The BBC is offering a desktop version of the ancestor of all synthesizers: the Theremin. (original link is dead - link to internet archive) What are you waiting for? Download it now and make your own old school horror movie soundtracks. It's available for Windows and Macintosh.
DJ Hell seems pretty pissed off at the summer anthem status of Zombie Nation's Kernkraft 400:
"The whole thing was a big accident. We never thought it would be picked up by the trance scene - for us, it was just a great '80s-influenced electro-record."
Actor Vincent Gallo, of Buffalo 66 fame has just signed with Warp records on the merits of the score he composed for that film.
Paul Morley on Manchester and the birth of a musical wave that would transform the city forever.
Bleep is offering a free live track from Jamie Lidell featuring Jimmy Edgar.
The latest edition of the bootleg bar podcast features Dirk Da Davo of The Neon Judgement.
The latest edition of the bootleg bar podcast features Dirk Da Davo of The Neon Judgement.
Check out the videos of Birdy Nam Nam. A quartet of French turntablists taking their art to the next level.
Record stores are now home to grey-haired ponytail-sporting customers as the younger generations think of music in digital terms.
Seventies [kung-fu flick][1] is the inspiration for [Wu-Tang clan][2] (check the respective cast and track listings) and somehow ends up as [a real sport][3] which cites its origins as an Enki Bilal comic book. The plot thickens…
[1]: http://imdb.com/title/tt0199813/ (Ninja Checkmate (1979) [site language: English]) [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enter_the_Wu-Tang_(36_Chambers) (Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [site language: English]) [3]: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=chessboxing (ESPN.com - E-Ticket: By Hook Or By Rook [site language: English])
Inner-City Youth, a photo essay with audio commentary by Simon Wheatly, documenting the underprivileged youth of London and grime music culture.
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.
Banksy replaces Paris Hilton CDs in UK shops with his own personal interpretations.
Update on the Banksy vs Paris Hilton story: here are some pictures.
Beautiful gallery of old 78 rpm record labels. In those early days, there was a lot of hand-lettering.
If you’ve always wanted to read the KLF’s seminal The Manual, you can. It’s online.
A gigantic archive of old-school hiphop flyers from the early eighties.
Neat French blog showing the source of audio samples in many tracks.
The latest Gnarls Barkley video pays tribute to the blaxploitation genre with a nod to the awesome Blacula. Great stuff.
Dr Octagon’s take on global warming.
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.
Another one for the generation that grew up on Belgian dancefloors in the eighties and early nineties: [mixtapes from the Boccaccio nightclub in Destelbergen][1] where many a night was lost.
[1]: http://www.discogs.com/forums/topic?topic_id=88129 ((B) BELGIUM - The Heart Of Europe / B O C C A C C I O - The Tapes [site language: English])
Another one for the generation that grew up on Belgian dancefloors in the eighties and early nineties: [mixtapes from the Boccaccio nightclub in Destelbergen][1] where many a night was lost.
[1]: http://www.discogs.com/forums/topic?topic_id=88129 ((B) BELGIUM - The Heart Of Europe / B O C C A C C I O - The Tapes [site language: English])
[Interesting article][1] on the DJ Drama affair and the whole hip-hop mixtape scene.
[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/18/magazine/18djdrama.t.html (Hip-Hop Outlaw (Industry Version) - Samantha M. Shapiro - New York Times [site language: English])
Interesting insight into how top spots get bartered on the iTunes music store.
Is downloading music more environmentally-friendly than buying a CD in a shop? Well, it depends...
The history of electronic music’s Seventies pioneers and their influence up to our days.
The Sea Organ on the coast of Croatia is the world’s first pipe organ that is played by the sea.
Toneshared is a site offering free ringtones from musicians in the alternative and electronic scenes such as Pole, Atom Heart or Thomas Brinkmann.
Hearing aids for baby boomers. I fear that day.
Record Envelope – the little library of factory sleeves.
Are technology limits In MP3s and iPods ruining pop music? (article may end up behind a paywall)
Interesting study of music industry tactics, especially in light of the recent OiNK takedown.
Word of the day: sodcasting. The act of playing music through the speaker on a mobile phone, usually on public transport.
From the department of the obvious: 95% of youngsters are illegally copying music.
sniff_jazzbox for the iphone captures the wifi networks in your immediate vicinity as you walk round the city and converts them into music.
Sounding off: One planet, one million DJs.
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.
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.
How Britain is using classical music as a form of social control. Anthony Burgess eat you heart out.
How Britain is using classical music as a form of social control. Anthony Burgess eat you heart out.
I was there when acid house hit london and this is how it felt
Spotify is slowly killing music discovery by promoting playlists as mood wallpaper rather than pushing albums and artists.
“if the establishment is really interested in taking club music seriously, it might consider throwing some money at the culture rather than airlifting it to the safety of publicly funded arts organisations”
Looks like our old friends The KLF/K2 Plant Hire/The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu are planning something for the first annual Toxteth Day Of The Dead.
The comments on the video for Haruomi Hosono's 1984 cassette track Watering a flower are lovely. It's a pleasant change from the usual youtube toxicity. They've even been compiled into a book. (via Joe Veix)
This article explains the glut of generic mood-based music that infects every corner of Spotify.
Emmit Fenn's "Who Dat" video shows a pigeon with pretty impressive moves. Nice use of CGI by Patrick Jean.
I like to listen to random tracks on streaming services for serendipity. I also have a visceral hate of autotuned vocals which creep up on me regularly while doing this. I will throw money at the first service to implement a filter so I don't have to reach for the skip button in terror every time this happens. It'll probably save me money on therapy bills down the line too.
Genre was once a practical tool for organizing record shops and programming radio stations, but it seems unlikely to remain one in an era in which all music feels like a hybrid, and listeners are no longer encouraged (or incentivized) to choose a single area of interest.
An interesting take on the historical categorisation and the continuous flux of musical genres as well as the disappearance of group identification.
The story of the Liverbirds, Liverpool's first female rock band that came up behind the beatles and had quite a run. Amazing and moving story. (via Kottke)
As someone who used to hang out in all these strange and exciting places, I'm happy to know it's all still happening despite the mainstream takeover.
An 8-bit accordion made from two Commodore 64s and some floppy disks. It sounds amazing.
A great write-up on the Bleep sound of Sheffield that had an important place in the history of dance music. I still remember the first time I heard LFO, I was blown away. Luckily, my speakers were not.
Rob Gordon, Warp co-founder and a supremely talented and important producer and engineer in the bleep story, remixed The Theme for its Virgin rerelease as his “bass statement” but no mastering engineers would touch it. One did, Geoff Pesche, but in order to fully capture the sheer depth of sub-bass on the record, he crawled under the mixing desk to remove its limiters. Letters of complaint flooded to Virgin, as ill-prepared speaker systems were blown and destroyed across the UK.
A great little documentary about the history of breakdancing. It's in multiple parts, check out the channel for the full playlist.
This is quite a story. I'm not surprised Hollywood wants to turn it into a film. Fugees founder Pras Michel faces up to 20 years in prison after being convicted of conducting an illegal foreign influence campaign with Malaysian financier Jho Low.
