cooltunes

An old one.

What could happen if you casually set down your iPod while puttering in the yard? Or you don’t notice that you dropped it?

a) The dog would think it’s a new chew toy
b) The sprinklers could come on
c) It might fall out of your pocket into that bag of manure

Or you could shell out some bucks for the wireless speaker that lets you keep your iPod out of harm’s way.

So what exactly is it, and where does it come from?

A ‘band’ with no experience whatsoever is propelled to instant fame by cleverly working the MySpace network.

The Jose Feliciano version, a fine song for my mid-morning slump, compounded by what sounds like 50 or more fence construction people using at least that many nail guns. Add to that the trucks bringing in loads of boards, which are thrown with great violence on the pavement. The whine of several electric saws. Assorted whistlings, singing off-key, and the beepings of the trucks as they arrive with their many loads.

I’ve been playing a lot of Uusitalo (aka Vladislav Delay) lately. I held off on checking out Vapaa Muurari for the longest time because I’ve only really liked one of his albums (Vocalcity). However, after getting ahold of his latest album and noting the similarity to his other work as Luomo, I decided to give it a shot.

I’m not as into Tulenkantaja as much as Vapaa Muurari, as it’s a bit quirkier and more of a standalone album instead of being a live rework of his previous material. Had I known Vapaa Muurari contained as much reworked stuff from Vocalcity, though, I’d have checked it out much sooner.

So if you liked Delay’s work as Luomo and would appreciate it in the context of a live set with more of an ambient flavor, I’d definitely recommend checking out Vapaa Muurari. Tulenkantaja, not so much. It’s a decent album, though, just not quite my thing.

Created by Tod Machover and the MIT Media Lab, these colorful playthings called beatbugs and shapers are meant to teach a child some music basics. Software (Hyperscore) that lets kids compose via drawing is part of the package, plus there’s a special instrument, the hyperviolin.

All are designed to ease a youngster into music without the tedium of conventional music lessons.

No matter what’s happening on the field, the players will interpret and improvise. That’s the premise at the Vortex Jazz Club, a tiny spot in east London, where fans are treated to spontaneous music from teams of musicians who strive to match the game’s actions with appropriate responses.

Why are so many opera singers fat? As opposed to say, the average rock star? There are many theories, including one that recognizes that the voice must rise above an orchestra, and penetrate to the far corners of an opera house.

When it’s my iPod’s turn in the car, and the driver gets sleepy, sometimes I’ll play Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head. The last time this happened, I had complaints that Kylie was still going on and on in the passengers’ heads for days afterward.

Not surprisingly, her song is at the top of this list.

Some jazz, some rock, some really old stuff.

Summertime - Herbie Mann
Summer Samba - Walter Wanderly
The Summer Knows - Phil Woods
The Summer Wind - Michael Buble
Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts
Estate (In Summer) Grover Washington
Late in the Evening - Paul Simon
Miss Sun - Boz Scaggs
Summertime Blues - Stray Cats
Summer Song - Chad & Jeremy

Microhouse, techno, and experimental minimal electronica fans rejoiced at the end of 2004 when it was announced that the Force Inc. Music Works family of labels would begin releasing again, having resolved issues arising from bankruptcy of German distribution giant EFA.

For those of us who like to wear our musical tastes on our sleeve so to speak, they are now selling T-shirts through their website.

Other techno-related shirts can be found at Hardwax’s website, and at Kompakt’s online store, in the back catalogue section.

Working with UC Berkeley physicists, Roberto Morales-Manzanares has produced software that enables users to create music from solar data. That sounds rather dry, but Morales sees this as a stepping point to access aural events happening in space. The technology exists to make our listening experiences much, much richer.

An auditory illusion, it is likened to the works of M.C. Escher or a barber’s pole.

Songs using this tone include Jobim’s Waters of March, Pink Floyd’s Echoes and Missy Elliot’s Losing Control.

To get past the early morning torpor, Turn Me On (Low Tide Remix).

You know you’ve always wanted to. Here’s how to get started including tips for women.

Judging by the Top 10 Heavy Metal Album Covers posted earlier, metal artwork has evolved quite a bit since the days of glam bands and such. A few artists have gained a foothold in the metal community and are responsible for quite a bit of the dark, unusual, and sometimes violent imagery found on metal CDs. Here’s a small selection:

Dan Seagrave - if you listen to death metal, you’ve undoubtedly seen his artwork for bands like Suffocation, Entombed, Malevolent Creation, Pestilence, Dismember, and Morbid Angel.

