Music
Pink Trombone (FNAR)
It’s not what you might think. I’ve grown up now (yeah, right). This is in no way connected with a skin flute or a fleshy oboe, it is in fact a BRILLIANT simulator of the human instrument. Just fantastic.
My Search for an Interactive Music Video with Windows in it
Last night I was trying to find a particular interactive music video. I tried mailing a couple of people: “You know, the one where there’s a window in the middle, and objects come out of it in other windows, and I think you could buy them…
That Glasgow Airport Tee
Yeah yeah blogged it last week. Now all the kids at Dekmantel are wearing them
More Lovely Rave Nostalgia
This new video from Ross From Friends is quite lovely. Especially the back story. Aaaaah.
FULL TRANCE REVIVAL in progress…
When Katy Perry gets Paul Van Dyk in to produce her next album we can celebrate Peak Trance. But in the meantime if 90s trance is a pleasure (guilty or otherwise), you need this in your ears… Trance Wax appears to be a side project of…
Bucolic post-rave melancholia
Honestly, BPRM (as I’ve just labelled it) is my new favourite audio-visual subculture. It combines rural/suburban landscapes with sounds that feel like your brain on a come-down (with a few fading bubbles of euphoria fizzing round the…
Like Whiplash Meets The Chemical Brothers
Andrea Belfi – Lead. Outstanding hypnotic track. Album launch in London on Oct 30th. Find out more.
Four Tet and Strings of Life
So this is happening: Kieran Hebden + Steve Reid – Strings of Life TEXT035 limited 12″ artwork by @mraquelsantoshttp://t.co/4izZTb5gKphttps://t.co/9auxehkXUA — Four Tet (@FourTet) June 30, 2015 Four Tet and Steve Reid dropping a live cover…
808 The Movie
This looks totally epic! (In a muso-nerd fashion). The joy of seeing a ‘mature’ Soulsonic Force knocking out Planet Rock brought a massive smile to my face. Not sure when we’ll get to see it. 808 played at Sheffield Doc Fest earlier this…
Advertising Has Grown a Penis on its Face
I did a talk the other day at Here London. I had a truly lovely time. The other speakers were all – without exception – amazing, talented, interesting and passionate. I felt spectacularly un-worthy. I whanged-on about what I reckon might…
Waiting in Line 2 Hack You
I was chatting to Jordy van den Nieuwendijk at Here on Friday. And he mentioned that he’d worked with a guy at W+K NYC who was responsible for Waiting in Line 3D. WIL3D is one of my favorite things of all time, and having the warped mind…
Dj Castro – Nas Misturas
This kid! Playing a house music mix with a plastic bottle, his voice, and a pretend mixer and laptop. Amazing. Dj Castro – Nas Misturas – YouTube. via: Metafilter
Asylum center phonecard party
This is what it sounds like when you help a group of Asylum Seekers DJ with the tracks from their phones. This Phonecard Party initiated by Recyclart in Brussels is wonderful. And the writeup here gives lots more detail: Asylum center…
New Mix on SoundCloud
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a mix (seems to be a recurring theme). Anyway here it is. I recorded it 6 weeks ago so it’s doubly lame that it’s not been online until now, and explains why it’s called July and I’m posting it in…
The Small Things That Make the Difference
I’m visiting a mix on SoundCloud (this one if you care). The top of the page looks like this: Then I start playing the mix, and look what happens to my tab: Spot it? If not let me make it clear… SoundCloud have always been very good at…
This Might Be My New Guiding Principle
via: ffffound
A Springtime Mix From The Loft
I shut myself up in the loft again last Saturday, and another mix popped out. I think this is my favourite mix that I’ve done in recent times. I don’t know why. I’m just really pleased with the sound. I think it’s because I lucked out on…
My Balearic Muxtape
Everyone seems to be Muxtaping today. They’re calling it the easy way to create and share mixtapes. And it is. You just upload your tracks and it puts them together in a nice webpage where people can just click to listen. They’ve got a…
Art of Noise: Moments in Love
A classic bit of 80s Balearic tunage. What’s not to love. A proper classic. Not 100% sold on the video though
Yet Another Silly Moment in Techno
Is this techno viking‘s mum? Or grandma? Very scary indeed.
