"„...And several acts belie the claim that electronic music lacks stage precence - chief amongst them Cobra Killer, who look like refugees from Faster Pussycat! Kill ! Kill! and perform their set of charged, mutant disco like a pair of deranged go-go girls....”
(The Wire on Cobra Killer Live at markeB 2003)"
If the "Einstürzende Neubauten" are ever in need for a trumpeter, they shoulg give this guy a call.
kerbaj.com: "Mazen Kerbaj was born in 1975 in Beirut and lived there since. His main activities are comics, painting and music. After a lot of works for different publishers and magazines, it is in March 2000 that he releases some of his more personal works in his Journal 1999 (a dairy in comics' format). He self-published eight other books and many short stories since."
guardian.co.uk: Children with the latest mobile phones are posing a new threat to sales of recorded music by illegally sharing songs, according to music industry leaders.
The spread of mobile phones capable of carrying hundreds of easily transferable songs has opened a new front in a war against piracy. Illegal downloading has already cost the British music industry £650m in the past two years.
The chief executive of a company planning to sell mobile phone downloads said the piracy problem caused by mobiles could be worse than that caused by the internet. Martin Higginson, the chief executive of Monstermob, told Music Week: "If piracy on the internet was a tidal wave, this is going to be a tsunami." More
warprecords.com: ‘Smash’ is Jackson Fourgeaud’s precocious Autumn debut. Magnificent and messy, daring and original, delicious and uninhibited, Smash is the record electronic music fans have been calling out for. Four years to perfect, the long-awaited album by this fresh young French talent is already being heralded by those who’ve heard it as one of the finest debuts in years.
Like a kiss on the lips from a beautiful stranger, ‘Smash’ leaves you reeling, intoxicated. A 50-minute trans-genre audio fantasy rippling with Martian funk and melody-spangled symphonies, ‘Smash’, in the words of its 26-year-old Parisian composer, is "a style orgy, a psychedelic celebration of conflict.” It's a record on which opposites don't just attract, they hurtle, crunch, crash and ooze into one another at exquisite velocity, forging a wild romantic pop hybrid that sounds unlike anything else.
nextbigthing.org: "Swedish sound artist Staffan Mossenmark composed a symphony for one hundred Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Not quite the classical ensemble, the orchestra was comprised of performers clad in sunglasses and black leather jackets, who lined up in the Stockholm Town Square, each playing their "instruments" according to Mossenmark’s direction." Listen here
allmusic.com: Much though he may dislike the term, and however irrelevant it may be to his more recent music, Steve Reich will forever be identified with the musical style known as Minimalism. Over the years, Reich has embraced a wide variety of musical styles and interests, forging from them a unique synthesis.
Reich took piano lessons as a youngster, but his first big musical revelations came at 14, when he first encountered the music of Bach and Stravinsky. He also had his first exposure to bebop, and immediately started learning the drums and playing in a jazz band with friends. He continued to play jazz on weekends while studying at Cornell University, which he entered at age 16 and where he received a degree in philosophy, specializing in the work of Wittgenstein. More
wnyc.org: "A word said over and over becomes a series of sounds without meaning, with no discernable beginning or end. Radio Lab this week showcases word musicians who delight in the intricacies of language and the point at which meaning moves from verbal to sonic…plus, music psychologist Diana Deutsch explains." Listen here
allmusic.com: No one seems quite clear as to whether they're a classical group with jazz and populist leanings, or a populist band with classical expertise. Whatever their methods and motivation, the Kronos Quartet has blurred musical categories for decades and attracted interest from audiences who never knew what a string quartet was. Respected as one of the most charismatic and innovative ensembles performing today, Kronos was founded at Mills College in 1974 by violinist David Harrington. More
The Kronos Quartet @ NPR.org:
The Kronos Quartet has just completed an album of Bollywood film music, You've Stolen My Heart, featuring the vocals of Asha Bhosle. A superstar of Indian film, Bhosle is among the biggest-selling recording artists of all time. Link
The Kronos Quartet is known for its unique artistic vision and dedication to experimentation. Since its inception in 1973, Kronos has assembled a body of work unparalleled in its range and scope of expression. Link
Kronos Quartet Performs Music Based on Distant Signals. Link
Kronos Quartets CD "Nuevo" is featured at npr.org Link
The members of Kronos let us listen in as they went through the process of rehearsing, recording, and mixing one of the cuts on their new album, Nuevo. It's not typical string quartet material. It's a space-age-bachelor-pad concoction by Juan Garcia Esquivel. He called it, "Mini Skirt." Link
A few days ago, the first issue of THE WIRE magazine arrived. I bought it at ebay for 10 EUR. In 1982 it had more in common with photocopied fan magazines than the glossy magazine it is today. Below you will find the preface of this issue.
