Month: May 2007

Bonobo: Flutter

From the album Dial M for Monkey (2003)

Bonobo, the simian pseudonym of UK producer Simon Green has been a downtempo-lounge favorite for a while around these parts. In addition to his excellent production values, he’s notable for his distinctive infusion (though not pervasively) of eastern (mostly Indian) influences into what could be called “intelligent chill-out music.”

With a danceably faster tempo usual, Flutter is actually a bit of a departure for Bonobo. But as seems to be the case with me, it’s an artist’s digressions that attract the most attention.

If upbeat downtempo isn’t a style of music, I nominate Flutter as its charter document.

[audio:070531Flutter.mp3]

What I Love: Those chimes, that kickin beat and the melancholy trumpet.

Yeah, What They Said 5/30

Yeah, What They Said, pointers to interesting stories. Some people call it “link sharing.”

“Same great Pabst taste, without the beer.” PBR bottled water, available in China:

Pabst Blue Ribbon Bottled Water from Dave Nemetz on Vimeo.

Pi (π) played on a piano
Each digit 1-9 is assigned a note and 0 is a quarter rest.

Cumulative advantage
Some things remain popular because they are popular. As the popularity of something increases, the likelihood that its popularity will continue to increase becomes greater. “If all those people like it, it must be good.” The notion has been common sense for years, but now there’s scientific data pointing toward it.

Album Covers Separated at Birth
There are no new ideas. Pages and pages of album covers that are strikingly similar in concept and execution.

A tip calculator for iPod. It’s not free, but it looks cool. I used to have a tip calculator on an old cell phone and have been missing it for years, so this intrigues me.

Day Trip: Atlanta, Home of the Braves
I live in Atlanta, so I enjoyed this visitors’ travelogue about a day in the city, even though it’s mostly about baseball and other trivia. Did you know that the kazoo was invented in Macon? Oh, and no one calls it “Hotlanta” unless they’re being deliberately obtuse.

The Strokes have produced a ~~music video~~ short film for their single You Only Live Once. It’s very “sci-fi” and a good song to boot:

The $200 terabyte has arrived

western digital my book

A couple months ago, I wrote about the advantages of maintaining a large digital music library, specifically with regards to cost and storage as compared to maintaining a large physical music library. One of my points was that the decreasing prices of hard drives makes it increasingly easy to store, as well as backup large quantities of high-quality music.

I even went so far as to say that “before too long” we’d see the $200 terabyte, which is roughly enough storage for 80 continuous days of lossless quality music plus a complete backup of it all.

Well, that day has arrived. OfficeDepot currently is listing a Western Digital My Book 500GB for $99 after mail-in rebate.

At that price, you might as well get two and secure all your digital media.

Styrofoam: Front to Back

From the album Nothing’s Lost (2004)

Belgian composer Styrfoam is a consummate bedroom auteur, accomplished in the so-called “indietronic” genre, effectively wielding his laptop to weave a kind of downtempo electronic pop music. His early work is more ambient in nature, peppered with influences of 8-bit game-style accents. As his music has progress, however, he’s become ever more audacious in his compositions, fleshing out his sound with a more “organic” feeling, despite his glitch-centered production methods.

This song, Front to Back, meanders peaceably, like a digital lullaby for a good two and a half minutes before launching into a sing-song overdrive. It’s layered, complex harmonies will get stuck in your head.

[audio:070528FrontToBack.mp3]

What I Love: Marvelous chord changes; those dense vocal harmonies.

The Mountain Goats: Dance Music

From the album The Sunset Tree (2005)

This song is about escapism. With poignancy and daft lyrical narration, John Darnielle (aka The Mountain Goats) weaves a tale of domestic violence and a troubled life on the skids. The only outlet for the song’s protagonist is the volume knob on his stereo and the “dance music” it amplifies, which he uses to elude the strife in his life.

The beautiful part of this song however, is its clear-as-day construction. With unadorned instrumentation and a simple verse-chorus-verse structure, Dance Music is classic Mountain Goats. What else would you expect from “America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist“?

[audio:070525DanceMusic.mp3]

What I Love: It’s peppy and sad at the same time.

PS- John Darnielle maintains a blog at Last Plane to Jakarta.

iTunes Store is schizophrenic about Star Trek

One can only wonder what’s up between CBS/Viacom/Paramount and Apple these days.

The first season of the original Star Trek appeared for sale at the iTunes store, only to be removed a short time later. Then, about a month after that, the first season of Enterprise showed up, only to suffer the same fate. Both those shows eventually returned to the domain of the $2 digital download and remain available.

The old adage though is that events happen in sets of three.

And thus, the third Star Trek series to find a home at the iTunes Store, Voyager, also seems to have beamed in, only to beam right back out. Voyager became available a couple weeks ago, receiving top billing on the main iTunes Store front, as well as promotion at Apple’s Livepage. However, at the moment, if you do a casual search for it, you’ll find not a single episode or mention of the series.

Whatever is going on between the two companies needs to be ironed out; this kind of teasing just isn’t healthy.

UPDATE 6/5: A quick glance at the store shows that Voyager’s first season is once again available via $2 digital download. Curious though, if you search for it, the store says it’s a “partial season” even though all fifteen episodes are there. Anyway, check it out.