You kept talking about Underworld, so I checked out Dubnobasswithmyheadman, and it was awesome.
I am now high as a kite and this **** is transcendentl |
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^Already did. Downloaded it yesterday. :)
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Thanks a lot for all of the Underworld information. Great read. I'm gonna follow your recommendations and start on them tonight. Reading that I also just realized that my first listen of them was through Sunshine around 6 years ago rather than Trainspotting, pretty cool.
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Picked up some original Arista Records and Warner Records promotional photographs from the early 70s while antiquing last weekend. Just finished framing the pieces to complement the 18x24 custom prints I had produced for my listening room.
Check 'em out! http://i.imgur.com/v4WLSrJl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/MHSG7kFl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/zVEHkhXl.jpg |
Privacy Rights & Copyright Reform in Light of the Post-Scarcity Digital Economy
For the past few months, I've been immersed in literature, documentary films, essays, and manifestoes centering on privacy rights in the digital age and on copyright reform in light of the post-scarcity digital economy.
What follows is mostly for my archival reference, a summary of the best media I've found relating to these topics. Each title is hyperlinked to reference information on the work or to the work itself, as are links to the bibliographies of the authors who published them. While many members of the forum may find this exquisitely uninteresting, my aim is that a user might find something here of value, which either supports or challenges his/her ideas about the digital economy. Perhaps this archive will introduce them to a work which inspires or enlightens them, whether to cryptographic security measures or to a heightened awareness of the need for legal reform to reflect this technological revolution. If even one person is influenced by this entry, then it has served its purpose. REFERENCE MATERIALS AND OTHER INFORMATION RESOURCES Books discussing Copyright Reform, Free Culture, and the Digital Economy as it Pertains to Media: Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity by Lawrence Lessig Reclaiming Fair Use: How to Put Balance Back in Copyright by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi Moral Panics - Copyright Wars by William Patry How to Fix Copyright by William Patry The New Media Monopoly: A Completely Revised and Updated Edition by Ben H. Bagdikian How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy by Stephen Witt The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World by Lawrence Lessig The Piracy Crusade: How the Music Industry's War on Sharing Destroys Markets and Erodes Civil Liberties by Aram Sinnreich Copy, Rip, Burn: The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source by David M. Berry Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century by Alex Sayf Cummings Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens CreativitybySiva Vaidhyanathan The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan The Future of the Internet and How to Stop Itby Jonathan L. Zittrain The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalismby Matt Mason Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Futureby Cory Doctorow The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mindby James Boyle Cowboys and Indies: The Epic History of the Record Industryby Gareth Murphy The Anarchist in the Library by Siva Vaidhyanathan On Consumer Culture and Propaganda: Propaganda by Edward Bernays Media Control, Second Edition: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by Noam Chomsky The Essential Chomsky (New Press Essential) by Noam Chomsky Consumed - How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults & Swallow Citizens Wholeby Benjamin R. Barber Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond Planned Obsolescenceby Kathleen Fitzpatrick Republic, Lost: Version 2.0 by Lawrence Lessig and (R)evolution: A Journal of 21st Century Thought by The Anarchists of Chicago (no record of this zine on the web - refer to physical copy) Related documentaries, literature, and subjects for further exploration: I journeyed further down the rabbit hole this evening, compiling a roster of related documentaries, lit, talks, and articles discussing our technological future. The list of documentaries included several anti-capitalist features, each cautioning the viewer about the inevitable economic brick wall to which the globalized world is speeding. Films such as:
