Posted on March 28, 2010 by Simon Phipps
More of my weekly music picks. They are free of charge, as long as you’re in the right place to get them. This week’s favourites: The Six Degrees Sampler and the great Loscil ambient track.
| Loc |
Title |
Artist |
Comments |
| USA |
Coupled Key |
Cydelix |
Acoustic Spanish guitar lead, dreamy electronica backing, earnest piano melody growing to sustained sound-wall with psychotic fiddler – yes, people, we have a decent instrumental chill-out track on our hands. |
| USA |
The Best Treasure Stays Buried |
Zoey Van Goey |
Sounding for all the world like a junior Suzanne Vega |
| USA |
Dub for Cascadia |
Loscil |
Great ambient track that could have escaped from the Myst soundtrack. |
| USA |
Album: Global Grooves Sampler |
Six Degrees Records |
Another great sampler album from Six Degrees, with eleven quality tracks of world music. |
| UK |
One Time |
Justin Bieber |
A taster for the latest teen heartthrob. Disco heaven but I’ll be waiting until his voice breaks before I listen again. |
If you don’t already have it, bookmark Mercedes-Benz Mixtape. Every eight weeks the M-B marketing folks post a new mix of new artists on this page, complete with a zip-file of the MP3s for easy download from anywhere (mouse over the player and click “MP3 Downloads”).
Filed under: Links, Music | Tagged: MP3, Music | Comments Off on ♫ More Music Picks
Posted on March 21, 2010 by Simon Phipps
Music picks. Because I like them – Bonobo is best this time.
| Loc |
Title |
Artist |
Comments |
| Global |
Bright Orange Air |
Inlets |
Enjoyable acoustic track with close harmonies and quirky modulations. They are at SXSW Music. |
| Global |
Eyesdown(Warrior One Remix) |
Bonobo |
Dancing wildly in a darkened room with the bass turned right up. The original track is cute as well, see below. |
| USA |
Rocket |
Goldfrapp |
This was on my UK list last week, now available for US download as well. |
| USA |
Album: Six Degrees Sampler |
Various |
Great selection – try listening to Ceu if you’ve not already |
| UK |
AlphaMonsterMashUp |
AlphaBeat |
Boppy poppy mashup of Lady Gaga tracks, nicely done. |
Here’s the original of that Bonobo track:
That’s it for this week, more coming soon.
Filed under: Links, Music | Tagged: MP3, Music | Comments Off on ♫ Music Picks, Probably Free
Posted on March 18, 2010 by Simon Phipps
Another week, more music picks (a bit early because there has been some great stuff this week). I keep playing Lake Orchard and I think JagaJazzist is a real find here.
| Loc |
Title |
Artist |
Comments |
| USA |
Peace Among The Bones |
Sean McCann |
A modern folk-rock in the Fairport tradition. But from the US. |
| USA |
Lake Orchard |
Loscil |
Magnificent, pulsating, anthemic, ambient; think Robert Rich meets The Engineers |
| USA |
Magnetic North |
Fin Fang Foom |
Dark, guitar led, quite heavy but still nodding allegiance to shoegaze |
| Global |
Playlist of 5 tracks |
JagaJazzist |
Another group I’ve missed all these years, playing musical yet experimental jazz that is definitely worth a try. Video below too. Sample track: Going Down |
| UK |
BBC 4 Sessions |
kd lang |
Great performances in an intimate and warm venue. Fantastic viewing, bound to end up on YouTube when it times out on Tuesday |
Here’s a video of JagaJazzist in action playing “One-Armed Bandit” recently:
Filed under: Links, Music | Tagged: MP3, Music | Comments Off on ♫ Music Picks Now Spring Is Here
Posted on March 14, 2010 by Simon Phipps
Actually it wasn’t all that lazy, there has been so much to do. But here are some music picks for the week – don’t miss the Sister Hazel double album if you’re in the US, and the Turin Brakes track is the pick for the UK.
| Loc |
Title |
Artist |
Comments |
| USA |
Mamaya |
The Souljazz Orchestra |
Take a brisk walk with this loping world-jazz track |
| UK |
Leave Me In Love |
The High Wire |
From the stylophone opening to the subdued vocals you know it’s chill time. It gradually perks up. Not bad. |
| USA |
Perfect World |
U-Melt |
Reminds me of Pink Floyd in some ways, a pretty good chill prog rock |
| USA |
Album: 20-in-10 |
Sister Hazel |
Really good Sister Hazel sampler. 20 excellent rock tracks, the best free download in ages |
| UK |
Apocolips |
Turin Brakes |
Very good track from a reliably good band. Rich & innovative sound with a travelling pace. |
| UK |
Rocket (Richard X One Zero Remix) |
Goldfrapp |
Strong dance track that Goldfrapp fans would grab anyway but the rest of us are likely to enjoy too. |
One more thing – seems that there are downloads of the SXSW music showcase after all, assuming you have the patience for about 6Gb of torrent.
