one.point.zero - Colin O'Brien's weblog
February 27 2010
How Britain is using classical music as a form of social control. Anthony Burgess eat you heart out.
February 21 2010
Remember the band OK GO and that treadmill video that went viral a while back? They can’t do that for their new tracks, EMI, their record label, doesn’t like free distribution.
July 27 2009
Recreating the THX Deep Note
June 19 2009
Sounding off: One planet, one million DJs.
June 04 2009
Philip Glass on Sesame Street in 1979
January 19 2009
get ready to tear your eyes out“within the next 18 months phones will have built in projectors and music on the bus will be upgraded to movies on the streets”
January 04 2009
sniff_jazzbox for the iphone captures the wifi networks in your immediate vicinity as you walk round the city and converts them into music.
November 04 2008
Electric stimulus to face -test3
September 01 2008
The Archive
July 25 2008
UK ISPs in bed with the Music biz“You hold them down, I'll remove their wallets”
April 07 2008
From the department of the obvious: 95% of youngsters are illegally copying music.
February 22 2008
Five great auditory illusions
February 09 2008
Word of the day: sodcasting. The act of playing music through the speaker on a mobile phone, usually on public transport.
January 17 2008
Neat plays on words for London Underground ads.
December 27 2007
In the age of MP3s,sound quality is worse than ever.
December 16 2007
Vienna’s vegetable orchestra.
December 07 2007
Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones and a Fairlight
December 01 2007
November 30 2007
Soundsystems on bicycles.“it's better because you don't even have to roll down the windows”
October 28 2007
Remarkable analysis of a dying industry“The major labels are like Terry Schiavo right now - they're on life support, drooling in a coma, while white-haired guys in suits try and change the laws to keep them alive”
October 24 2007
Interesting study of music industry tactics, especially in light of the recent OiNK takedown.
Interesting study of music industry tactics, especially in light of the recent OiNK takedown.
October 14 2007
From Glitch To Blog House – is electronic music more stagnant and conservative than we’d like to think?
October 07 2007
Radiohead generation believes music is free“Supporting a rock band used to be an act of rebellion. In the face of today's mounting music piracy, it has become an act of conscience.”
September 13 2007
Are technology limits In MP3s and iPods ruining pop music? (article may end up behind a paywall)
September 01 2007
Ear fuel
Some interesting mixes/DJ sets spotted while trawling around the internets recently:
Prancehall – Anger is a gift. A bunch of more unusual and exlusive tracks from the dubstep and grime scene.
The Black Dog – You Are Strange Mix. A selection that could only come from the Black Dog. Recommended for clearing your head.
The Pirate Flava mixes by DJ Wrongspeed. Collages of recordings from London pirate stations back in 2002/2003.
WordTheCat – Bassline House Mix. If you’re lactose-intolerant, Bassline house may be too much cheese for you to handle, but I like those wobbly 4/4 beats.
Philip Shelburne – Blackout. Very minimal but groovy nonetheless.
Enjoy.
August 09 2007
Record Envelope – the little library of factory sleeves.
July 13 2007
Hearing aids for baby boomers. I fear that day.
July 06 2007
Singing Tesla coil
May 27 2007
Toneshared is a site offering free ringtones from musicians in the alternative and electronic scenes such as Pole, Atom Heart or Thomas Brinkmann.
May 22 2007
An interview with Peter Saville“I have no opinion of Coldplay. I'm 50. I didn't ask my dad what he thought of Roxy Music. I'm more interested in Newsnight than the V Festival.”
May 15 2007
Bike battles
A few days ago, as I was cycling home, a kid ran out into the middle of the street from between two parked cars about 50cm from my front wheel. Obviously, at that distance, there wasn’t much I could do except slam into him.
To make a long story short, he got the fright of his life, and I broke my foot in two places.
I’m now stuck at home for at least four weeks and, Murphy being Murphy, I had a bunch of outings planned this month which will be difficult, if not impossible, to get to as my leg has to be kept propped up to avoid complications (and I’m self-injecting anti-blood clotting agents too, quite an experience).
One of these events is the Battles gig tonight at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. I have to admit I’m extremely disgruntled at having to miss one of the events I was most looking forward to this year but I have to be reasonable.
