aquariusrecords.org: "Two discs, jam packed with dreamy druggy OUT THERE free folk psychedelia. Slippery spacey squiggles float like motes of dust over a warm whirling landscape of mumbled atonal guitar, stuttering alternate tuning strum, super-processed electric guitar whir, wheezing harmonica, lilting falsetto vocals, washed out distorted whirls of crumbling amp buzz, a gorgeously laid back, blissed out afternoon sunlight back porch drug drenched slow motion moonlight abstract folk jam." Listen to some excerpts
npr.org: "Oil was once an alternative fuel, much easier to come by than whale blubber and less poisonous to the air than coal. This is among the nuggets you might learn from Lisa Margonelli in her new book Oil on the Brain: Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline. It takes her from local gas stations to an Iranian oil platform, a Texas drilling rig, Nigeria, Chad and Shanghai to trace the path of the commodity that seems to command so much of our economy and politics." Listen here
dradio.de: "Der tropfende Wasserhahn oder das Ticken des Weckers haben schon viele um den Schlaf gebracht. Ein noch drastischeres Beispiel nennt Dr. Philipp Leistner, Leiter der Abteilung Akustik im Fraunhofer-Institut für Bauphysik in Stuttgart:
Stellen Sie sich vor: Sie liegen abends im Bett - und es ist nicht der Wecker oder der Wasserhahn, an den gewöhnt man sich sogar noch - Sie wollen gerade einschlafen und hören plötzlich um sich herum eine Mücke summen. Sie wissen, wenn die sticht, das kann schmerzhaft, ärgerlich sein. Sie sehen sie nicht. Nicht mal wer neben ihnen liegt, hört die Mücke, nur sie hören die Mücke, es ist fast nicht messbar. Und das kann aber bei Ihnen zu dramatischen Reaktionen führen. Also, dass leise Geräusche, fast nicht messbare Geräusche, grad noch so hörbare Geräusche, problematisch sind, dafür gibt es genügend Beispiele." Weiter
kcrw.com: "It's a wonderful time to be a recording artist. Though the record business may never return to the glory days of the past, today's artist has far greater flexibility to forge expansive and direct relationships with the people who finance their careers -- their fans.
No longer do bands need to wait for validation and fortunes from a major record label to kick-start their careers. Today's recording artist can forge their own reality -- on MySpace free of charge and open to all. In fact, MySpace is the #1 site for musicians to audition their music to fans. The unexpected consequence is that record labels are listening too. In fact, just about every label in America uses MySpace to find new talent.
This does not mean the era of the record label is over. Structure is still needed to keep a band's business operating effectively. But the net effect of the online audition has helped changed the economics of the record deal. Today's deals limit the record labels' creative involvement, its back end royalty rate and the term of the contract Artists receive far less advances up front than before, and must often use their own resources to tour." More
The Music Industry and the New Digital Economy
kcrw.com: Apple's Steve Jobs rocked the online world with a letter calling for open downloads of digital music, without piracy protection. Media entrepreneur Jason Calacanis joins industry insiders, including KCRW's own Celia Hirschman, for a discussion of the realities facing the music instustry in the new digital economy." Found via The Politics of Culture Podcast
inforadio.de: "Berlin ist voll von ihnen. Mittels neuer Technologien kreieren sie ihre eigenen Projekte, Labels und Betätigungsfelder. Das Internet ist für sie nicht nur Werkzeug und Spielwiese, sondern Einkommens- und Lebensader. Sie produzieren Kultur und investieren in sie mit einem niedrigen Lebensstandard: Die einen nennen sie urbane Penner, die anderen digitale Bohème. Mit dem Boom des Web 2.0 scheinen ihnen alle Türen offen zu stehen." Weiter
"the team behind always outsiders, never outdone, the unofficial prodigy remixed album, and flip the switch, the unofficial chemical brothers remixed album, have turned their attention to one of their favourite artists of the last few years - lcd soundsystem. the album is free to download