Filed under: Links, Music | Tagged: Amazon, MP3, Music | Comments Off on ♫ Music from a lazy week
Posted on March 7, 2010 by Simon Phipps
§ I’m still listening to new music and it seems the proximity of SXSW is triggering a cascade of releases. Here are some samples from this week’s listening.
| Loc |
Title |
Artist |
Comments |
| UK |
Need Love |
Dr Meaker |
Laid back jazz-blues-funk with female vocals, rather than the dance track you might expect. |
| USA |
The Deep and Lovely Quiet |
SubtractiveLAD |
Dreamy, slightly metallic echo-acoustic of the shoe-gaze, Engineers variety. Would not be out of place in a Robert Rich concert. |
| USA |
Culpa De La Luna |
Rupa and the April Fishes |
Pretty delicious stuff – imagine early Madness as world music with female vocals and you’re maybe close |
| USA |
Let The Riverrun |
Carly Simon |
Verging on gospel, this is a great track from Carly Simon as she is now (rather than the blast from the past you usually get from her Best-Of fodder) |
Let me know what you think – I’ll keep listening and if people like the reports I’ll keep posting too.
Filed under: Links, Music | Tagged: Amazon, MP3, Music | Comments Off on ♫ Music To Soothe A Wild Mink
Posted on March 4, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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I usually do a best-of playlist for SXSW but this year I’ve not found the monster download of all the tracks. However, as second-best, NPR has seleted their top 100 tracks (that’s 10% of the festival) and put them online as streaming continuous-play radio.
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Or, “how to ensure your customers can’t use your product and become ‘criminals'”. Great illustration of why “technical measures” are ridiculous and counter-productive.
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The huge problem with the Digital Economy Bill – and one which I can’t help thinking is part of its design – is that it’s easy for attempts to fix it to be just as bad as the poison they are trying to fix, unless the fixes are very well thought through indeed. This is a case in point, where the opposition politicians are proposing amendments that sell our rights down the river too.
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The season of change is clearly upon us. Seems even with Microsoft’s support Novell couldn’t cut it.
Filed under: Links | Tagged: DRM, Music, Novell, Rights, SXSW | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 3, 2010 by Simon Phipps
§ The last of the series of songs by Dave Carroll after his lousy experience flying United is finally out. I think song one was by far the best (song two lacked zing), but this one is pretty good:
I’d like to be able to say it’s hyperbolic, but unfortunately the trip I took over the weekend once again poured fuel on the fire (one friend I was travelling with had luggage lost by them on 2 of the last 3 flights) so sadly I think Carroll still has a point. Song one is just coming up to 8 million views on YouTube so I think United has a problem and the rest of us have a marketing case study.
Filed under: Music, Travel | Tagged: Humour, Music, Travel, United, Video, YouTube | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 3, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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The finest possible visual aid for why we can't rely on automatic means to "filter" content. Lessig, as the world's leading authority on "fair use", is assumed guilty until he declares – and perhaps proves – himself innocent.
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The bill has its own home page – a fine reference, both for the content and for the process.
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I'm not a huge fan of 7Digital after some early customer experience of them, but the pressure on them to lean up their act on formats and DRM will be welcome. Does the world really need yet another music store though?
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This looks very do-able and it's the perfect solution for a group of people gathered to discuss a document together and all running different platforms and software tools.
Filed under: Links | Tagged: Collaboration, Copyright, Digital Economy Bill, DMCA, Etherpad, Fair Use, Lessig, Music, Ubuntu, UbuntuOne, YouTube | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 27, 2010 by Simon Phipps
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While this is all good, it is not sufficient as ACTA will address far more than just “graduated response”. This looks to me like a co-ordinated action by the Commissioners in response to obvious concern, to try to prevent the Parliament forcing their hand in the negotiations. It’s still important to get MEPs to sign the opposition text.
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Goodbye, Tim – it has been fantastic and a privilege to work with you.
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Decent free jazz track on Amazon.com (US customers only).
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This is an excellent and on-target discussion on the ridiculous case where a lobbying organisation acting on behalf of BSA, RIAA, MPAA and others is able to direct the US government to discriminate against governments choosing to prefer open source software.
Filed under: Links | Tagged: ACTA, Amazon, Embargo, Music, Oracle, Sun, Trade | Comments Off on ☞ Gestures
Wild Webmink 