wii wiill rock you.

Let me be perfectly clear here, from the start. The single best part of Nintendo’s masterful new console is in fact, the multitude of awful puns you can make with it’s name. Wii-volution, Wii-mote, Wii-diculous, Wii-markable, and so on. Love it.

Of course, the next best thing about the Wii is that it totally changes how video games and interactive media are played, leaves Sony and Microsoft gasping in its wake, and instantly returns Nintendo to the unquestioned top of the console pile. I cannot stress enough how much fun this machine is, nor can I do justice to the reactions it garnered from a collection of hardened, cynical people who have been playing video games for their whole lives. The Wii is awesome, in the most exact sense of the word.

At the very least, Nintendo have the perfect cult hit on their hands, especially with the library of old games. At the very most, Nintendo have fundamentally and completely changed how video games and “interactive media” are played and perceived, ushered in the first steps towards virtual reality, broken the arms race of graphic processing power, created dozens upon dozens of new game concepts, and so on. The significance of the Wii cannot be overstated.

synesthesia up high

Meet Visual Acoustics, by Alex Lampe. Also, meet a song I made with it and two minutes of editing in Nuendo. It’s essentially a mouse-driven music player / synesthesia machine, and you can make it sound all kinds of hep pretty easily.

year in review: your lack of freedom

Slate presents the Top 10 Civil Liberties Violations Of The Year (USA edition).  Remember folks:  not only can the President define what ‘torture’ is or isn’t, he can also have you arbitrarily arrested and detained indefinitely as an enemy combatant.  Smile!  You live in America!

video games are the new pulps

So my step-sister and her family got me a quite fantastic gift for Christmas, right out of the blue:

SCIENCE FICTION OF THE 20th CETURY, by Frank M. Robinson.  It’s a gorgeous, coffee-table sort of book, that goes from HG Wells to the pulp magazines to the Big Three to Crichton and Gibson and the state of modern “speculative fiction”.

And while I was reading it, I was struck by a thought.   The book discusses how, when the first pulp SF magazines came out a little less than a century ago, the readers were all nerds, kids who wore glasses and got picked last in gym class, who spent hours in their garages tinkering with vacuum tubes and blinking lights.  Sound like anyone we know?
Fast forward to the 1980s.  I never worse glasses, and would rather have read than blow things up in my basement.  But I also spent a king-hell amount of time being in a story, all the way from the “Wizard Needs Food Badly” of GAUNTLET to the epic star-sweeping plots of FINAL FANTASY.  If I had been born in 1915, I would have read AMAZING.  As is, I played BALDUR’S GATE instead, or got lost in STARCRAFT.

And so did everyone else I knew.  I could talk to just about any close friend and say “ZERG RUSH!”, and they’d at least understand it.  The entire nature of media has changed (maybe not for the better).  WORLD OF WARCRAFT is a perfect example.  My generation’s stories are not in text – they’re in silicon and flash at you 60 times a second.  I can’t say that this is a better state of affairs, but it is the state of affairs, and anyone who wants to tweak the minds of people these days (though that doesn’t even really need a story – witness DEFCON) had best be prepared to deal with it.

tdpl16: caleb fox – play

Tide Pool brings the hotness for winter, with this new tune by Vancity’s own Caleb Fox.  Check it out.   

The Best Free Sets Of The Year

Three distinct winners in three distinct categories:

Best Complete Techno Headfuck: JAMES HOLDEN – Live @ Loft Electroclub (02-18-06)

There’s a line from one of Michael Moorcock’s JERRY CORNELIUS books that says something about “complete psychological disassociation in under a second!” This set is the sonic equivalent of that…except it’s two hours long, and you’ll love every second of it. Holden is a mad genius, pure and simple, and here he delivers the dance floor goods that he was missing on AT THE CONTROLS.

Best Masterful Progressive Journey: HYBRID – Kiss 100 FM Mix, February 2006

They’re not really known for their DJing chops, but hot damn, sometimes Mike and Chris hit one miles and miles out of the park, and this is one of those. Mixed for Digweed’s show on KISS, it’s half breaks and half 4/4, and is pretty much a perfect thing. There’s topsecret Hybrid remixes, some still-unreleased Opencloud, hordes of Lostep, and so on.

Best Emotional Collection Of Songs To Break Up / Get Back Together To: JJJD – Madtriggerish

As I recall, JJJD is Jonathan David, from San Diego, who posted this gorgeous collection of ambient/pop/prettyness on the now defunct Border Community message board earlier in the year. It sounds like a love song from John Lennon, after he was teleported 3500 years in the future, along with Ulrich Schauss and Sasha’s classy half.

Honorable Mentions: C79, DJ Soo, Slacker, Obeah, Graeme Park & Mike Pickering, Z-Trip, Ewan Pearson, Perc, Micah, Chloe Harris, Limbo, Naveen G, Robsounds, Chris De Luca, Phil K, and so on.

(Kick around on Google and you should be able to find the first two. I’ve put up a YSI link to JJJD’s masterpiece here.)

aftermyth

DJ Competition Fallout:  I ended up placing second by a single point, which I am both pleased and displeased about: Pleased that I ended up in second, but displeased that I completely ruined my very last mix. So it goes, however. I can’t thank everyone who came out (especially Santa and the elusive Steve & Jason) enough. You’re all lovely.

finally nervous

The Hush DJ Competition Final is this Saturday night, the 16th.  I am playing, along with the most worthy Chronikal and Ryan Seven.  I would be delighted to see you out, because it’s going to be monsterous in all the right ways.  Santacon is also that night, so be on the look out for people in red going “ho ho ho”. I am also terrifyingly, paralyzingly, stupefyingly nervous.  Those who know me will know that my fear and paranoia before gigs is legendary enough, but I can’t think of when I was last frightened out of my wits four days before I step behind the decks.

I’ve practiced, I’ve planned, I’ve schemed, I’ve contingencied.  I’ve got tricks that would make Phil K smile, programming that would make Sasha jealous, and mixes that would make Digweed (and Deko-ze!) proud.  If I hit everything I have planned, I don’t care if I win or not – I just want to do it all right.

goal of the season

And here it’s only December. Matty Taylor, for Portsmouth, against Everton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukWXif4UiGs

I’d also like to point all you people who think you’re clever towards these riddes: ouverture-facile.com. Let me assure you, you’re not clever enough.

swamp thing: the alan moore project part 1

You can read the rational behind this project here. You can hear the current version of the tune here.