As I work my way through these films I've been jotting down key concepts:
Related Literature:
Wikipedia offers a summary of his political positions here. And this article cites several core texts of decentralism. Among them are:
John Perry Barlow’s 1990 article at EFF.org - Crime and Puzzlement QuestionCopyright.org FreeCulture.org OpenMedia.ca The Open Rights Group (UK) 2600: The Hacker Quarterly WIRED.com Information Wants to be Free: Intellectual Property and the Mythologies of Control (written by R. Polk Wagner and published by the University of PA) Crypto-Anarchism / Cypherpunks: I've just received an internet privacy milestone artifact in the post. I'd spent the last week delving into the politics of crypto-anarchism and the cypherpunks. (The "crypto" does not refer to a covert political position as it does in the term, "crypto-fascism", but instead refers to politics concerned with privacy in the digital age.) Pictured below is the second EVER issue of WIRED, published in May of 1993. The masked gents holding the flag on the cover are the early cypherpunks, including the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and fathers of Bitcoin. Their core philosophy back in 1993 was that government can never be trusted to protect civilian privacy on the internet and that it was up to private citizens to develop technology to protect it. John Perry Barlow is among those featured - the man who published A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace in 1996. (The archival record album of which I featured on my member journal.) These men had incredible foresight of that which has come to pass in the 20 years since the issue's publication! http://i.imgur.com/bBRAjYjl.jpg For more on the subject, read the free eBook, Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World by Jeffrey Tucker. For more on privacy measures you can implement to make your surfing more secure, visit the Crypto Party Guide and review their Handbook. And here is an excellent guide to securing your browser. Thank you. |
The Nostalgia of "Vintage Tech"
One of the surprising bonuses of picking up a cutting-edge tech magazine from May of 1993 is the unexpected nostalgia trip of advertisements that were printed in the issue.
Check out these ads for Sony's new MiniDiscs, the 3DO, new 200GB hard drives, and more. VR goggles, the PowerGlove, and the most painful-looking ergonomic keyboard ever! http://i.imgur.com/WYq37kSl.jpg My favorite ad in the issue - "I can record on a disc! I can record on a disc!" (Sony's new MiniDisc technology) http://i.imgur.com/7jn3zqtl.jpg Aldus PageMaker (before the Adobe acquisition) http://i.imgur.com/Wgx7VL7l.jpg Coming this summer! http://i.imgur.com/Xzse9Gnl.jpg The early days of the Sci-Fi Channel and their official MAGAZINE! http://i.imgur.com/CCyjgY7l.jpg Seagate's new 200GB HDDs! http://i.imgur.com/0O1eEKtl.jpg ORDER NOW! http://i.imgur.com/Q7U7V8vl.jpg A four-page feature on the promising new 3DO console. http://i.imgur.com/oow2gctl.jpg The scary thing is that AOL still pushes their dial-up service to thousands of elderly customers all over the US. http://i.imgur.com/AZyNR7Bl.jpg |
I have a ton of MDs with a lot of great music I've picked up over the years. And I actually have an MD player. MDs were huge here in Japan.
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Just Like Christmas
Every vinyl enthusiast should be celebrating today, as Discogs has officially launched their app in the Play Store! Only just over 1000 downloads so far... where is everybody?
http://i.imgur.com/0TnhblFl.png Well, I for one am celebrating with Low's Christmas EP - side 1 track 1: "JUST LIKE CHRISTMAS!" http://i.imgur.com/39zjM7Kl.jpg |
His Master's Voice
Spotted a discarded Victrola cabinet curbside this evening. I confess I have a soft spot for Nipper and never pass one up. Also still on the hunt for a proper Edison cylinder phonograph as well.
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On the Merits and Caveats of Audio Formats and the Misconstrued Myths of Inferiority
The following blog entry is adapted and expanded from comments in a discussion of popular music formats.
