I Don't Want To Be Your Friend

The music blogs are ablaze with this new video by Radiohead. It's hypnotizing. House of Cards is among my favorite tracks on the album. Also note that there is a "making of" here and some interesting background on the data visualization technique here (hosted by code.google no less)

Skinny Love Primavera Sound Festival 2008

A friend I was with recorded this video of Bon Iver at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona. We were sitting in the third row. It was my favorite show of the entire weekend. If you have an opportunity to see them, it's an amazing musical experience--I strongly recommend it. (Plus, it doesn't hurt that Bon Iver is a Wisconsinite, support your local midwest artists!).

Anything to Make You Smile

Purchase Band of Horses Cease to Begin album for $7.99 on Amazon's MP3 download service. No DRM. Here's their new video from a track on that album called "No One's Gonna Love You".



And while you're at it, purchase For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver (fellow midwesterner). Here's my favorite track from that album: "Skinny Love" being performed live. The music starts at 45 seconds in on this video (don't mind the Brits).

Music Makes Silence More Alive

A powerful look at music and the role it can play as people transition from life to death (music thanatology). Well worth your time to listen. It's the third chapter of four in this NPR radio program.

Moon Reached, Now On To Mars

My best of 2007 music mix is entitled Moon Reached, Now On To Mars (album cover pictured below).

The album cover was created in Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and is essentially a composition of three separate photographs I took plus an image I found on flickr (here). I spent more time on the idea than on the implementation, thus the baby and polar bear definitely "stick out" more than I'd like. In other words, they don't fit seamlessly into the picture. This is mainly because of lighting and edge blur issues.

The background is a picture of the North Cascades that Danyel Fisher and I took while on a hike of Mount Dickerman in late September 2006.


The first thing I did to the original image was to transform it from a 4:3 aspect ratio to a 1:1 aspect ratio. I did this by rescaling the blue sky. Increasing the sky's size also had the result of changing the viewer's perspective slightly by moving the horizon line to roughly the middle of the photo. Thus, it appears (to me anyway) to give the image more visual depth.


The second thing I did to the background was add an additional translucency layer with a blue hue and a "Linear Burn" effect. This was to create a dusk-like effect in the image as I wanted it to appear later in the day.


The polar bear shot was taken at the Como Zoo in Minnesota in October 2006. We were there celebrating my niece's first birthday (see this link). I didn't want to spend much time on this project, so I quickly used a combination of the "Magic Wand Tool" set to a variety of tolerances and the Eraser to cut out the polar bear from its surroundings. I resized the bear, darkened it slightly, and applied a little motion blur after adding it as a layer on top of the background.

The pink baby riding the polar bear is actually my niece. This photo was taken the same day as the polar bear photo at the Como Zoo. Once again, I used the Magic Wand Tool and the Eraser to cut the desired object from the image. I rotated the baby, increased the blue and green hue, and applied a motion blur after adding it as a layer on top of the polar bear. Both the polar bear and the baby are on top of the blue "dusk" layer.


Finally, the moon was extracted from its original image, resized, and placed behind the blue "dusk" layer. Then text was added to complete the album cover.

And, finally, the finished product:

The back of the album was generated, in part, by iTunes. I simply overlaid the track names and my favorite albums releases on top.

Radiohead, Exceeding Genius

Radiohead released their latest album In Rainbows last week to much internet fanfare. The album can be purchased online for any amount that the purchaser feels suitable (including $0.00). More info at Wikipedia, which includes some statements from the band on the atypical release:

Explaining the reasons behind the album's unusual delivery, the band's lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood said "partly just to get it out quickly, so everyone would hear it at the same time, and partly because it was an experiment that felt worth trying, really." As for letting people name the price they pay for the album, he said "it's fun to make people stop for a few seconds and think about what music is worth, and that's just an interesting question to ask people."

I tried to pay roughly $20 for my copy but my credit card wouldn't go through (in fact my credit card company put my card on hold after visiting the In Rainbows web purchase site). I noticed on Last.FM this week that Radiohead is the top played band and all 10 of the top played songs are Radiohead. My favorite tracks off the album include Reckoner, All I Need, House of Cards, and Videotape. Like most Radiohead records, this album must be played multiple times before you can fully judge its musical quality.

On Last.FM, Radiohead is the most played artist and has the top 10 most played tracks.

Gnarls Barkley Crazy

Wow, this is just awesome musicianship. I used a Theremin at UCI--Crista Lopes has one in her office. It's not easy to produce such sound (it requires, like all instruments, practice and skill).

Mates of State

Buy this album, you will not be disappointed:

There are only so many ways to earn your own surprise

I know we're giving up too soon
There are only so many ways to float upon the sea
It makes no difference to me

- So Many Ways by Mates of State from Bring it Back

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

You - You look a bit like coffee

And you taste a little like me

-The Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

(Pitchfork Media's review of their debut album)

Music, Proof of God?

By the time reason took over we did not speak of that July.

And by the time you lost a Mother, I had no place in your receiving line. I had no place in your receiving line.