Niklas Sundin - guitarist and founding member of Dark Tranquillity, he’s also a pretty competent graphic designer. He’s done the artwork for several of DT’s recent releases, as well as work for In Flames, Green Carnation, Arch Enemy, and numerous other bands.

Jonzig - a tattoo artist who has also done quite a bit of artwork and logos, mainly for underground death metal bands like Pessimist, Pyrexia, Odius Mortem, Severed Savior and Disgorge.

Wes Benscoter - chances are you have probably seen his work on at least one album. He’s done art for Mortician, Hypocrisy, Sinister, Cattle Decapitation and Broken Hope, among others.

Travis Smith - his work seems to be almost everywhere lately. He is responsible for the majority of Opeth and Katatonia’s recent artwork.

Honorable mention goes to Miram Kim, who created the disturbing artwork on most of Incantation’s albums. She has also done some artwork for X-Files.

I should also mention My Dying Bride vocalist Aaron Stainthorpe, who I think is now handling the artwork for all of MDB’s albums, although I really don’t think too much of his style.

The top ten as judged by the folks who directed Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey.

From Dan DeLuca of the Contra Costa Times, includes Nelly Furtado, Wyclef Jean, Beyonce with Jay-Z, Pearl Jam, and Wolfmother, among others.

Answer to yesterday’s quiz question: Radiohead’s the group, Jonny Greenwood is the composer.

Was the great pianist’s instrument enhanced? A music critic who is also a baseball fan wonders if the unique sound of Horowitz could be attributed to some special tinkering with his Steinway, the one he took wherever he performed.

Then the opportunity arises when he can actually try out the Horowitz Steinway.

Bill Fontana, an American artist, has created a sound sculpture using amplified recordings of the bridge’s vibrations.

What it is, what it sounds like and which musicians use it in their work.

Coming back from Berkeley Friday night, the blues fan in the car wanted to listen to the radio. The foodies’ ears perked up as the singer went on about ‘red beans and rice, fried chicken and neckbones’.

Turned out to be Sista Monica and ‘Put It in the Crockpot’. iTunes has it.

What group does the current BBC composer in residence belong to?

a) U2
b) Radiohead
c) Art of Noise
e) R.E.M.

answer tomorrow

More than a week has vanished since I asked the question. Where does all this time go? Syreeta had a big hit when she sang with Preston on ‘With You I’m Born Again’.

No, I can’t hear it. In an earlier post I mentioned that students are using a ringtone that many teachers cannot hear due to their age. Just now, a son tried it out on me.

The children’s book The Polar Express also touches on a sound those over a certain age cannot hear. That one had a magic that a ringtone lacks.

Peter Benisch - Waiting for Snow

Peter Benisch - Soundtrack Saga

Biosphere & Deathprod - Nordheim Transformed

Biosphere - Substrata

Although it’s arguable that the artists being from Scandanavian countries and the album art are really what makes the listener associate the sensation of coldness with the music more than anything inherent in the sounds themselves, the association is made nonetheless. Images are linked to discogs entries for each album, some of which have some pretty thorough reviews. Titles are linked to the corresponding page on last.fm, some of which have samples.

The driver was short-tempered and hungry. It was hotter than the dickens. Traffic continued to be bumper-to-bumper way past the usual slowdowns. A cabbie refused to let us merge. This list got us through the truly bad spots, especially when we got behind the Worst Driver in the State of California.

Yesterday When I Was Young - Dusty Springfield
Butterfly Mornings - Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions
Captain Bacardi - Eric Marienthal
Sunrise - Norah Jones
Maureen - Sade
Dreamsome - Shelby Lynne
One Less Bell to Answer - The 5th Dimension
On the Low - Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions
Sweet Potato Pie - Ray Charles & James Taylor
You Don’t Know Me - Ray Charles & Diana Krall
San Francisco Days - Chris Isaak
Graceland - Paul Simon

For those long evenings when your fussy child can’t get to sleep:

Dreamland - Art Garfunkel
House at Pooh Corner - Kenny Loggins
Hush - Kathleen Battle
So Many Stars - Kathleen Battle
Night Ride Across the Caucausus - Loreena McKennitt
Wnyken, Blynken and Nod - The Doobie Brothers
Lasso the Moon - Art Garfunkel
Baby Mine - Bonnie Raitt
Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Eva Cassidy
What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong

In Union City.

