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Great Tracks We Heard in August

As campuses refill and workers try to squeeze in their final sun laden vacations before the cold winds blow, we reflect on the music that accompanied us here.

Too Insistent by The Do
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGsTi05YPms
Olivia Merilahti and Dan Levy make up the meat of this French Finnish electropop crew | They’ve been performing since 2007 and have built a strong following in Europe | The track we discovered this month is by no mean new, but albeit a year old, it fits right in with the sounds of now.

Black Lip Bastard by Ab-Soul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y9kncHM9nFk
Part of the Black Hippy crew with fellow Cali rappers Schoolboy Q, Kendrick Lamar and Jay Rock, Ab-soul comes back with another dirty lick for the end of summer | This remix is a slight departure from the original cut, sounding cleaner and tighter and featuring the rest of his Black Hippy brethren.

Sod in the Seed by Why?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7yci4ib_z0
These Oakland hip-hop weirdos are at it again with a new album and lots of oddness to spare | Founding members of the indie label anticon, Yoni and Josiah Wolf released their Sod in the Seed album this month and spared no time giving the world a pre-silhouette iPod commercial.

Today’s Supernatural by Animal Collective
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47xbkT3calM
Talk about weirdos… Off their upcoming album Centipede Hz, Animal Collective provides a glimpse into the thought processes that go into making psych-pop | For example: technicolor Chinese dragons driving dune buggies, people in offputting make-up singing from what appears to be an organic hot air balloon organs and club wielding disembodied arms.

I Wish I Knew by Years & Years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puS9rDDBKHY&feature=youtu.be
These young Londoners are real up and comers | Combining synth sounds, guitars, drums and vocals they’re like young, British Flaming Lips | If the sound doesn’t fill that description, the confetti from the video sure ought to.

09/3/12

Album Soundwaves Translated Into 3D Printed Landscapes

‘Microsonic Landscapes’ by Realitat visualizes the soundwaves of music album as 3D printed landscapes.

The landscapes (made at Makerbot) are an ‘algorithmic exploration of music’ and a physical manifestation of an album’s unique sound properties. Sound patterns are translated into an algorithm and then printed on top of the album to represent the ‘spatial’ aspect of the music. The concept of generating visuals based on an input is not an entirely novel one, but we love how Realitat’s generative art manages to add a visual dynamic to music to fully engage fans and listeners.

Realitat describes the ‘Microsonic Landscapes’ project:

Each album’s soundwave proposes a new spatial and unique journey by transforming sound into matter/space: the hidden into something visible.

Click through the images to see the ‘soundscapes’ of songs by Einstürzende Neubauten, Antony & the Johnsons, Nick Drake, and Portishead.

The studio’s founder, Juan Manuel de J. Escalante will be giving a workshop in late September. Check it out if you’re in San Francisco.

Realitat

[ Originally posted on psfk ]

08/27/12

Yellow Submarine Hotel Pays Homage To The Beatles

The recently opened ‘Yellow Submarine Hotel’ is a narrowboat painted to look exactly like the cover art of the Beatles’ eponymous record. The boat was purchased by businessman Alfie Bubbles and outfitted to honor one of the Beatles’ most memorable songs.

Inside, there are 3 rooms to rent, all of which are equipped with 3D TVs and wi-fi, and plenty of 60′s-inspired furniture. The floating hotel draws inspiration from a song to create a reality for fans. According to The Daily Mail, the rates of the rooms range between £149 and £350. They also mention that Mr. Bubbles will be developing more floating hotels themed after Pirates of the Caribbean and Titanic.

[ Originally posted on PSFK ]

08/6/12

Great Tracks We Heard in July

As the dog days of summer loom on the horizon, we reflect on our preferred listening for the month of July | Passion Pit and Hopsin totally shook our world, but here are some other tracks we think you should note.

Your Own Minds End by Chad Vangaalen & Xiu Xiu

You know the feeling you get after a long summer day in the sun? When after mucking about in whatever the day’s adventures brought to muck about in, when you’re sitting in your easy chair sipping tea and having a pipe and everything feels at once distant and yet all around you?

Bubbles in Space by Michael Andrews
Take 100 kids, have them draw 3000+ frames (for a frame by frame animation), then put some sincere feel good music and you’ll have for Josh Hassin’s new video for Michael Andrews.

Octopus by Bloc Party
An atypical fight song, this tentacled beast by the eight armed British indie rock socks and bops it’s way into your inky mind.