Computer Music Skillz
Sorry for the flurry of posts. It’s the first excitable surfing I’ve done in a while. I am so envious of this guy’s ability with his computer music equipment: Here’s some more beatfoolery: Jealous.
Poor Portishead
I feel dead sorry for Portishead. They were stunning. And then they became the soundtrack to a thing that no-one wanted to be. But their music skills are good: And reading about them in the Observer made me like them again. I love the fact…
Fun Fun Fun auf der Autobahn
Wowza. This 12 minute tripped out animation for Kraftwerk’s seminal Autobahn is quite something. Buy the DVD (or VHS) and find out more here.
If I Was 17 Again
Typographic Synthesizer – So Good It’s Magic!
You know sometimes when you see something so amazing that you almost forget to breathe while you’re looking at it. Well I’m just about finished hyperventilating after the end of this video. The guys at Meek.fm have created something that…
Pre-YouTube Silly Moments In Techno
I should probably start a separate category in the blog for this stuff. It just seems to keep on coming… I loved this clip for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s a bunch of cheeky young ravers from Edinburgh. I would have been living there…
Awesome Elvis Dancing in The Park
Another bit of creative dance from elsewhere in the world… Thanks to Mr Polaine for the link – genius.
A New Mix For The Weekend
Actually that’s a lie. It’s not a ‘new’ mix. It’s a mix from last weekend. But I’m posting it now. This is from Asi’s birthday party last Friday. It was a party in a pub. So I felt I had to play a bit more ‘rowdy’ than I normally would to…
All You Can Eat Hip-Hop
Yoiks! Here’s a definitive history of hip hop, all mixed up and ready for download. I’m not a massive fan of MTV Base style R&Bized modern hip hop, and Westwood makes me want to purchase knock-off Uranium and do something really bad to…
Shit Disco – OK
Simple, but effective… For some reason I kept imagining an interactive version of the video that acts a bit like a Guitar Hero style game
Loon Dancing to Make You Feel OK
I rarely get angry. It’s not in my nature. But I got an email today that made me so angry that I really felt it, physically. The only way I could shake it off was by watching people dancing like loons. It made the bad feelings go away…
The Best Online Music Toy Ever
This is the simplest and best thing I’ve ever seen for creating music fast. It’s massively usable. You can literally get into it by clicking a few keys – admittedly you’ll be making derivative euro-dance. But it’ll sound totally competent…
Last.fm Goes Fulltracktastic
Big news. Last.fm gets full track listening capabilities. As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website. Something we’ve wanted for years—for people who visit Last.fm to be able to play any…
The Scientist – The Bee
Was doing a bit of tidying in the loft today and came across this bit of vinyl. Even 17 years after its release it’s still got skills… If I had a filing system for my records I’d struggle knowing where to put it.
Bang Face – Neo Rave Armageddon
Forget about Nu-Rave it’s just a passing fad. You want Neo-Rave. That’s the real business. Bang Face are having a 3 day Neo-Rave Armageddon special at Camber Sands Holiday Park. They say: Musically you’ll get a Neo-Rave Explosion of Acid…
A Chuckle and Some Music for Friday
Chuckle: From the excellent: http://xkcd.com And if you want some music for the weekend, this 3.5 hour mix from Pixel in Amsterdam by James Holden is quite superb. For me he’s quite the musical hero at the moment.…
Youth Trend Watch: Hardstyle, Hardjump & Jumpstyle
This started out being a silly moment in techno post. But it’s grown into something far more important. Something that trend watchers and marketeers around the world have to pay heed to. It started with this clip from Malaysia: A few…
Stockhausen’s Helicopters
One of the things I’m trying to do differently this year (not a resolution as such) is to avoid reading the trashy free papers that come as part of the commuting package. I’m pretty sure their particular brand of reporting-lite has…
Happy Christmas – A Mix For You
I know it’s not Christmas yet, but I’m going on my holidays and I won’t be back for a while. So I thought I’d drop you a Christmas mix. It’s not very Christmassy apart from the last track which somehow feels a bit seasonal to me. Anyhow…
Funny Moments in Bongo-jams
And here’s a ‘moment in techno’ but one that’s not funny, it just looks mega. Clubs in the North were / are good… Witness the effect of tearing pianos on the drug-addled minds of northern clubbers ;-) I reckon in the early 90s hands were…
Amazing Mix!