"Einige Zeit arbeitete Oliver Dierks für die Gesellschaft zur Verfolgung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen GVU als verdeckter Ermittler. Seine Tätigkeit dokumentierte er im Buch Undercover, mit dem er sich naturgemäß nicht nur Freunde machte. Buch und Hintergrundmaterial stehen dieses Wochenende kostenfrei zum Download." Weiter
Wikipedia: "On the Edge of Blade Runner (55 minutes), produced in 2000 by Nobles Gate Ltd. (for Channel 4), was directed by Andrew Abbott and hosted/written by Mark Kermode. Interviews with production staff, including Scott, give details of the creative process and the turmoil during preproduction. Stories from Paul M. Sammon and Fancher provide insight into Philip K. Dick and the origins of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Interweaved are cast interviews (with the notable exceptions of Harrison Ford and Sean Young), which convey some of the difficulties of making the film (including an exacting director and humid, smoggy weather). There is also a tour of some locations, most notably the Bradbury Building and the Warner Bros. backlot that became the LA 2019 streets, and which look very different from Scott's dark vision." More
dotshop.se: "Directly inspired by leftfield electronic, noise, and techno artists such as Pan Sonic, Force Field, and Mouse on Mars, but most closely resembling the first of these, Reanimator were experts at improvising heavy, synthetic, syncopated, and dubbed-out minimal beat music using the barest machinery." Read on
boomkat.com: "So what happens when you take one free jazz pioneer, one band of noise-metal experimentalists and stick them on a stage together?" Listen to some excerpts
asaplive.com: "David Keenan is an author, freelance journalist and musician. Keenan was the first writer to popularise the term 'free folk' in his Wire cover story "The New Weird America" (The WIRE 234) and his talk will be based around further elucidating the whole concept of 'free folk' - its roots, historical antecedents and potential futures, particularly highlighting the degree of common ground shared by both folk and experimental modes. He will also talk about the role of 'community' in folk music and how new technology (internet/home-burning CD-Rs) has enabled a new form of community to come together. The talk will particularly focus on the reasons why free folk has suddenly become such a popular form and provide some creative context by demonstrating how the UK has long provided an indigenous continuum of DIY roots activity - folk/punk/industrial etc - in much the same way that US rock was fuelled by more primal/feral forms like blues etc..."
"Die Verantwortlichen der Musik- und Filmindustrie sehen die Ursache der zurückgehenden Umsätze ihrer Branchen einzig und allein in den so genannten Raubkopien und P2P Netzwerken. Eventuelle andere Faktoren, wie zum Beispiel die wirtschaftliche Lage, Desinteresse der Käufer an den Veröffentlichungen oder der Wandel im Freizeitverhalten der Jugendlichen werden nicht berücksichtigt. Wenn die Umsätze diese Branchen zurückgehen, weil mittlerweile so ziemlich alles runterladen werden kann, dann sollte man doch annehmen, dass andere Branchen auch von diesem Effekt betroffen sein sollten. Jedoch verkaufen sich DVDs und PC/Konsolenspiele ausgesprochen gut." Weiter
Grinderman: "This Podcast is a series of fragments of recordings from the Grinderman writing sessions. They are not complete songs but offer a unique insight into the workings of the band. New episodes will appear regularly over the coming weeks."
BBC: “A woman in trouble”. That’s as far as David Lynch is prepared to elaborate on the subject of his latest film, Inland Empire. Lynch has always resisted interpreting his own multi-layered, surreal dreamscapes but his reticence here makes more sense than ever, because his movie, on any conventional shot-by-shot basis, does not. How does one describe a three-hour digital video shuffle (shot on a consumer-level camera, not HD) of shape-shifting characters and parallel worlds populated by Hollywood actors, Polish prostitutes and a canned-laughter sitcom featuring humans dressed as rabbits?"
