Friday, 1 May 2009
I Monster - Daydream In Blue
Daydream In Blue by I MONSTER has become a part of the soundtrack to our lives through huge presence on TV in adverts and through being sampled by artists such as Lupe Fiasco. It's a great record by a great band. For the original uncensored video version check out www.redemption-records.com
Ballardian: R.I.P. J.G. Ballard, 1930-2009
J.G. Ballard - Shanghai Jim
Following J.G. Ballard from Shepperton to Shanghai and back, looking at the scenes of his life which inspired his autobiographical novels. This is a BBC original production which aired in 1991, directed by James Runcie. It chronicles J.G. Ballard's first trip to Shanghai after he first left it in 1946. He discusses his ilfe and his work especially his two autobiographical novels, _Empire of the Sun_ and _The Kindness of Women_. There are also bits there about _Crash_ and _Vermilion Sands_. A must for any J.G. Ballard fan.
Quality is far from perfect as this is a VHS rip
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Lemon Jelly
Franglen and Deakin initially released three limited-circulation EPs, The Bath (1998), The Yellow (1999), and The Midnight (2000), which were then collected into a widely-released album in 2000, lemonjelly.ky, which was both a critical and a commercial success.
Their second album (and self-proclaimed first studio album), Lost Horizons, was released in 2002, and was another success.
Their last album, 2005’s ’64-‘95, featured a sticker to warn listeners that “This is our new album. It’s not like our old album.” The title comes from the fact that each track features a single sample drawn from years between 1964 and 1995, incorporating each sample in a variety of imaginative ways.
Some of their best or well-known songs are:
- The Staunton Lick
- Kneel Before Your God
- Space Walk
- Nice Weather For Ducks
- ’75 aka Stay With You
- ’90 aka A Man Like Me
They have also made mix sets for Radio 1’s Mary-Anne Hobbs’ ‘Breezeblock’ show, as well as for a variety of other shows (6 Mix, XFM’s ‘The Hijack’, The Blue Room, etc). They have remixed a number of other artists, including Badly Drawn Boy, Pet Shop Boys and Coldcut, as well as collaborating with William Shatner on a track from his latest album.
Fred Deakin is also co-founder and creative director of print and interactive design agency, Airside
Lemon Jelly - Lost Horizons
Tracklist:
1.Elements
2.Space Walk
3.Ramblin' Man
4.Return To Patagonia
5.Nice Weather For Ducks
6.Experiment Number Six
7.Closer
8.The Curse Of Ka'Zar
Lost Horizons
Scrapiteria
Scrapiteria is made up of collagists who work in the traditional cut and paste method. Each week, one of the members posts a new theme which they all intrepret in their own way.
Scrapiteria
The Reactable
The reactable is a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving and rotating physical objects on a luminous round table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.
The instrument was developed by a team of digital luthiers (Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), working in the Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona Spain. Their main activities concentrate on the design of new musical interfaces, such as tangible music instruments and musical applications for mobile devices. The reactable team was recently awarded with various prizes such as the "Ars Electronica Golden Nica", the "Premi de la Cuitat de Barcelona 2007" and two "D&AD Yellow Pencils" and the Icelandic singer Björk has successfully used the reactable during her last "Volta" world tour.
The reactable intends to be:
- collaborative: several performers (locally or remotely)
- intuitive: zero manual, zero instructions
- sonically challenging and interesting
- learnable and masterable (even for children)
- suitable for novices (installations) and advanced electronic musicians (concerts)
The reactable hardware is based on a translucent, round multi-touch surface. A camera situated beneath the table, continuously analyzes the surface, tracking the player's finger tips and the nature, position and orientation of physical objects that are distributed on its surface. These objects represent the components of a classic modular synthesizer, the players interact by moving these objects, changing their distance, orientation and the relation to each other. These actions directly control the topological structure and parameters of the sound synthesizer. A projector, also from underneath the table, draws dynamic animations on its surface, providing a visual feedback of the state, the activity and the main characteristics of the sounds produced by the audio synthesizer.
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