I chanced across a fantatic mix at twentyfourhours (one of my favourite MP3 blogs). It’s the mix I wish I’d made. It’s the Aeroplane Airspace mix on this page here. Aeroplane are from Belgium and you can check their MySpace page here. It’s…
Forgive Me Rock Father For I Have Sinned
Dearrockers.org is great. They say: Many of us own music that we didn’t pay for. We don’t feel guilty about shafting the record company, but what about the musicians themselves? Here’s how it works: 1. Pick a musician 2. Write them a…
More Electronic Music On Mainstream TV
Lord knows how these connections get made, but I stumbled on a second clip from ‘old TV’ featuring another seminal moment in electronic music. This time it’s Giorgio Moroder on German TV… (Amazingly good quality video clip too!)
Robotic Boogie, Metal Mickey, That’s Life!
Today I love YouTube more than I ever thought I’d be able to love a video sharing site
Nice Vid
The music of Whitest Boy Alive, I like. Optical illusions, I like. Videos that synch-up the noises and the pictures, I like. Therefore, this video, I like.
How Stuff Dates
I kind of love this track. But it sort of doesn’t seem to make sense any more. And the video has aged really really badly too. The original (E2:E4 by Manuel Gottsching) has aged much better in my humble opinion. It might be the cheesy…
Another Scary Moment in Techno
Even scarier than techno Viking. If that’s possible.
Cliff Does a Radiohead
From The Times today – link to online version of the story. So Cliff is taking 1p off the price of his new album for every person that pre-orders (down to a minimum of £3.99) – the starting price is £7.99. Do the simple math and you…
This Busker is Well Good
Saw him in North Laine on Saturday. This epic psychedelic trance improv was just part of his set. A proper one-man-band with mad skills. Again sorry for the video quality. I think I might have to invest in some kind of camera that can do…
This Made Me Feel Jolly
5 Years Later by Noah and the Whale.
This Brought A Tear To My Eye
The Great Escape by Patrick Watson. I was listening to the stunning To Build a Home by Cinematic Orchestra and thought I should find out more about Mr Watson (who guests on the track) and it led me to this clip. Simply beautiful.
Urban Youth Past and Present
Back in the day urban culture used to look so much more friendly… These days it’s so much more serious and less fun: The first lot are still hanging round in a little gang. But they look like nice boys, maybe even a little camp. They’ve…
Sunny Saturday in The Loft – A Mix
I don’t know why, but I felt the urge again. I went upstairs to the loft on Saturday and put myself to work making another mix. In a kind of similar vein to the last one (Rainy Saturday in the Loft – A Mix) and I can’t quite tell if the…
Hype Machine Stunt
Like this a lot. Hype Machine are going to launch their new site once 10,000 people are looking at this page: http://hypem.com/new Brilliantly it’s not when 10,000 have looked at it cumulatively, they’re waiting for 10,000 to have the page…
Free Dub!
I downloaded an album from Boomkat earlier. It’s dub. Big shaky dub music that make everything wobble in a good way. It’s called Foundation Bit by Disrupt. It’s Boomkat’s album of the week and they say: Probably the most talked-about BASS…
Environmentally Friendly CDs?
Just got a new CD. 2007 by False (it’s a Matthew Dear alias). I noticed on the inside that it says that it’s Environmentally Friendly. Not sure how this can be true really. It doesn’t have a plastic case and is card wrapped. But even if…
Techno Viking
I’m not sure if this qualifies as a Silly Moment in Techno. It’s undoubtedly a rather odd moment. But I’m too frightened of The Viking to call it silly. All Hail Technoviking! – Watch more free videos The guys at Break.com say: This guy is…
I Like Radiohead More Than I Like Their Music
It’s funny, I sort of want to like Radiohead. But I’m just not that keen on their music. I don’t not like it, but it’s just most of it isn’t that appealing to my ears. But I like the ‘idea’ of Radiohead. They seem smart and like they’ve…
I’m Gonna Be Rockin The Commute
I’ve always wanted to be a guitar hero, but couldn’t face the callouses. Now I can create earnest rock music on the train… Jam Sessions on the Nintendo DS. I’ve pre-ordered and am waiting
The Best Whistling Clipart Ever
From the slightly overplayed but still very nice ‘Young Folks’ by Peter, Bjorn and John.
