That need mentioning, as a way of restoring my internet-self to life:
NODAL: A generative composition system, now available for PC.
And Yet It Moves: A mind-bending puzzle-platformer. Available at Greenhouse.
If you can find it, Grafite’s goal for Wolfsburg against Bayern is a thing of beauty.
(In retrospect, MYST was a really weird game, wasn’t it?)
…is out now, on Pacific Front. You can buy it here and hear a longer clip of it here. Remixes come from Rennie Foster, AFK, and Toby Emerson. The original mix is a nine and a half minute jaunt through halftime breaks, minor-key counterpoint, huge bass riffs, and shimmering synths. It is pretty rad, if I do say so myself. I hope you think so too.
…all the film directors and the hollywood crew go out and round up everyone who knows more than they do.
WATCHMEN is an overwhelming and impressive film, and is almost certainly the best adapatation possible of a very difficult book. With that said, it does nothing that the comic does not do, contains at least two of the worst scenes every filmed, and, with exception of Jackie Haley and Billy Crudup, has no performances worthy of the name. It is an odd thing, really. I can’t see how it could have been done better, but it left me almost totally cold. Maybe Alan Moore is right, and it never should have been done at all?
RIP: A Remix Manifesto is a snappy piece of documentary-ganada about remix/mashup/free culture. It’s a very tight piece of filmmaking that brooks no delay and less dissent. I do wish the film had at least mentioned people like, say, Steinski, Coldcut, and so on, rather than focusing on Girl Talk. At least now I know that I need to pin him down and figure out how his software works.
The film’s biggest problem, for me, is that it tries to beat its thesis to death. Mashups and remix culture are tremendously important, but they are not the sole and only future of culture. Fair use, copyright, and patents have huge and obvious problems, but throwing them out totally is not the answer. Lars Ulrich and Metallica are assholes, but they had a point. It would have been nice to hear from, say, Luke Chable, who lost a record contract in the early ’00s due to a track of his being available on the internet.
Regardless of which way you swing on control of content and ideas, RIP is worth a look. It may make you angry, it may make you want to support The Pirate Bay, but it provides an exceptional look at how our culture has fractured, changed, and grown in the 10 years since The Internet Happened. And there is no turning back from that.
No idea when I found time to post this, and maybe that shows, but here it is:
Download here. Some neat things happen. There’s a MASSIVE, spaced-out ambient intro, then some deep breaks, then a prettier ambient outro.
1: Poni Hoax – Faces In The Water (Ambient Edit) [Tigersushi]
// Luke abbott – Gates Part 2 [Border Community]
// Marc Mitchell – Souls On Board (Ambient Mix) [Proton]
2: Exoplanet – Obvious Encephalus [Proton]
3: Arthur Deep – Demonstraight [Proton]
4: Mango – Kisses (Chillout Mix) [Morphosis]
5: Fairmont – Gazelle Tool [Border Community]
6: Somfay – Folding Ghosts Into Orgami Stars [Archipel]
// Radiohead – Reckoner (Somfay Remix) []
School is busy. And that’s the truth.
In this brief break, I would like to thank Yan Li for his wonderful, wonderful musical, LEFT, which I saw today. Thanks are also due to the mad people behind Sonic Lab on Friday night, who put together a wide-ranging and mad-as-eggs concert.
In terms of shows, I am performing Hollas Longton’s piece, For Martin Arnold at his graduating recital on Saturday, March 28th, at 8:00. I am also having a piece of mine played in the composition lunchtime concert on Friday, March 27th, at 12:30. Both of those are in the recital hall at UVic.
I’ve not bought music in far too long, but I’ve been loving sets by Larry Levan, James Zabiela, DJ Koze, Eskmo, and Lazersword of late. Don’t sleeeeeeep.
I am delighted to tell you that I have a new track out, and on my own label no less.
It is called Mistroad, and is a Luke-Chable-ish sort of progressive house number. Very Vapour, very Ivan Gough, with lots of snappy percussion and brooding, odd synths. If you don’t know what that means, you can listen to it here.
My comrade-in-arms Limbo did the remix, and he did a spectacular job. His version sounds like snow melting, ice cracking, and water pouring down from thousand year old glaciers. It’s pretty dubstep and it’s pretty rad. You can hear it here.
You can buy the entire release at the Tide Pool website, here. It will be out on Juno and Beatport soon. And, because Tide Pool turning 25 is kind of a big deal, you can in fact download the original mix for free, at full bandwidth. MP3 here, WAV here. Tide Pool loves you, after all.
– I am doing a live Nintendo DS jam with Will McFarland, of Debashment / No SRSLY fame, at the University Victoria on Friday, February 27th. The concert runs from 5 to 6 PM, and is in Fine Arts A146.
– My composition class is having a concert on Saturday, March 7th, at 3 PM, in the music wing recital hall. My string quartet will be played, along with works by a horde of brilliant second year students.
– There is a general UVic composition concert on Wednesday the 25th of February. It is at 8 PM, also in the recital hall. I have a short piece for organ being played.
– Finally, the UVic orchestra readings are on Monday, March 9, at 3.30 pm, in the Farquhar Auditorium. I have a piece up for that too.
So, I uhhh, wrote a string quartet. Reading was by the masterful JACK Quartet, pictured above, recording care of Kirk McNally.
In other news, I’m frantically busy. More as it breaks.
Some quick thoughts:
– I was reading an article about “epic wins” in video games, and the term “Nintendo-hard” was used several times. This got me thinking about really difficult video games as as sort of twisted, eight-bit life lesson. Do serious video game players of my era tend to be exceptionally stubborn, or exceptionally focused? And, will the current movement to shorter, easier, more forgiving games result in more casual (but probably more social) people?
More generally, now that video games are functionally mainstream, what will the mainstream games (Gears, Halo, etc) teach people? And not about things like “values” (which I’m sure that Gears does a great job of), but about subconcious things like effort, flow, and focus?
– I’d also like to point you towards the work of Zoe Keating, who plays ‘cello with herself, using a Lidell / Final Fantasy-esq collection of looping pedals. She also does not sing, which immediately ranks her above Owen Pallett.
– Finally, what if there was a computer virus that downloaded music on to your computer, on the sly?
Because I love Ewan Pearson, and Ewan Pearson loves you. Download here.
1: Cortney Tidwell – Don’t Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up (Ewan Pearson Remix) [Ever]
2: Silver City – Shiver (Ewan Pearon’s Bari Girl Remix) [20:20]
3: Silicone Soul – The Poisoner’s Diary (Ewan Pearson Instrumental) [Soma]
4: Alter Ego – Beat The Bush (Ewan Pearson’s Slow NRG Edit) [Klang]
5: Depeche Mode – Enjoy The Silence (Ewan Pearson Extended Remix) [Mute]
In other news, I am closing out the Sunset Room on New Year’s Eve, with Alan Smith. I’d be delighted if you decided to both come out and stay up.