With an explanation from the Beeb’s Radio 3 Discovering Music archive.

How a band’s development has been heavily influenced by their leader’s obsession with the sport of cycling.

Uh-oh, looks like something else I’ve got to have. Banging on the furniture turns into a musical interlude. Well, some day.

Cows seem to appreciate music. And why shouldn’t they?

The article includes a link to kulning, a method of herd calling that contains elements of fear, that is, screaming.

My kids were only 18 months apart, and there was a long stretch when both were in diapers. Naptime became a high priority if I was to make it through the day. If they were still restless after being read to, I would put on some records and let music ease them to sleep.

One choice was a collection of train songs by Johnny Cash. Some of the tracks were slow. So, if they get curiously sleepy nowadays upon hearing ‘I hear the train a-comin’, it’s comin’ round the bend’, there’s a good reason why. Hah.

Shortly after getting an iPod for graduation, a son spent the better part of a Saturday adding album art. Now Specere has come out with Art Collector 1.0, an application that simplifies this process.

Plastic City is teaming up with Apple to offer an 512 MB iPod Shuffle preloaded with 35 tracks from the label.

Nice idea, although I wouldn’t personally buy it. Now, if they had a regular iPod with the entire Plastic City back catalogue, or maybe stuff from the entire UCMG New York or UCMG Germany label conglomerates, I’d be all over that.

Albums to watch for this year:

Layering Buddha, the previously mentioned album by Monolake.

Cosmos, the fourth album by Mexican minimal electronic/classical maestro Murcof.

The Cold In Between, on Plong!, and Nightwidth on Merck, by Swede minimalist Anders Ilar. No idea what the Plong! one will have on it, and I’m assuming the Nightwidth EP on Narita will be represented on the Merck release along with who knows what else.

Vince Watson seems to have a lot of projects in the works, with an older album destined for release on Transmat now set for release on Belgian label Delsin. He’s also working on an album for F COM and apparently will be doing some work for NRK. No word on whether those last two will be done before the year’s up, but the Delsin album is slated for an Autumn release.

Also, I’m behind, and I haven’t checked out Loscil’s most recent work, Plume. It was released at the end of last month.

Listen to algorithmic music based on a word of your choosing. I picked ‘precipitation’ because we had some, unexpectedly, this afternoon.

So who uses algorithmic composition? Brian Eno, for one.

The Very Best of. Includes ‘Good Morning Heartache’, still my favorite version.

Surrounded by metal fans in a small Scottish town, a 15-year old Alan Warner discovers music that he can relate to in Can.

In a story from the Beeb, Apple is checking into reports that workers at their iPod factories are toiling under sweatshop conditions.

Why they seem to sound incessantly during the summer, and what happened to the old two-tone horn (the one locals called ‘basso profondo’).

Here’s a link to what they sound like.

In a child born with Williams, there are about 20 genes missing in the brain. IQ will always be low, and the simplest act can be profoundly difficult.

However, many have extremely outgoing personalities, a very cheerful attitude, and a stunning ability with music.

Dreams - The Cranberries
Dream Scream - Death Cab for Cutie
Dreaming of You - Selena
In Dreams - Roy Orbison
Dream Lover - Mariah Carey
Dream a Little Dream of Me - Michael Buble
Sweet Dreams - Eurythmics
All I Have to Do is Dream - Everly Brothers
Dream - Dinah Washinton
Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Diana Krall
Dream Baby - Roy Orbison
Dreamland - Art Garfunkel

Can music affect the content of your dreams? The Sky Orchestra, developed by Dan Jones and Luke Jerram in collaboration with hot air balloonist Peter Dalby, will find out.

Their music/art project consists of seven speaker-equipped hot air balloons. Each balloon will play a separate part of a musical score as the group floats over a city. Performance time is dawn, when most of their audience is still asleep, presumably in REM sleep mode.

More details from Futuremusic.

You may well ask, can there be such a thing? The lead singer, Albert Kuvezin, favors the kanzat kargyraa style.