This Mix Album Is Good (Real Good)
I got a mix album today that is quite exceptional. It’s rare that a DJ mix gets me excited these days, I’ve heard a lot of them over the last 18 years or so, and they generally stopped being remarkable to me a while ago. The odd one…
Silly Moments in Techno
Techno clubs aren’t normally renowned for their sense of humour. But here’s a couple of moments where things go a little funny. A rather odd reaction to a rather odd track called Heater by Samin at the Outhouse Festival. And this from the…
I Love M83
It’s true, I do love M83. Their new long player Digital Shades vol 1 is out now. M83 make great epic soundscapes. I’m not really sure of the best way to describe them, there’s moments of noisy shoegazing bands like My Bloody Valentine, but…
Brands, Bands, Fans
Music strategy and comms agency Frukt send me a lovely email every month called Brands | Bands | Fans which is a top snapshot of the way that brands are ruining music. Or in some rare occasions doing something that’s actually quite good…
Toshio Iwai’s Tenori-On From Yamaha
Toshio Iwai has made a load of cool audio widgety things. The thing I know best is Electroplankton on the Nintendo DS. But he’s done lots of other stuff too. I’ve just come across his latest device to hit the streets, Tenori-On, it’s a bit…
Like 2ManyDJs (Only Better)
I’m liking the sounds of the Streetlife DJs a lot today. They’re like a UK version of 2ManyDJs only perhaps a bit more dance-edged, but still with tons of eclecticism. From their Podcast description: Stewart Rowell and Louis Gaston are…
SFMGFiPod
This made me LOL. It’s a music blog post. Normally the guy posts up decent music, but he’s got a thread called SFMGFiPod (which stands for ‘shit from my girlfriend’s iPod’). He’s basically posting up the stuff that his girlfriend is…
The Image of Joy Division
Lots of stories around this weekend about the sad death of Tony Wilson. It also span off lots of stories about bands that he’d been involved with and that time in Manchester. This story in the Observer caught my interest: Closer to the…
Reverend and The Makers @ Concorde 2
I don’t go to ‘gigs’ that much anymore. So much so that even the word ‘gig’ makes me cringe with it’s approaching-an-age-where-you-shouldn’t-be-going-to-gigs-anymore-ness. Anyway I was lucky enough to get to go and see Reverend and the…
World of Warcraft vs The Proclaimers
I didn’t think I’d ever post anything about The Proclaimers on here. But then I didn’t think I’d ever laugh out loud at a World of Warcraft video on YouTube either
Daft Hands
You have to give it a minute or so before it gets going, but have patience, it’s worth it. It’s just really simple and charming, but a great bit of technique and something someone’s obviously put a lot of work into. I can see it getting…
Rainy Saturday In The Loft – A Mix
Well the weather has been vile all weekend so I did something I’ve been meaning to do for ages. I got some tracks I like, I climbed up into the loft and I put a mix together. I don’t really know how to describe the style. It’s definitely…
Sometimes I Wonder…
…how old I really am. I know my age, I’m just not convinced that I’m very mature. Here’s an example, there’s a singer who’s been promoted heavily on TV, his name is Robin Thicke – this makes me laugh every time I hear them read it out…
The Electro Plankton Quartet
As part of Russell’s Interesting 2007, I got to play as part of ‘The Electroplankton Quartet’. Although we’re likely to get very big and very famous, I thought it was worth setting up a MySpace page just to prove that we existed (just in…
Chemical Brothers ‘Shop’ in London
Not sure quite how I feel about this. I like it. But I’m not sure it’s a very good use of money. I’m trying to make it a better use of their money by blogging about it. The Chemical Brothers have taken over a disused shopfront to promote…
Loop Festival Brighton
A celebration of Digital Culture they say – I reckon some crappy music coming out of laptops and a knackered old projector that no-one can see properly in the sunlight. Actually I reckon it’s going to be rather good. Some of the musical…
Last FM Bought by CBS
Someone had to buy them at some point: BBC NEWS | Technology | Music site Last.fm bought by CBS
User Archived Content
From my occasional series of ‘here’s something from the musical archives that’s pretty cool’ posts. I love the fact that YouTube allows for the sharing of this kind of content. It’s probably not strictly ‘legal’. And it’s not strictly…
Strings of Life
A few reasons to post this clip: It’s one of the greatest techno records of all time. It shows the value of experimentation, and how a ‘mistake’ can create something incredible. When he talks about the making of the track you realise that…
Something Wonderful
On YouTube. It’s true. A thing of beauty. Simple, elegant, straightforward beauty… Via noodlepie.