So, I have 2 tickets to sell, if anyone is interested in catching Battles live. You’ll get them at presale price instead of door price, and I’ll be jealous of you forever.
If you’re up for it, email me at colin @ this domain.
update: tickets are sold. thanks!
April 30 2007
Heavy Metal Baghdad (Part 1 of 5)
April 22 2007
The history of electronic music’s Seventies pioneers and their influence up to our days.
April 03 2007
Thou Shalt Always Kill
March 16 2007
Is downloading music more environmentally-friendly than buying a CD in a shop? Well, it depends...
March 11 2007
Interesting insight into how top spots get bartered on the iTunes music store.
March 04 2007
who’s the bonehead phone designer who thought it would be a good idea to let mobiles play saturated pseudo-hiphop through tin-can speakers? He should be tied to a tram seat and left there
February 19 2007
Interesting article on the DJ Drama affair and the whole hip-hop mixtape scene.
February 08 2007
Distance – My Demons
To be honest, there's a hell of a lot of dubstep which does absolutely nothing for me. Many tracks work pretty well if you're getting your eardrums blown out by a wall of subwoofers while introspectively staring at your dancing feet, but for home listening it often takes a little extra to get that goosepimple moment. 'My Demons' serves out plenty of those moments. DJ Distance has a past in the metal scene and you can sense it. The drums, while following dubstep patterns, have a rock flavour permeating through; and the riffs, albeit electronic, are powerful when present. The style is unique and the production is top notch. Well worth the purchase. [link]
December 30 2006
Another one for the generation that grew up on Belgian dancefloors in the eighties and early nineties: mixtapes from the Boccaccio nightclub in Destelbergen where many a night was lost.
December 25 2006
The godfather of soul has passed away, that’s a big gaping hole left in the musical world. He was one of its single greatest influences. At least he went out on a big day.
November 03 2006
Dr Octagon’s take on global warming.
October 31 2006
The latest Gnarls Barkley video pays tribute to the blaxploitation genre with a nod to the awesome Blacula. Great stuff.
October 26 2006
If in the early 90s you found yourself dancing in fields or warehouses in the middle of nowhere with thousands of other people, get the white gloves and pollution mask out of storage then download these 2 DJ sets:
September 26 2006
Neat French blog showing the source of audio samples in many tracks.
September 23 2006
A gigantic archive of old-school hiphop flyers from the early eighties.
September 11 2006
If you’ve always wanted to read the KLF’s seminal The Manual, you can. It’s online.
September 09 2006
Beautiful gallery of old 78 rpm record labels. In those early days, there was a lot of hand-lettering.
September 04 2006
Update on the Banksy vs Paris Hilton story: here are some pictures.
September 03 2006
Banksy replaces Paris Hilton CDs in UK shops with his own personal interpretations.
August 28 2006
In the USSR and Eastern Europe in the 1950’s, underground night spots would play music smuggled in from the west and pressed onto discarded x-ray plates.
July 25 2006
Inner-City Youth, a photo essay with audio commentary by Simon Wheatly, documenting the underprivileged youth of London and grime music culture.
July 16 2006
Seventies kung-fu flick is the inspiration for Wu-Tang clan (check the respective cast and track listings) and somehow ends up as a real sport which cites its origins as an Enki Bilal comic book. The plot thickens…
July 15 2006
Record stores are now home to grey-haired ponytail-sporting customers as the younger generations think of music in digital terms.
July 03 2006
Burial – Burial
Burial's debut album has been heralded as a breakthrough, and it pretty much lives up to the hype. It's dubstep without the MC culture, it's gritty syncopated rhythms with a twist of Basic Channel thrown in. There's an air of menace in the atmosphere that really gets to you on an emotional level, it is what Blade Runner would sound like if it was filmed in London to a background of rain and pirate radio stations. Listen to it on good speakers. [link]
June 14 2006
Check out the videos of Birdy Nam Nam. A quartet of French turntablists taking their art to the next level.
June 06 2006
The latest edition of the bootleg bar podcast features Dirk Da Davo of The Neon Judgement.
June 01 2006
Bleep is offering a free live track from Jamie Lidell featuring Jimmy Edgar.
May 28 2006
Paul Morley on Manchester and the birth of a musical wave that would transform the city forever.