Never Grow Up by The Alchemist (ft. Evidence)
All-Star DJ + flow-ready Dilated Peoples MC = chilled out summer classic.

Desde Mi Balcon by Chambao
Chill flamenco direct from Spain, this award winning trio dishes up some lovely easy listening with their recent release | The band, named for lean-tos constructed by Spanish fishermen to shield themselves from wind and sun, lives up to their title, providing a little shade and wind break in the heat of the day.

07/30/12

Images Translated Into Music To Help The Blind See

A sensory substitution device (SSD) strives to improve the quality of life for the visually impaired.

EyeMusic is a set of glasses that have a camera and headphones developed by The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The camera scans the viewpoint for images, and translates those images into music for the blind. According to medGadget:

EyeMusic is a sensory substitution device (SSD) that converts visual input into audio output, and many have been attempted before… The trick for making a good SSD is in finding a mapping from visuals to sound that makes it easy to interpret what one is hearing.

For EyeMusic, each color is given a corresponding musical instrument; it also leverages musical scales to convey visual data. The device will hopefully be able to be used to help the blind perform tasks like shopping at the grocery store.

Sample some of the sounds for yourself by clicking here.

[ Originally posted on PSFK ]

07/23/12

Green Corridor #2: A Quick New Album from Chad VanGaalen and a Bunch of Strange and Lovely Animated Videos

Chad VanGaalen is a stoner-prolific semi-shut-in homemaker of indie rock / drawer of cartoons from Calgary | He got started by putting out bedroom recordings with handmade album art, highlights of which ended up making up his first proper release, Infiniheart, on the Flemish Eye label

He followed that with 2006’s Skelliconnection, a mix of old and new recordings, which ended up shortlisted for the Polaris prize (ask a Canadian what that’s all aboot) | He landed on the shortlist again in 2008 for Soft Airplane, his first for Sub Pop in the States, and his first written and recorded as an album, rather than pulling material from old tapes | Soft Airplane was deservedly a big hit, earning him a Juno nomination for Best Alternative Album | Meanwhile, VanGaalen opened up his Yoko Eno studios to record two albums by pals and labelmates Women, and squeezed in album of instrumentals under the name Black Mold before returning with last year’s Diaper Island, a decent album with an unfortunate name likely influenced by his being a father of two. That album had more of a no frills garage sound than his previous releases, as if every setting in the studio was left where it was from the Women sessions, a sound he mostly keeps with on his newest release

Green Corridor #2 is the second in a series of split 12” releases from German label Altin Village & Mine Records, the first one pairing Oneida and Pterodactyl | On this one, CVG splits sides with morosely self-absorbed fuckwad Xiu Xiu, who last year refused to play an all ages show in Wilkes-Barre, PA when the venue was deemed unworthy of his star presence, and who here wastes an entire side of good vinyl by repeating ad nauseum the words in the spoiler alert title “Yes, No, Perhaps, Yes, No, Maybe”, his attempt at being clever, made to be used as a sort of Magic 8 Ball for your record player | In all fairness, all hating aside, it is a fairly clever gag, respectably worthless for IPods, but you’ll mostly want to stick with Side A | VanGaalen stuffs his 20 minutes with 9 songs, only one of them, “Portal Stretching”, a sound effect throwaway | Otherwise, he offers up a short and solid album that is as essential as any of his work

He begins things with the riffy highlight “Your Own Mind’s End”, then turns acoustic for “Evening Sun”, with its campfire drums and touches of theremin and bells, a song somewhat in the vein of Soft Airplane’s “Willow Tree” or “Molten Light | Next is “I Want You Back” a garage nugget that is among his catchiest songs, sounding like the lost hit single from Diaper Island | “Ripped Islands” offers up some mind erasing noise in between the balladry of chorus and verse | “Cross Trainer” rides on a bed of laptop beats, reminiscent of his earlier “TNMT Mask” | This is followed by “Nothing Is Impossible”, a frenetic jolt that finds him experimenting with singing in a lower register, one which makes him sound more than a little like D Boom of Minutemen | He then returns to familiar territory for “Weighed Sin” and “Kiss Kiss Kiss”, rounding out this short but not slight new record