To keep teens from loitering in front of stores, a high-pitched sound called the Mosquito was devised by a Welsh security company. Adults over 40 or 50 cannot hear this sound due to the inability to detect certain frequencies because of aging.

The technology has been seized by the enterprising young, who have turned the sound into a very popular ringtone. Who needs an ear-splitting ringtone? Why, the countless numbers of students who are forbidden to use their cellphones in class.

Now they know when a text message is incoming, and their teachers are none the wiser. Unless, of course, said teachers are youthful too.

Especially if the man is Billy Ray Cyrus, who is still looking for his second hit.

Quite a bit of time has passed since the article linked was written, and since then Numark has created a product specifically built to allow DJing with a single IPod. It’s a bit like having two CD turntables and a mixer all on one board, with a socket to place the IPod in.

Everyone’s a DJ now. Well, of course your music has to be good, as in crowd-pleasing.

And what drives a crowd to delirium might surprise you.

The operating room has a wide-ranging soundtrack, and in some cases, you can bring your own.

Dancing is generally frowned upon.

What do you listen to as you eat? Does your favorite restaurant play decent background music? Is there such a thing as unobtrusive yet mildly stimulating music that doesn’t put you off your food?

Greg Sandow offered his opinion and suggestions in the Wall Street Journal.

Who sang with Billy Preston on the hit song, With You I’m Born Again?

a) Mary J. Blige
b) Faith Evans
c) Ashanti
d) Syreeta

Answer tomorrow.

The answer is Sigur Ros. But then, you knew that.

We all respond to music in our own way, even if we can’t sing a note in tune. Few, if any, cultures exist that don’t have some form of sound that can be interpreted as a kind of music.

People handicapped by medical disabilities that severely hamper their senses relate that they can still appreciate music.

Some studies show that infants might be born with perfect pitch, but lose this ability as they mature.

Why is music so important to mankind? Theories abound, including one from Darwin, who thought music had a role in the mating process. Other scientists think music could have been a non-threatening way to bond with fellow humans for survival purposes.

Much more here.

I’m a little late in blogging about this, but for those that aren’t aware, there’s a rather interesting item made by a couple of guys centered in China. It’s called the FM3 Buddha Machine, and it’s basically a lo-fi speaker inside a plastic housing which emits 1 of 9 ambient loops at a time.

Monolake’s recently finished a project based entirely on the Buddha Machine loops, so you know it’s good stuff.

Apparently, household animals such as small dogs do not get along well with musical instruments in general, but digeridoos in particular.

I first noticed a problem when I was playing my acoustic guitar and the resident dog (a shih-tsu I was petsitting for a friend) retreated into the kitchen looking very agitated, and then defecated on the floor. I tried not to take this as a comment on my skills, although I quit playing after the incident.

The next day, the dog was getting on my nerves so I decided to see what it would do if I played my didge. Almost as soon as I started playing, the dog ran and hid under the couch, and wouldn’t budge from its spot for a good 10-15 minutes after I quit playing. This was a good month and a half ago. About 2 weeks ago, I was cleaning under the couch and discovered.. a dried up piece of dog feces.

The moral of the story - if you want to frighten a pet, use a didge. But put newspapers down first.

felt like streaming and mixing some of the new records i’d picked up over the last month. i can never find a good track to mix out of the mataya one, so i bailed and started over.

mix 1 starts with some laid-back electro, moves into microhouse and light tech-house territory, then goes into some heavier, glitchier stuff. the mix of the last 3 tracks was shamelessly lifted from mr. c’s classic 2002 essential mix.

mix 2 is tech-house of the darker, deeper variety, with some basic channel stuff and aril brikha thrown in for good measure. ends on a floatier, housey note.

mix 1:

mesak - tufnu (klakson)
johan skugge - kyrkogaard (mitek)
subsound - electrobot (affected)
zvukbroda - kse zo (listen to reason)
omni a.m. & casey hogan - in my time of flying (euphoria)
le dust sucker - keine bewegung berlin (styles kickin’)
steve bug & richie hawtin - low blow (minus)
mataya - new game (listen to reason)

mix 2:

blue mar ten - numbers (deep structure)
second hand satellites - orbit 1.4 (hallucination)
maurizio - m5 (maurizio)
round four - find a way (vocal mix) (main street)
sanasol vs. ozzy - seveneleven (ozzymix) (thule)
aril brikha - on and on (transmat)
david alvarado - klugh (ovum)
juju christian - feel good (zeppelin)

At a dog shelter in Somerset, England, the animals find that music relieves the trauma of the surroundings. Not pop tunes, but Bach or Mozart.