https://innerspacelabs.files.wordpre...dios.jpg?w=680 SliderSliders on TL Audio VTC (1), Metway Studios by Jeremy Keith is licensed under CC BY 2.0 As audio formats have risen and fallen from favor, there have always been a segment of audiophiles there to fly the flag of their favorite format and to shun the supposed failures of those they oppose. Truly, each format has its respective merits and caveats. The choice of one format over another is mostly preferential based upon one's circumstances. The favor for portable digital formats is most often made for convenience, and those listening from their mobile devices while commuting are seldom concerned about the quality of the device's internal DAC or of the lossy compression which leads other audiophiles to write their congresspersons in fits of anger and audio activism. Pragmatically speaking, (respectable fringe circumstances aside), portable listening environments, given the significant white noise and distraction of passersby, reduce the need for performative excellence in audio signal reproduction as much of the nuanced perfections of a given recording are lost in the chaotic shuffle of human transport. CDs are a sufficient marriage of quality and convenience for many listeners. They lend an optimum sound quality for properly-mastered and mixed recordings, are a widely-supported format, and can readily be converted to lossless EAC or lossy MP3 for added portability. They suffer the usual limitations of physical media - entropic decay, limited capacity forcing albums to restrict runtime, and jewel case hinges which are frustratingly breakable. Title availability is often limited to commercially-viable recordings, which may or may not be an issue depending on your genres of interest. There appears to be a curious consensus that the many of the earliest discs (roughly 1981-1989) are inferior in their sound quality. Listeners often complain that these discs sound "tinny", "bright", or "thin". However, a quick search reveals intriguing opposing views, suggesting that the supposed poor sound quality of early discs may be a myth after all. It is important not to mistake earlier, quietly-mastered CDs as inferior. Podunk from the quartertothree forum offers the following: "...mastering techniques have changed a lot since the 80's and early 90's. The most significant change is the tendency of mastering engineers to apply a lot of compression or hard limiting to final mix, which greatly decreases the dynamic range of a recording but makes it sound really loud and punchy. Recordings from even the early 90's sound much quieter than modern recordings because of this practice. The advantage to that kind of aggressive compression is that our ears initially percieve loud recordings as sounding generally better, bassier, punchier, etc. Also, a loud recording will reveal fewer of the weaknesses of a cheap cd player/receiver/etc, because you don't have to turn it up until you start to hear the background noise from your system. The disadvantage to that sort of mastering is that listening to a recording with very little dynamic range is fatiguing, but at first blush, that is probably the #1 reason that a new CD would sound better than an old one: at the same volume level, a new one will sound much louder and punchier." Ethan Winer of Music Player Network agrees, stating that some early CDs were poor due to improper mastering, but that these are the exception rather than the norm. During the early days of CDs some engineers directly used "...master tapes meant for vinyl records, with treble added to counter the known high-frequency loss of LPs." Alan Cross published an article on 10 of the Worst-Sounding CDs of All Time, which includes the terribly hissy My Aim is True by Elvis Costello. But you'll find that each of the early albums on his list is an example of shoddy production work at the hands of the studio and not limitations of the format or its technology. Another factor to consider is that early 80s music itself is characteristically bright and tinny, further contributing to the perceived poor sound quality in comparison to post-loudness-war era recordings. Personally, I delight in the sound of early synth-pop albums and their characteristic brightness, and if I elect I can simply adjust the equalization to taste - far better than having to deal with the over-compressed dialed-up-to-eleven victims of the loudness war! Cassettes rival other formats in two primary regards - their portability, and more importantly, the participatory factor of the mixtape - a cultural phenomenon which permitted the listener to contextualize and identify with their music and to share it with others. Music became far more socially interactive with the birth of the cassette. This also created an environment for DIY home recorded genres like punk and were critical to the development of independent music. This, of course, continued with the democratization of CD burning technologies some years later. Even as a devout record collector, it is important to state that the format's allure is largely fetishist and a placebo effect. Young listeners born in the era of digital music enjoy discovering the retro format as it provides a tactile and real-time listening experience and it gives a (literally) substantial value to music they would otherwise perceive as common, elemental, and as plentiful as air and water. Gatefold artwork is often breathtaking and elegant. Sound quality is dependent on a combination of the source audio, the mastering process, the condition of the disc, and the playback equipment utilized. To various degrees of impact, the selection of tables, tonearms, cartridges, interconnects, preamps, power amps, and speakers each play a role in the resulting sound. However, the nostalgic "warmth" described by many vinyl lovers is simply a distortive property of the medium - a characteristic of playback altering the true audio signal of the artist, producer, and engineer, just as the crackles and pops of a well-worn and well-loved LP add a vitality and character to the music representing its history as a badge of honor, like the scratches and scars on the face of a dedicated soldier. One important additional characteristic of the vinyl format is that there are tens of thousands of titles issued on LP which will never be made commercially available in a digital format. Thankfully, listeners have risen to this challenge and through online music journals and sites like Archive.org, have come together to digitize worlds of music which would never see the light of day without their efforts. In fact, the very same has been happening in the cassette community, both in the audio and video realms. MP3 offers the convenience of compression and shareability and was the first widely successful non-physical format. They offered the same flexibility as mix tapes with the added bonus of storage tens of thousands of tracks on a small drive, plus the post-scarcity economic quality of being infinitely replicable at no cost to the user. There was a brief "dark age" of digital music in the early days of Napster with no bitrate standard and file exchange systems based on tracks instead of albums or discographic archives of artists or record labels, but this quickly passed as technology progressed to appease more discerning listeners who demanded standardization of formatting and v0 compression. Still, some listeners prefer archival quality audio and have no use for single-track exchange networks. This is where archival lossless digital audio factors in. Private FLAC-based trackers offer an incredible value to users with meticulously-structured and uniformly-extracted FLAC+.CUE + .log packages for all available libraries. Complete discographic archives are instantly accessible whether showcasing a single artist or composer or an entire record label or musical theme. Finally, a format had arrived which offered a truly contextual listening experience, complete with catalog numbers and uniform metadata for well-organized archival libraries and with enhanced accessibility. Best of all, these communities offer vastly larger libraries of content than commercial channels which focus only on licensed recordings. FLAC communities offer artist demos, developmental works in progress, live performances (whether sourced from soundboard or field), and an array of other non-commercial recordings not available to the public at any price. Streaming services have grown incredibly popular of late, given their convenience and accessibility, though more discerning listeners collectively deride the technology as being painfully inadequate for their own listening needs. The disdain is three-fold. Firstly, the services are limited to commercial recordings for which they can secure licensing, which instantly reduces the available catalog to a tiny fraction of the world of recorded music. Secondly, inferior lossy compression rates have turned many off from using these services. Finally and perhaps most importantly, there is the principle behind the service's greatest flaw - namely that listeners never own any of the music they hear on these services. There have already been instances of titles being remotely deleted from user libraries, hinting at the dangerous potential for media censorship at the hands of the content distributor. The EFF and other open culture organizations caution consumers that collectively relinquishing ownership of creative works is incredibly dangerous for a society. Fortunately, a percentage of listeners still hold fast to the concept of personal libraries and elect to retain the public's control of our art. What is to come of these formats in the years ahead? Vinyl will retain an audience of collectors who desire a tangible connection to their music and a lust for magnificent artwork. CDs will experience a nostalgic retro-renaissance as all things do approximately 20 years after their era. Cassette culture is already on the rise, albeit a niche, (though the same was said about vinyl just a few years ago). Each format excels in areas which appeal to their respective fan base. It will be interesting to see what transpires with non-physical digital audio. As storage cost continues to plummet, we've reached a threshold where compression and storage are non-issues. And as accessibility (in both legal and non-legal forms) continues to become refined and democratized, we may approach a day where every user can possess a personal copy of the Library of Congress, readily accessible for their perusal, research, and literacy. As open culture explains, this has the potential to usher in a new age of artistic enlightenment. I hope I'm around to see that day. |
An interesting turn of events this evening -
The news site in NYC which picks up my pieces from time to time is managed by a professor who founded a small independent publishing house in the city. He really digs my work and I'll be in touch with him this week to discuss publishing some of my collected writings as a book. Fun stuff! |
^That is excellent news! :)
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Cap'n Crunch's Treasure
I've just scored a wonderful piece of hacker culture history. As many of you may recall, this famous whistle was packaged in boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal in 1971.
The whistle emitted a tone at precisely 2600 hertz and could be used to make free long distance phone calls. (Remember, this was back when long distance calls were expensive.) These whistles have at times commanded over a hundred dollars on eBay but I picked this one up for a very reasonable price. It will make a wild necklace to sport my maker-culture pride! http://i.imgur.com/TQypxWrl.jpg |
Dance Your Cares Away!
