First and foremost, I really love eMusic. I’ve had a subscription to the site for over two years. At connoisseur level, that means over 2400 tracks downloaded from the site. Roughly 240 albums. Good times. Some of the highlights include discovering The National, expanding my Keith Jarrett collection and dipping my toe into whatever kind of music I was interested in week-to-week for the past 2 years.

But, that said, I’ve decided to cancel my membership to the site. This post reminds me of breaking up with a girlfriend. Trying to show reason and logic you let them down gently using phrases like “but the magic has gone” or “can’t you see it too?”.

Reason Number 1

Ok, in true love/hate style I actually really love the usability of your download application. It runs like a wet dream – vaguely pleasurable and doesn’t take up any of your time (waking time at least – I actually had a dream about the emusic downloader once. But that’s another story…). BUT. Oh, the humanity of the usability of your website. Since I have had like a gazillion downloads to use each month I spent the majority of my time on the your site browsing around various artists/albums and I lost count (after 17 – I can’t count over 17. Fact.) of the number of times that I came across this error.

Reason Number 2

Ok, I’ll admit it. I hold my hands up. Guilty as charged your honour – reason number 2 is the same as reason number 1. It just really annoys me when not only is the site riddled with “pages not found” but emusic keeps telling me to visit them.

Reason Number 3

Consider the following scenario, I’m browsing the emusic site looking for my next favourite album to download and I follow one of the many links to a list created by a fellow emusic user: my emusic dozen x2 by that caring soul rednano74.

Drinking in the musical gems contained within the list I stumble across Bon Iver and I eagerly click through – I think I might just like Bon Iver! Only to be greeted with a new error message.

Take a look at the above error message: “We’re sorry. This album is unavailable for download in your country (United Kingdom) at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”. Sure, that error message might sound convincing but that dirty harlot emusic has been cheating on me behind my back. Compare these two pages, the first one linked to from the user list, the second found via the search function:

I take you on your word emusic, you’re one of those girls I can trust.

But wait! What treachery is this?! Look at all the other boys who get to download the album.

You do this again and again emusic you cheating whimsical harlot. (Yes, I’m sure there are ‘reasons’ that you need to do this probably because it’s released on different labels in the UK and US or something but why do I care as a user? Give the page a single URL dammit.)

Conclusion

So, in conclusion I think we should take a break emusic. You even have a handy function on the site which lets me do exactly that. It’s got nothing to do with spotify, even though we flirt a lot we’re just friends, I hope you can see that (spotify can’t keep me warm in the middle of the night like you can my dear). Here’s hoping that after I’ve spent some time away from you (and slept with a lot of other music download sites like 7digital and boomkat) things will have changed and I’ll come back to you but until that time, so long emusic and thanks for all the fish.

So on my random walk of the internet some time ago I stumbled across an awesome website called Leafcutter Designs. How did I know it was an awesome website? Well Lea Redmond, the creative genius behind The Worlds Smallest Postal Service:

Also, Lea has a cacophony of creative crafts projects which you can check out in her project section.

After finding this amazing creative website I promptly subscribed to the newsletter. This lead, some many months later to an email landing in my inbox full of awesome. It advertised a new service from Lea called the Curio Search Service:

In short, Lea loves ebay. No doubt trying to get her ebay fix without spending insane amounts of money Lea offers this service to search ebay for you (based on a bunch of words that you provide) and surprise you with a gift! Always on the lookout for awesome I decided to give it a whirl. This is the unboxing of said surprise gift:

Step 0 – The Words

The words I chose were:

Playing cards, gemstones, crystals, books, fossils, green, galaxies, maths, dice, jazz, storytelling, green, hand written letters, enthusiasm, wonder, magnets, chess, midnight

Step 1 – The Packaging

The packaging for the gift was immaculate. A lovely brown box with a beautiful handwritten note on the front addressed to my goodself:

Just above the handwritten address there’s a Leafcutter Designs stamp (in Green ink no less, Green is my favourite colour):

Step 2 – Inside Pandora’s Box

What might lie inside this magical box of wonder? Space perhaps? Or green? Maybe the ever elusive maths? Well here’s the contents:

There is one mysterious package, a note of some form and two business cards (actually, more like life cards I believe!). Here’s a closeup on the mysterious brown package:

Step 3 – The Gift

And so to the actual gift. Here it is in all it’s raw glory:

Yes, it’s a dice roller. Pressing the lever on the side springs the inside compartment which sets the mini-dice tumbling and gives you a fresh roll. As someone who played RPGs in my youth it’s wonderful to get some more dice in my life.

