Times are changing. Definitely. Celemony is a company started in 1997 by Peter Neubäcker together with his wife, Prof. Dr. Hildegard Sourgens, and software developer and Technical Director, Carsten Gehle, which is based in Munich. They created a program that can analyze audio and edit the individual notes, and also transcribe the notes into music notation and MIDI. While this is not new since several notation programs can this, they have recently found a way to analyze an audio chord and transcribe the individual notes within the chord. Those same notes can be edited within the chord to change the harmony of it.
Another post rock outfit with a long strung out name! Much of the soundscape is familiar to post rock fans, guitars, Rhodes keyboard, drums, and not much vocalizing (none). The latest album from these guys simply titled “birds” contains four different “flocks”. The the instrumentation bounces around seeming to morph sounds into some sort of structure, and while it occasionally slips toward the oh so tiresome slow build formula, the organic sounding samples, combined with enough compositional motion seem to help it from becoming too stale or predictable.
This is a pretty cool rig that visually demonstrates how a drum machine works. The placement of the bearings controls the drum samples of the Roland TR-808, and there is a small CRT underneath which displays current time and state of the beat. This great project and many others were created by Peter Bennet. You can check out his other projects on his website.
It’s good to see the influence of the early Boredoms trickling down into the cracks of the indie rock scene! LA band HEALTH throws down a pretty energetic performance high in the skies of NYC. They are extremely creative and their unrestrained energy is certainly fun to watch. The two drummers add a solid rhythmic foundation to the non traditional song structures.
I haven’t heard much about this site, but it looks poised to do to the music licensing industry what iStock did to the stock photo biz. The site claims to offer a marketplace for musicians to interact directly with music those looking to license music for commercial purposes. They allow the artist and the client to negotiate over the cost, and they take 9%. I’m not sure if this will take off as it depends I think a lot on their marketing abilities…I mean everyone has their music on the internet these days, so if you are looking to license some, you don’t need to look that far. The benefits of this service is it gathers it all together, and categorizes it by mood…that’s what you get for 9%.
UI was always close to my heart as they often used two bassists to create their sample laden post rock compositions. The sound was thick and groove heavy, with lots of tasteful guitar wanderings. They didn’t record many albums (3 i think), their last entitled Answers was released in 2003 and is solid all the way through. Here is a great live studio clip of the song Sleep Hold.
UI Sleep Hold
Link via the excellent Zombi Baba Blog (you can download Answers there…but you should buy it from Southern Records if you can afford it…). you can also check out some clips from a documentary about UI here.
Some musical genres simply don’t need to intersect…it’s ok really, they can survive on their own just fine. One example would be country and rap. I imbibe both of these flavors of music just fine on their own, however I have yet to see any combination of the two that has been anything just short of embarrassing, and often nauseating. I’m always happy to be proven wrong, but here again I think I am right. Willie Nelson is nothing short of a musical hero in my book, and Snoop, well he is one smooth operator, but he just seems completely awkward up there trying to sing along with Willie…perhaps it’s just the mediocre quality of the tune itself, but I’m not buying it fellas. I do completely understand why they might be hanging out and sharing some…smoke.
Here is an interesting test. What happens when you take the extraordinary talent of a well known concert violinist out of his element, and drop him into a bus station to busk. I won’t spoil the ending of the story by telling you how much money he raked in while playing his 3.5 million dollar Stradivarius…
A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston’s stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work…Read Full Article
Pretty much anything with “Most Hated” in the title is going to end up being something I enjoy…I’m not sure what that says about me as a member of the human race, but I also don’t care. A great deal of thought went into the construction of this tune by it’s creators Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid. You can read all about it over at Design Observer. Here is an excerpt.
The most hated holiday song in the world is 21 minutes, 59 seconds long. It features the accordion and bagpipe, an operatic soprano rapping and singing atonal music, and the exhortation of a grating children’s chorus: “Christmas time! Christmas time! / Jesus, Mary and the manger / Christmas time, family time / Do all your shopping at Wal-Mart!” Its creators calculate that it will be disliked by all but a few hundred of the world’s population.
If your’re feeling bold leap right in and have a listen:
It’s amazing that a band that has had such a large influence on many people, has only released 2 albums in 14 years…Ah well they are back with a third album due April 28th. Ben sent this link to a nice live performance, the band is bigger and they sure have a lot of gear!
Portishead- Live Video
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