In celebration of the new deluxe limited edition Fraggle Rock LPs I've decided to run a marathon of my favorite Henson records, (with a few other child-of-the-80s favorites for good measure). I've about 60 Muppet/Sesame records (thank you early 2000s Goodwill and VOA!) and will spin a few favorites this eve.
Featured albums will include: The original Fraggle Rock LP. (Sorry... no fancy splattered colors here.) http://i.imgur.com/4Uw1c4ul.jpg The Muppet Movie (alternate UK Cover) http://i.imgur.com/2SvaUEGl.jpg Labyrinth http://i.imgur.com/ApU6WNVl.jpg The Muppet Show Vols I and II ("The Great Gonzo Eats A Rubber Tyre To The Flight Of The Bumble Bee" is a classic.) http://i.imgur.com/B0zEJ0tl.jpg The Great Muppet Caper http://i.imgur.com/S2lEbgcl.jpg The Dark Crystal http://i.imgur.com/LRMWo6Dl.jpg One of the rarer Sesame LPs - This Roosevelt Franklin album was hot for weird funky soul samples in the early 2000s. I miss the world's first purple muppet. http://i.imgur.com/tWs0kSnl.jpg The Soundtrack to Legend by Tangerine Dream http://i.imgur.com/UEhO7WOl.jpg And while I'm in the spirit of nostalgic 80s children's films, I'll have to spin these as well... An American Tail - the first film I saw in theaters. http://i.imgur.com/XL9nv0cl.jpg And one of my all-time favorites - the wonderfully dark adventure story, The Secret of NIMH! http://i.imgur.com/yTfWoeGl.jpg Not too much to say about these... you likely already know them well. Perhaps collecting these has been a bit of a reclamation of my childhood, but nostalgia aside, these were wonderfully enjoyable films. |
Supplemental snapshot - Here's a pic from last year featuring all my Henson titles up until that point... though the collection has grown quite a bit since then!
http://i.imgur.com/56gD3qFh.jpg Happy Friday everyone! |
Some Love For My Neglected Albums
It happens to just about every collector - you reach a point where you realize you've acquired more albums than you'll be able to listen to in your lifetime. Or, in the earlier stages, you may find yourself with hundreds of albums you've purchased... you know you've listened to for maybe for one initial spin... but then they were shelved as you refocused your energies on your next acquisitional conquest.
I've arrived at that realization several times over the past year, and in an effort to right that wrong I began a running list in Google Keep of albums I need to revisit or those deserving of a focused and dedicated first-listen. Unfortunately, the list quickly outgrew the app and became cumbersome to navigate, so this morning just after midnight I took a few hours to reconstruct the list as a uniformly-formatted spreadsheet for easier reference. All catalog numbers are noted beside each artist and title, and all entries are vinyl unless otherwise stated. Below is a roster of the top 125 neglected albums and box sets that I've purchased but not taken the time to enjoy in 2016. My goal is to curb my investments in additional material for a while and to really dig into these classic titles that I already have. So for the remainder of the summer, this is what I'll be spinning...
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How is it that you enjoy Tom Waits? This is a serious question--not being snarky. I ask because I listened to my first Tom Waits album last night and was blown away by how bad he is. ;)
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Speaking for my personal taste, prototypical of the INTJ, I enjoy creative works which are dark, offbeat, antiauthoritarian, and, at times, crude. Waits embodies the eccentric, archetypal outcast with his fascinating lyrical concoctions about the seedy underbelly of the world. And critic Daniel Durchholz described his voice as sounding like "it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car." I find him endlessly fascinating. |
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No idea if this is what I saw, but it's probably amazing... |
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For several years I've wanted a copy of The Avalanches' Since I Left You LP - call it sampledelic, or plunderphonic, leftfield or abstract... it's just magnificent from start to finish. Sadly, copies have commanded hundreds of dollars and no reissue had been available to date.