The contraption itself looks pretty old and sturdy. Maybe from a bygone era, the bottom if felted and the whole thing has a very ‘vintage’ feel to it. Here’s another photo:

Step 4 – The Note

Alongside the dice roller there was the letter. Which was pure joy to read. Tying all of my initial 20 words together Lea sketched out a brief history of the item, explaining that it’s real glass, not plastic in the toy and that it likely comes from 1940s Germany (due to the writing on the bottom of the toy). After the brief history Lea moves on to how the toy represents the universe (complete with some nice astronomical facts such as the age of the universe!) and the dice are like little random pieces of a bigger puzzle, perhaps plants, solar systems or galaxies. I won’t reprint the letter in it’s entirety but it’s lovely. Here it is:

Thanks Lea

In summary, this is an amazingly creative way to spend $20 (or more if you prefer!) either for yourself or as a gift for someone else. All told the curio is great but what really makes this service is the dedication from Lea to spend the time hunting around for your curio (Lea even tried to bag an item that eventually sold for $168.07!) and the imagination and thought that goes into the story to accompany the curio. In the language of ebay, A+ would use again.

I urge you to browse through the rest of Leafcutter Designs and let your imagination run free.

PS – just noticed that Lea is on twitter here: http://twitter.com/LeafcutterAnt

PPS – here’s another Leafcutter Designs unboxing from Qwantz

Tom Critchlow just started a posterous.

Since it’s SO easy to post on there I think I’ll hang out over there for a little bit. That’s all.

I took up Wing Chun just over a year ago when I moved to London and I’ve been training regularly there ever since under the Grand Master Austin Goh school of Wing Chun. Recently I’ve found a few kick-ass videos that show just how much of a legend Austin Goh is!! Check it out, he even used to be a bodyguard for Harrison Ford:

And here he is with Harrison Ford and Julia Roberts:

Both of these images were taken from this video:

As if that’s not enough – here he is breaking a world record by smashing bricks with his bare hands!

Anyone who’s every thought about taking up Wing Chun in London should seriously consider learning under the Austin Goh school – he’s an awesome instructor. I’ve just recently achieved my Green Belt and I’m very much looking forward to continuing my Wing Chun education.

Thanks Sifu!

Time out. Out of time. Jazz which flirts with the very concept of time. ‘Take Five’ is a track written in 5/4 time and it’s exquisite. Your sub-concious tries to follow along but fails as the rhythms are unusual and fresh. In fact the whole album has a very crisp and fresh jazz sound which at the time must have been staggering, as it still sounds good today.

Having just seen Keith Jarrett live last night at the royal festival hall in London I thought it would be fitting to post another Keith Jarrett album to keep you all entertained. While it’s not the Koln Concert this album is still spectacular, in particular the first 30 mins of the first track is really beautiful music which will carry you away. Even if you’re not into jazz I strongly suggest that you look into Keith Jarrett – I think you’ll find it crosses genres.

Reggae. Only with a touch of funk. Lovely percussive melodies, not too much vocals and heavy, lazy funky music. I suggest you serve this album with plenty of chill and a big cloud of smoke, of whichever substance takes your fancy. Particular favourite from the album is ‘make dub not war’ which is a lovely slow shuffling track which makes you feel like you’re in the Caribbean.

Like rabbits made of velvet. Only in sound waves. Quality british folk music brought to fame by that T-mobile ad, most of you will be familiar with ‘just another diamond day’ but this album is actually just as good and has some lovely tracks on it. Lookaftering. A great word for what this album does to you – it lookafters you in the long winter days.

Sunshine music for the soul. An ambitious project from Future Loop Foundation – and the DVD isn’t wholly worth watching (though it was entertaining enough I doubt I’ll watch it again) but the music is sensational. Tracks like ‘everything as it should be’ and ‘the sea and the sky’ are stand-out tracks for me. Wonderful summer music (so nicely timed for a November blog post right?) this should be a staple album for any bigchillers or indeed and summer-time festival goers.

[x] Obscure name [x] weird album cover [ ] rock and roll [x] beautiful music

I know very little about King of Woolworths except that his music is beautiful and life-affirming. Firmly in the electronica end of chillout this album is none-the-less definitely worth checking out. Lovely calming beats underpin sweeping orchestral music which will carry you away into day-dreams faster than you can say whatthefuckisgoingonwithtrackfive? Which is the album’s only downfall – a weirdly atmospheric monologue about some woman explaining to the police why how she was attacked by her husband (if I remember correctly – something like that anyway). Still, that aside the album is awesome and highly recommended.