Chan-wook Park - Director of Oldboy dvdtalkradio.com: "The interview was recorded in person at the 2005 Sundance Film Fest. Chan-Wook Park gives some real insights into the film (old Boy) including: the inspiration for the hammer fight scene, how he's changed as a director from JSA to Oldboy and where he finds inspiration for his films."
John Waters dvdtalkradio.com: "On this episode of DVD Talk Radio we sit down with legendary filmmaker John Waters to talk about his latest DVD release for A Dirty Shame; a real romp starring Tracey Ullman, Johnny Knoxville, Chris Isaak and an extremely well endowed Selma Blair."
Interview With Double Dare Stuntwoman Zoë Bell dvdtalkradio.com: "You might not recognize Zoë Bell but odds are you've seen her work. Zoë has done stunt doubling for Lucy Lawless in Xena, Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and Sharon Stone in Catwoman. Now the documentary Double Dare takes a look at her life and career and the intersection with veteran stunt woman Jeannie Epper. We had the opportunity to talk to Zoë Bell about the Double Dare DVD, her career as a stunt woman and her experience working with Quentin Tarantino on Kill Bill vol 1 and 2."
Ramones Doc, Asian DVDs and A New Home Entertainment Format dvdtalkradio.com: "In the latest installment of DVD Talk Radio, Editor Geoffrey Kleinman talks about End of The Century: The Story of The Ramones a depressing look at one of the more influential punk bands. His Asian DVD kick continues with a look at: Old Boy, Butterfly, Bright Future and Goodbye Dragon Inn (including a rant about Letterboxing DVDs). Also on this show: a review of a great film coming to US theaters from Budapest called Kontrol, a look at Sony's new Home Video Format Universal Movie Disc, the scoop about DVD Talk dropping G4's The Screen Savers Show and calls and emails from our listeners."
Primer Director Shane Carruth dvdtalkradio.com: "Writer/ Director/Producer/Editor/Composer Shane Carruth did something as seemingly impossible as time travel - he made a great movie for only $7,000. Primer's micro budget and the 'questionable film making' advice from many of the people around him, never stood in the way of Carruth's drive to make his film. The results have been spectacular, Primer took both the Grand Jury Prize and the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and now has it's getting a special edition DVD release."
Sideways dvdtalkradio.com: "We're excited to bring you a special presentation of DVD Talk Radio featuring a Winemakers Roundtable for Sideways from the folks at Reel Reviews Radio and Grape Radio. Get a behind the scenes look at Sideways at the real world of wine and winemaking. Find out if Merlot is really that bad, and the truth behind a great Pinot Noir and the impact of Sideways on the wine industry and wine awareness."
FM3 are an American, Christiaan Virant, and a Chinese, Zhang Jian, with their two laptops.
staalplaat.com: Fm 3 is opening a new special series of Staalplaat. The Buddha Machine is a small soundbox made in China which comes with an integrated speaker, a volume control, minijack-out and and a switch to choose between 9 different loops which are stored on a small chip and can be directly plaid by this mini soundsystem. A number of other artists will continue this series soon. Link
Land Of The Dead
"Interviews from Radio Roundtables with Simon Baker, John Leguizamo, Producers Mark Canton, Bernie Goldman, Peter Grunwald and Director George Romero taped in June 2005. Special Thanks to Universal Pictures"
Graham Revell - Sin City
"Along with John Debney and Director Robert Rodriguez, this talented composer scored the adaptation of Frank Miller’s Graphic Novel, Sin City. Besides discussing the challenges of the project, he also talks about scoring his other films, Red Planet, Freddy Vs Jason, Daredevil and the Sci-Fi Channel Mini-Series, Dune. Taped on April 27, 2005."
Earthsea On DVD
"The epic Sci-Fi Channel mini-series arrives on DVD . I look at some of the disc’s special features plus I have an insider’s view of the series production with two actors involved. First, Actress Erin Karpluk who is Diana, boyhood friend of the young wizard, Ged played by Shawn Ashmore. She describes her experiences. Following Erin, Actor Peter Kent chats about his dual roles. He supplies the voice of the dragon, in addition to playing the river captain of the guard. Some good insights on this historic production."