Out of curiosity last week, I took a look at the official Avalanches FB page to see if there was any discussion going about a potential reissue. That's when I saw that one was planned THREE DAYS from that date! BETTER STILL, it was rumored to be the Original Australian Zomba Promo Mix - the band's intended album before they had to remove several uncleared samples! My copy arrived today from Germany, but sadly international postage was not kind to the package. One corner is crushed and I've reached out to the distributor to see what they can do. Regardless, I'm absolutely stoked to have their first album (and their newly-released follow-up) in my vinyl collection! http://i.imgur.com/fr04m0Pl.jpg |
Lovely Broken Thing
Ready to dive into my writing for the evening and I'm presently enjoying the first volume of the Riverrun Trilogy by Underworld, titled Lovely Broken Thing.
http://i.imgur.com/xKt7pNYl.jpg The EP's opening single, "JAL to Tokyo" is a magnificent and entrancing exercise in Karl Hyde's trademark stream-of-consciousness lyricism, which serves more as a rhythmic device than as a concrete narrative. Karl famously pieces together conversational fragments of passersby in cities like New York and Tokyo, lifting curious and puzzling phrases wherever he finds them. This was best realized in his Tomato Art Collective's print publication, mmm... skyscraper: A Typographical Journal of New York. http://i.imgur.com/WhuwzLtl.jpg The Riverrun side projects were independent internet-only releases, granting the founding members, Rick and Karl the freedom to experiment and explore more textural and freeform sounds than the anthemic floor-stomping club tracks they were famous for in their "Born Slippy" days with Darren Emerson. The resulting extended EPs feature wonderfully artistic and engaging tracks which are all the more rewarding upon repeated listening, both actively and passively on evenings just like this one. Lovely, indeed. The second volume - Pizza for Eggs is a bit more ambient but it certainly maintains an abstract quality with hints of progressive trance. http://i.imgur.com/OrnjXnal.jpg And the third and final volume of Underworld's Riverrun series - the curiously-named, I'm a Big Sister, and I'm a Girl, and I'm a Princess, and This Is My Horse. This volume is the most minimal and ambient of the series, and a wonderful conclusion to the project. But my personal favorite recording is an early draft of the EP, broadcast only once on 05-19-2006 from Lemonworld Studios by Karl, himself. The track was then-dubbed "Always Loved a Film (Silver Boots)" but bears little resemblance to either the eventually-released "ALAF" single from the Barking LP or its "Silver Boots" demo. The sprawling ambient track does, however, contain spoken word lyrics addressing the title of this final project. I always like to close a listening session of IABSAIAGAIAPATIMH with the Lemonworld broadcast to finish off the evening. Cheers. http://i.imgur.com/BySaplrl.jpg |
Innerspace,
Thank you for sharing your post regarding Underworld. Certainly one of my favorite acts to see live. I am grateful that I recently got to see them again at Coachella. |
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Thanks for reading! |
Upgrade Season
After years of contentment with my Sennheiser HD380 Pro circumaural monitors and more recently my AudioQuest Nighthawk cans, I've really become discontent with the listening experience they produce. Thankfully, I've several pro-audio savvy gents in my circles who kindly offered their considered advice.
It is quite likely that the $300-$600 headphone equipment is simply revealing the limitations of the shoddy internal DAC on my mobile and of my $25 entry-level Behringer UCA-202 DAC which processes the audio signals from my server to my integrated amp. They've advised that a portable DAC upgrade would very likely improve the performance of both my portable and desktop listening environments. And AudioQuest's new DragonFly Red may be exactly the solution I'm looking for. Thanks to a tip from another fellow audiophile, I've just picked up the latest issue of Stereophile which features a review of the newly-launched Red. I can't wait to dive in! Side Note: Holy Christ... it's 2016 and I just bought a MAGAZINE. http://i.imgur.com/GBeTtvrl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/cwFahoql.jpg http://i.imgur.com/hhYU5xDl.jpg http://i.imgur.com/D7P29mql.jpg |
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