Hear the album here

Buy the album here

Also an accomplished cartoonist, VanGaalen has made a number of videos for his songs, as well as work for other artists, clips of morphing psychedelia with an eerie, wondrous tone, which have grown to be more narrative over the years | He only made one video for each of his last two full length albums, so it isn’t likely that he will make one for any of the Green Corridor tracks, given the album’s limited release, but you can still enjoy the rest of his animated work, collected here for your joyful perusal

VIDEOS FOR HIS SONGS:

Clinically Dead

Flower Gardens

Red Hot Drops

Molten Light

Metal Spiderwebs (from his Black Mold side project)

Peace on the Rise

VIDEOS FOR OTHERS

J Mascis

Holy Fuck

Guster

Love as Laughter

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07/16/12

Imogen Heap Creates A Recording Studio Inside A Lounge Chair

The ‘Listening Chair’ is a mini-recording studio designed by designer-engineer Moritz Waldemeyer for Imogen Heap. The mod-looking egg-chair is fully equipped with speakers, a microphone, LED strips, and camera.

Imogen Heap had asked for the chair as a part of her latest project ‘What Song Still Needs To Be Written?’, where fans respond to this question. Design Boom described the creative process:

The pod allows people to escape their hectic surroundings and delve for a moment into their favorite tune with Imogen Heap, who also helped with its conception, guiding the audience through the experience on screen. Fans can then decide whether they want their contribution to be a personal message to the performer or take a chance on it being used in the video which will accompany the song.

Originally posted on PSFK

07/9/12

Tracks We Heard in June

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With summer 1/3 over it’s once again time to look back over the month and recollect the tunes that enhanced our listening our last 4 weeks | While not exactly a blockbuster of musical outpourings, June brought us enough to provide you with a list of our favorites.

TED Talk by Reggie Watts

Having fun with the often verbose-to-the-point-of-semantic-confusion, Watts introduction includes 4 languages and 2 dialectic variations | Oh, and did we mention it’s hilarious?

Forever by Haim

A remkarbly unique song by the LA-born trio | These 3 sisters combine folk music and R&B to create a style that’s very danceable and super catchy | For more info on their background, read this article from The Guardian.

Black Gold by Esperanza Spalding

Watch her fingers - she plays bass like John Entwhistle | This Oregonian knows how to hold it down | Last year she became the first jazz musician to win best new artist at the Grammys | Can you see/hear why?

Shadow by Alan Wilkis (ft Lyrics Born and White Hinterland)

Another installment from the Brooklyn producer features Japanese American MC Lyrics Born of Latryx and folk pop musician White Hinterland | A love song rife with obsession, Wilkis lays a beautiful underbase for a potential stalker.

L’enfant Sauvage by Gojira

These French metalheads sure do know how to make an impression | With their new album only released last week, their album has been streaming since the middle of the month and it’s been on repeat at our place | Listen to the full album here.

New Material + MCA Tribute by Talib Kweli

Offering up a taste of things to come from his up and coming Prisoner of Conscious album, Kweli’s flow seems as fluid and rich as ever | As a fellow Brooklyn native, Talib remembers MCA by dedicating a song in the set to his memory.

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07/2/12

Just favorited “Le Kensaye Show - Ness Radio 22/6/12” by Kensaye on Mixcloud.com

06/29/12

Origami Inspired Ceiling Adjusts Room Acoustics in Real-Time

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This structural project leverages principles of the traditional Japanese craft to create a breakthrough spatial sound solution | A group of faculty and students at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning teamed up with ARUP Acoustics to create Resonant Chamber, “an interactive interior envelope system that transforms the acoustic environment through dynamic spatial, material and electro-acoustic technologies”

The system is equipped with various panels (i.e. electronics panels, reflector panels, and absorptive composite panels) that help the flexible structure respond and help redesign sound in response to changing acoustic situations, “The system deploys the principles of rigid origami to create a thick, transformable surface able to adjust its spatial and material properties in response to changing conditions”

[Originally Posted on PSFK]

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06/25/12

OUR.BLOGSONG

Great Tracks We Heard in August

Album Soundwaves Translated Into 3D Printed Landscapes

Yellow Submarine Hotel Pays Homage To The Beatles

Great Tracks We Heard in July

Images Translated Into Music To Help The Blind See

Green Corridor #2: A Quick New Album from Chad VanGaalen and a Bunch of Strange and Lovely Animated Videos

Imogen Heap Creates A Recording Studio Inside A Lounge Chair

Tracks We Heard in June

Origami Inspired Ceiling Adjusts Room Acoustics in Real-Time

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