An explanation from the University of South Wales that includes video of lip motions and sound files.

Unfortunately, your life’s soundtrack includes music you didn’t choose. The BBC asked for music diaries, in which listeners discussed what assaulted their ears each day.

Participants reported an average of one hour and sixteen minutes of this music, some of which came from shops, restaurants, and public transportation. One surprising source of annoyance came from coworkers singing badly.

A few months ago, Albertson’s, a local supermarket that will be closing soon, installed monitors beside the checkouts. These continually featured cooking instructions at high volume with accompanying music and other sounds. The store’s soft rock selections played behind that. Various ringtones of other shoppers chimed in.

It’s noisy out there.

In pre-iPod days, this couldn’t be done so easily, of course. But is it really okay to hook up yours to override the music your host so carefully selected, even if he has awful taste?

If he don’t do duets.

The lyrics to Patti LaBelle’s ‘I Don’t Do Duets’. (As you may already know, most lyric sites bristle with popups, animations, blinking ads and worse.)

Duets were on my mind this morning as I considered a few of the ones that I have:

Genius Loves Company - Ray Charles with Michael McDonald, Van Morrison, B.B. King, Natalie Cole, James Taylor, Norah Jones, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Diana Krall, Johnny Mathis, Bonnie Raitt, Gladys Knight
On My Own - Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald
Waters of March - Al Jarreau and Oleta Adams
In Your Wildest Dreams - Tina Turner and Barry White
Tearing Us Apart - Tina Turner and Eric Clapton
Tonight - Tina Turner and David Bowie
Where is the Love - Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway
Gone at Last - Paul Simon and Phoebe Snow
Jackson - Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash

Then Lee Hazelwood popped into my mind, and Some Velvet Morning. I couldn’t remember the woman who sang it with him, and a search led me to info about Nancy Sinatra, and from there, I found what the Telegraph considers the 50 best duets ever. Some Velvet Morning made the list.

Which of these groups is an example of dream pop?

a) The Ark
b) Sigur Ros
c) Fireant
d) Fintroll

Answer tomorrow.

Among the groups who have covered the Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood song:

Primal Scream
Firewater
Vanilla Fudge
Slowdive

At the International Community School in Oakland, third-graders, 80% of whom are Latino, sing enthusiastically in Mandarin and play the erhu, the yue quin, and the dizi. Parents are happy as well.

A Slate writer examines the Prozac-like effects of listening to New Order.

He plans to run in 2010. Residents troubled by the overpopulation of white-tailed deer in the state will be relieved to know this.

Portions of the article are not suitable for reading during a meal.

No End and Trust is Shareware. The group from Sweden is classified as ‘glam rock’.

After the arrival of the H5N1 avian flu virus on the Ivory Coast last month, a young DJ decided to offset the gloom by introducing a new dance. Local nightclubs are filled with enthusiastic dancers, whose movements mimic the frantic flappings of poultry in the last stages of the illness.

Bavarian Fruit Bread, just about right for Sunday night after supper when the dishes are washed, and there are large ripe strawberries to be eaten.

When they step up to bat, those Giants like an interesting mix of tunes that include Van Halen, Wild Cherry, P. Diddy, Rush and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

It’s Friday. Sometimes a short week can seem like forever.

Extol - Gloriana
Extol - Soul Deprived
Meshuggah - Elastic
Meshuggah - Concatenation
Candiria - Dead Bury The Dead
Candiria - Work In Progress
Disbelief - Sick
Disbelief - Floating On High
Emperor - Ye Entrancemperium
Heaven Shall Burn - Architects Of The Apocalypse
Heaven Shall Burn - Weapon They Fear
Samael - Rebellion

What if the guitar part was stripped out of your favorite songs just so you could play along as if you were part of the band?

At the DreamMusician site, you could do just that. Drum and keyboard parts can also be removed. So far, they offer 50 songs, and expect to bump that up to 1000 by the end of the year.