-"Receiving Line" by Halloween, Alaska

Radiohead, a Saving Grace

Purchased Thom Yorke's new album, The Eraser, as a musical backdrop to thesis proposal writing (iTunes Music Store was tempting me for weeks). In high school, I was a huge Radiohead fan (e.g., Pablo Honey, The Bends). OK Computer came out my sophomore year of college but I didn't really start listening to it until graduate school. Now, I'm much more into the sound they introduced in OK Computer and perfected on Kid A and Amnesiac than those rock precursors. Like the last 3 minutes of Paranoid Android, Idioteque, Like Spinning Plates, Kid A, I Might Be Wrong, Packt like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box, create a cacophany of sounds that somehow work together to form a wonderful, haunting, ambient melody. Motion Picture Soundtrack is, I think, one of the saddest songs ever written.

PS Not a huge fan of Hail to the Theif, but hey, they can't all be the White Album.

Gnarls Barkley

Crazy. That is all.

Black Sabbath + Madeleine Peyroux

I was browsing the iTunes music store tonight and happened across Geezer Butler's celebrity playlist. He's the longtime bassist of Black Sabbath -- a band famous for ushering in a new era of hard rock, with a macabre subtext :) In contrast to the dark sound Sabbath is known for, Geezer has quite an ecclectic mix of blues (e.g. madeleine peyroux, etta james), country (e.g. alison krauss), electronica (e.g. lamb), and, of course, slayer.

A Capella Pop Songs

Mr. Brightside, A Capella performed by the MIT a capella troupe, "resonance."

Apple in New Yorker

"Tidal" was uneven. Apple was nineteen when she recorded it and had a teen-ager's sense of drama, which sees the world ending whenever a relationship does; she did not yet know that "invade your demeanor" is a phrase that God never intended anyone to say out loud.

-Sasha Frere-Jones in the 10/10/05 New Yorker on Fiona Apple's new album

Mayer forms John Mayer Trio

Signed into the iTunes Music Store tonight and saw that John Mayer has a new band called the John Mayer Trio. Since I'm essentially TVless, I did not see him perform at the Grammys where, I guess, the John Mayer Trio sort of debuted their stuff with a new take on Mayer's grammy award winning number, Daughters.

The John Mayer Trio represents a different, harder-edged sound for the singer, songwriter and guitarist. Those fortunate enough to have tickets to the sold-out Fillmore gigs will witness a different side to the pop tunesmith known for slick hits such as ``Your Body Is a Wonderland.''
``I wouldn't just change just for the sake of changing, but I've always had another agenda,'' Mayer explains. ``That other agenda is a whole different set of heroes and hues and colors and textures. I've just decided to go to my next place. . . .
``It's a very thought-out process of taking what excites me about Eric Clapton and B.B. King and Buddy Guy and Blind Faith and Derek & the Dominos and the Band and Cream . . . and placing it in my thing. I love pop music. I love guitar playing. I love blues. I love jazz. And I love the idea even more that I could put my own stamp on all those things and roll them into one sound.''

...

``He's really serious about his guitar playing,'' Palladino says from his home in London. ``Some guitarists have a special touch, and you know the guys I'm talking about, and John is one of those guys. It's the way he strikes a note. He just has something.''
The same could be said for both Jordan and Palladino, two stellar players who have performed with rock legends.


(from link)

You take your car to work

I'll take my board.

All along the undertows, strengthening its hold.
I never thought it would come to this, now I can never go home.

Best part is when they break it down boys choir style 2 minutes in and then proceed to rock out.

Ack, I need to stop listening to the same music I listened to in high school.

K's Choice, More than an Addict

K's Choice is popularly known for their song "Not an Addict" about the dark, unrelenting temptations of heroin. Launchcast served me up another song by them called "Believe" and before I could hit the next button, I was hooked. K's Choice, not just a one hit wonder. Who knew?

They are now an official member of my "purchased music" playlist in iTunes.

Hallelujah

Now I've heard there was a secret chord that David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?

-Leonard Cohen

Thoughts of the Curse Mixtape

Initial impressions of this quarter's mixtape challenge: lots of songs, lots of bad songs.

Top songs so far (that I had not heard before):
Joshua Radin - Girlfriend in the Coma
Bloc Party - This Modern Love
Christopher O'Riley - Black Star
KGBtv - rx

Wow, two covers. Joshua's cover of the Smiths is absolutely gorgeous. He has a delicate, soft voice and I really like his interpretation of this song. O'Riley's cover of Radiohead is from an album of piano arrangements of Radiohead songs. I looked him up in iTunes music store (the album is called something like True Love Waits: Christoper O'Riley Plays Radiohead) and contains covers of Fake Plastic Trees, Motion Picture Soundtrack, Thinking About You, Karma Police, to name a few. My hope is that these renditions do not sound like glorified elevator music.

Anyone who knows my taste in music would not be surprised by my enthusiasm for the Bloc Party track. A perfectly repetitive guitar riff plays in the background entertwined with an intermittent piano riff which highlights the primary melody of the song. The verses are simple, terse phrases sung with dreary, stereoized vocals.