wired.com: Consumers want an iPod phone that will play any song, anytime, anywhere. Just four little problems: the cell carriers, the record labels, the handset makers, and Apple itself. The inside story of why the ROKR went wrong.* (*And what it will take to make a truly rocking music phone.)" More
Touching Extremes: "Brandon Nickell, a 23 year-old navigator of harsh synthetic and electronic seas known as Aemae, shows his admirable will to construct new kinds of uneasy architectures. The eight pieces of "The helical word" form a pyrotechnic cycle of cascading incidents, timbral shifts and granular abrasions which move like creatures without a preconceived position in an undetermined system, finally finding a way to transform contraptions and extrapolations into rough elliptical shapes and dehydrated approximations of parallel galaxies" More
from their website: the lappetites is a laptop group playing with digital and sonic linking games for composition.4 woman from different background and different generations. regularly active as solo artistes all over the world they have recently come together in the lappetites. to check out ways of live sharing and poaching sound and data from each other as a means of composition.
pitchforkmedia.com: Forming in 1995 and performing locally around Providence, Rhode Island, Lightning Bolt started out a sloppy but determined art-school trio with a penchant for Skin Graft-style noise-rock and aggressive live shows. It took them two years to get a record out, and when they finally did, it was released in a limited run of 750 copies. Since then, they've tightened up-- even dropping a member to become a bass/drums duo-- and the live shows which were once simply tenacious have slowly developed into juggernauts, atomic blasts of crystalline fury that send shards of feedback and blistering distortion into anyone who dares witness such savagery in the flesh. More
Current Release: pitchforkmedia.com: "Hypermagic Mountain is Lightning Bolt's fourth, most well-oiled album: song-by-song it chugs into rockier Van Halen, Fucking Champs, or Orthrelm territory. Somewhere in the middle a lack of variety creates a dull patch, but even the more homogenized tracks slip by on the upped energy as well as subtle, virtuostic additions to the violence. The set was again captured by ex-Small Factory jangle-popper Dave Auchenbach, who mostly harnesses the band live to two-track (with some live mixing) and DAT. Because of the approach, Hypermagic Mountain breathes like a battering ram: The drums are gargantuan and, conversely, the vocals fold nicely into the buzz."
Q:What music helped shape the Earth sound? A:"My musical origins come from growing up listening to Black Sabbath records, seeing the Melvins perform and reading about musicians like La Monte Young and Terry Riley."
southernlord.com: Japanese cult favourite sludge/doom rock trio Boris take their name from a song on grunge godfathers the Melvins' "Bullhead" album. They also have a lot in common with the Melvins musically, including a fondness for heavily down tuned guitar/bass tones and exceedingly slow tempos. But they also incorporate elements variously drawn from other sources, including psychedelic rock, punk, noise, minimalism, pure sludge-drone music à la Earth, and more.
fr-aktuell.de: "Sie sehen aus wie japanische Mangas, lesen sich aber wie europäische Comics von vorn nach hinten: Manhwas, die koreanischen Comics, sind längst keine Unbekannten mehr auf dem deutschen Comic-Markt. Doch wie lassen sie sich einordnen? Sie sind ein perfektes Beispiel dafür, wie falsch es wäre, Comic-Märkte ausschließlich als nationale zu betrachten. Selbstverständlich tun genau das die Verlage, der koreanische Staat und nicht zuletzt auch die Frankfurter Buchmesse, um die Manhwas als Phänomen bewerben zu können." Mehr
Mike Walters: "This is my interpretation of the Mellotron, a classic instrument invented in the 1960s. It was one of the first sample players, and was used by The Beatles, and countless psychedelic and prog bands. The Mellotron played strips of tape to emulate flutes, strings, choirs, orchestras, etc. The flutes at the beginning of Strawberry Fields are a good example of the Mellotron.
My version, The Melloman, uses Walkmans and cassette tapes to play original Mellotron samples, or whatever cassette tapes you want to put in. Inside the box, there are 14 continuously running Walkmans mounted side by side. The first Walkman is designated for drums, and the next 13 provide sampled loops for 25 notes." More
dvdtalkradio.com:He's the Godfather of the modern zombie film, his work has inspired countless writers and directors across the whole spectrum of the motion picture industry. But ask George A. Romero about it and you'll be surprised to hear his take on it all. DVD Talk Writer David Walker had the opportunity to talk to George Romero about the DVD release of his most anticipated film to date Land of The Dead. Romero's take on his career, the making of zombie films and his future are quite surprising and helps give even more insight into the definitive master of horror. MP3 Link
pitchforkmedia.com: Forming in 1995 and performing locally around Providence, Rhode Island, Lightning Bolt started out a sloppy but determined art-school trio with a penchant for Skin Graft-style noise-rock and aggressive live shows. It took them two years to get a record out, and when they finally did, it was released in a limited run of 750 copies. Since then, they've tightened up-- even dropping a member to become a bass/drums duo-- and the live shows which were once simply tenacious have slowly developed into juggernauts, atomic blasts of crystalline fury that send shards of feedback and blistering distortion into anyone who dares witness such savagery in the flesh. 