BBC: "A serotonin-starved raver, an anguished Goth, a highbrow classical composer – at times Joakim’s new album, Monsters And Silly Songs, sounds like it could be the result of a collaboration between all of them and more. Yet it’s really just the vision of one man – French producer and Tigersushi label manager Joakim Bouaziz who is quick to emphasise that he is none of those things, nor any other label you might seek to slap on him." Read the whole interview
musalusa.blogspot.com: "Musa Lusa is a weekly radio show promoting Portuguese music and musicians on Resonance 104.4fm. Broadcast live across London on 104.4fm every Monday, 1-2pm, with simultaneous worldwide web streaming at www.resonancefm.com. Hosted by Miguel Santos, it showcases a breathtaking variety of music, ranging from contemporary fado to experimental electronica, alternative pop to ethno/folk, jazz, modern composition, upfront club music and many other genres you would never dream come from Portugal."
Lullatone: "Our new CD full of music box melodies, vocals whispered in your ear, sine tones that sound like birds, tape hiss & analogue magic, a junior high school choir, a toy orchestra, and a soft bass drum beat made from the sound of a pillow is out now!"
BBC: "Ian McMillan searches for traces of the life of Kurt Schwitters, Dada artist and sound poet, who left Nazi Germany, was interned in the Isle of Man and spent his last years in Ambleside. He worked as a portrait painter but created some of his most radical work there - transforming a farm building into an environment called the Merzbarn, and writing an anti-Nazi satirical play, The Family Plot. Ian also hears his poetry, talks to those who knew him or know about him and stages a scratch performance of his play on a Windermere steamboat." Listen here
The opera "Lost Highway" premiered last week at Oberlin College in Ohio and one local critic called it "a real nightmare." It was meant as a compliment. How else to describe an opera based on David Lynch's quirky 1997 film? Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth wrote the score and joins us today.
wikipedia.org: "Grizzly Bear is a Brooklyn-based indie rock band on Warp Records. The original members, Edward Droste and Christopher Bear, met in New York City. After the addition of clarinetist/bassist Chris Taylor and guitarist/songwriter Daniel Rossen they began touring the country. The group employs traditional and electronic instruments, ranging from a recorder to a laptop, and all four members contribute vocals. Rossen is also a member of the duo Department of Eagles.
Their first record as a quartet, Yellow House, was released on Warp Records in September 2006. It was named for Droste's mother's house where it was produced and ranked as one of the top 2006 albums by the New York Times and Pitchfork Media." Read on
Grizzly Bear performs live music from their latest album, "Yellow House", at radio WNYC:
tomlab.de: "With White Hats Niobe has recorded her most accessible album since "Tse Tse" and Voodooluba". White Hats projects memories from a vacation of skiing in the Swiss Alps sometime in the 50ies, it bears the easiness, the miracles and mysteries of the nature in the mountains and carries as much romanticism as todays modern world can allow.
On White Hats Niobes passionate voice is wandering between many worlds, marching through pittoresque landscapes, and releasing its amazing powers over cristalline guitars. She uses the feelings from the sight of the red and blue skies of a day in the mountains as determinating colors in her music." Read on
BBC: "A serotonin-starved raver, an anguished Goth, a highbrow classical composer – at times Joakim’s new album, Monsters And Silly Songs, sounds like it could be the result of a collaboration between all of them and more. Yet it’s really just the vision of one man – French producer and Tigersushi label manager Joakim Bouaziz who is quick to emphasise that he is none of those things, nor any other label you might seek to slap on him." 
Lullatone: "Our new CD full of music box melodies, vocals whispered in your ear, sine tones that sound like birds, tape hiss & analogue magic, a junior high school choir, a toy orchestra, and a soft bass drum beat made from the sound of a pillow is out now!"
tomlab.de: "With White Hats Niobe has recorded her most accessible album since "Tse Tse" and Voodooluba". White Hats projects memories from a vacation of skiing in the Swiss Alps sometime in the 50ies, it bears the easiness, the miracles and mysteries of the nature in the mountains and carries as much romanticism as todays modern world can allow.