Big Chill / iTunes Promo
Nice promo idea – when my Big Chill tickets turned up they’d suck in a ‘free 3 songs from the iTunes shop’ card. Sweet. What they hadn’t done is create a page of ‘recommended’ tracks or anything like that, which might have been a nice…
Yahoo! Podcast Mystery
I’ve got no idea how this happened. But I noticed that Yahoo! Podcasts were starting to send people to Crackunit. So I traced the link back and found this page: iain tait | crackunit.com – Episode Page on Yahoo! Podcasts It looks like I’ve…
My Thai Dancing Worm
quality=”high” width=”320″ height=”256″ name=”movie” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer”> When I was in Thailand I saw this little fellow dancing on his thread as I walked up a…
Nike+
Wow. Nike and Apple have unleashed Nike+ By connecting sports shoes and iPods (using a tiny plug-in receiver) they’ve come up with something pretty sci-fi. Your shoes talk to your iPod, then your iPod talks to you, tells you how fast…
How hip hop changed
Modern hip hop videos don’t look like this… Thought it was interesting as a social snapshot of the early 80s in New York. Plus there’s some great fashions and urban landscapes in there.
Gnarls Barkley – Crazy Video
Cool Hunting blog the Gnarls Barkley video for UK chart smash number one hit – Crazy. It’s top. A really simple idea beautifully executed. Based around a morphing set of Rorschach ink blots it’s a worthy accompaniment to the track. I don’t…
Longtail Recommendations
Supersmart Ged (who I know from Yahoo!) pointed me to the longtail recommendations engine on last.fm. I’d been to the page but I’d never noticed the slider: have a play, it’s really good (you might need to be a user to access it). It’s a…
Tivoli iSongBook
I really like this new Tivoli iSongBook, it’s an iPod speaker system plus radio (edit: I’ve just realised it’s not new at all). There’s so many iPod speaker systems out there, but none of them really do it for me. Even the lastest Apple…
First Download Only No.1
I know I’m a day late, but forgive me, I’ve been away. The BBC write about how history was made on Sunday: Crazy by Gnarls Barkley went into the UK charts at number 1. Even though it’s not even available in physical shops yet. It’s one of…
Pandora x Last FM
TechCrunch » Pandora and Last.fm Together…sort of – I couldn’t work out which one of Last.fm and Pandora I liked best for my music recommendation needs. Now someone’s sorted out my dilemma, they’ve mashed the two together. Hoorah!
Using iTunes to backup your music
Now here’s a tip I’ve been waiting for. It’s not rocket science. It’s iTunes science! How to backup your iTunes music library, and most importantly of all, keep it backed up. I used to walk around in a constant state of paranoia that all…
PEZ MP3 Player
Who cares about Apple, Creative Labs, Sony and all those guys. Surely the best MP3 players simply have to be made by Pez. It’s got a tiny memory, looks really flmsy, the battery life is bound to be shocking. But there’s something strangely…
Going Underground
Is it really possible to overlay music onto the London Underground map? Each line representing a genre, giving proximity and intersections real meanings? Sounds bloody impossible to me. But someone’s given it a red-hot go. Nice work –…
The Postal Service vs Apple
I like the The Postal Service a lot. Their album is great. I also like Apple a lot. Their products are great. As has been well documented the latest Apple Intel Ad looks a lot like the video for “Such Great Heights” by the aforementioned…