– Glenn McDonald knocks it out of the park again with the words for each genre, and vice versa.
– “Just” being a DJ is ok. Articulated very well by Philip Sherburne.
– Bespoke small-run vinyl, via qrates. Super interesting, this.
– Norse is a security company that likes War-Games-esq attack visualizations…which are cheesy, but also amazing.
Early, but.
– Reynald Drouhin is a new favorite thing.
– Modular synths meet robotic instruments. Having seen a bunch of this in academic settings, it will be neat to let it out in the wild.
– Theorizing The Web was beyond excellent. Some highlights included Nick Seaver on recommendation systems, Natalie Kane on algorithms & haunting, Nick Douglas’ “It’s Supposed To Look Like Shit” talk, and many more.
– Finally listening to the symphonic jams of both Ellington and William Grant Still. So much to hear, so much to learn.
So many things!
– StaffPad actually has potential to drastically change how most composers write music. It, of course, needs to get off the Surface, and allow freeform input, and they’ll be golden.
– Hopes & Fears is a new fave, and this Jonathan Lethem interview is one of the reasons why.
– Of course Ben ‘Processing’ Fry is the person behind these code maps.
– Ingrid Burrington is also a new favorite, not least for her amazing URL: http://lifewinning.com
– Burrington also spoke at Future Everything 2015, along with Warren Ellis, etc.
– Never hurts to be reminded of Limits To Growth, as referenced from MoMa’s Uneven Growth.
Let’s talk about NI’s STEMS.
This is super interesting, not least because it is an open, backwards-compatible format. It’s also worth noting that this idea has been around for ages – your very own Tide Pool netlabel was selling parts, oh, almost a decade ago, now, among several others.
What’s hip here is the instant integration into NI’s line of DJing controllers, and into their idea of a ‘Remix Deck’. Suddenly, the “live remix” that people have been talking about for, oh, a decade (actually since the dawn of DJing) is ‘way easier.
This has lots of potential to be very cool – especially as that four tracks becomes eight and then 16.
This also has potential to be nasty, in a way that I’ve been trying to articulate since Sasha switched to Ableton in 2004 or so: The danger of giving DJs full control over the music that they are playing is that it all sounds like them.
Consider myself: I love the long mix. I came up on John Digweed and early 2000s progressive house, and if you can hear a transition, by god, you’ve failed. This is a noble goal, but it sure can make for boring sets. If I had the power to loop out every tune, I’d for sure make each mix as smoooooooth as possible – probably to my detriment.
On the other hand, if I’m Just Playing Records, I am stuck with the arrangement of those records, and have to make do. This makes me work harder, and makes my DJ sets way way way more interesting.
The future that NI is pushing is of a middle-road between “putting on records in a row” and “permuting those records in compelling ways”. I don’t think the tools for NI’s vision are there yet (although that tool, still, might be Ableton), though I am sort of excited to see where that future goes. But, don’t forget about the other paradigm: David Mancuso and the idea of “letting the record speak” still have a lot of miles to go.
– Snowden, Poitras, and Greenwald did an AMA. Essential. My TOR node is up: is yours?
– Charles Stross is on depressingly good form here, I think.
– I knew about Eno’s Oblique Strategies, but I did not know that my man Marshall McLuhan had his own version: The Distant Early Warning.
So, I moved to New York. It’s been, as they say, real.
– Amazing intro / discussion of African science fiction.
– You can execute arbitrary code in Super Mario World. I mean, honestly.
– Crash Override is important.
– Tahir Hemphill is also pretty important.
– Let biometric feedback manage your friendships. No, really.
Two years after I had the idea of blowing up Brahms scores by modifying the .jpg files, I finally have a done thing:
Details and link to the score are here!
As you can see by the lack of shows, I barely went out this past year. But, there were still some tunes that did serious things.
Caribou – Can’t Do Without You
During the Subdivision 5 Year, Longshanks dropped this in and then left poor Nathan Docksteader to deal with the fact that the tempo changes and there’s no outro. I was too busy peaking to notice, however. What a record.
Tiga – Bugatti
I said BUGATTI. I said BUGATTI. I said BUGATTI.
Plaid – Hawkmoth
Perfect chords.
And, of course, don’t forget the Jam page. And that Hush closed. Hell of a year, all things considered.