Wow!
Just a quick note to say that I started working from home around August time. Since then my digital music collection has grown from around 18gb to around 40gb. My CDs have grown very little (comparatively. Maybe 15 new CDs since the Bigchill?)
2.5gb has been downloaded this week alone in Mixmaster Morris DJ sets…
Something to ponder for you all.
I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time now - basically what follows is a list of all the resources and places I use, visit and read online to make sure that I’m constantly surrounded by an aural wave of fresh music that I love. Hopefully some of this will be helpful for you too. In no particular order:
Purple Radio - The Online Radio Station of the Bigchill Forums
Purple radio is a fantastic project, it’s free, it streams at a high quality online and it’s 24/7. During the evenings and weekends it has live DJs and during the day it has archived mixes from bigchill members (if you listen for long enough - some of my mixes will appear!). Sometimes chilled, sometimes funky but always awesome you should listen if you in any way are interested in the bigchill. It has some big names like MixMasterMorris playing but the real beauty is that it’s home grown with talent just lifted straight off the bigchill forums and everyone involved gives through a pure love of music. View the schedule and listen in here.
B00mb0x - An Online Mixtape Community
Do you remember the days when you used to spend hours crouched over a tape deck pressing stop/record at just the right time to make your perfect mix only to have it listened to by your cat? Well now of course people use fancy technomological mp3 mixes and a nice little community has developed around people sharing their latest creations. There’s a strong theme of electronica and alternative music but you can find allsorts on there. The community is really friendly and my first mix got over 100 listens! Find my mixes here.
Motel De Moka - A Music Blog Putting Out Mini-Mixes
I can’t even remember how I found Motel De Moka now but ever since I found them I’ve subscribed to their posts religiously. There’s a bunch of contributors but they all put out music which is alternative, fresh and excellent. From free jazz to japanese pop there’ll be something for everyone and personally I find myself downloading all of their mixes. It keeps my listening habits fresh and varied and I’ve found some real gems on there! Visit here.
Lossless - One Man’s Mission To Be Like Me
Ok, so James Seo isn’t trying to be like me (I don’t think) but his personal site covers everything I could ever want: Wong-Kar-Wai appreciation and awesome music mixes.He doesn’t put out his mixes very often but if you subscribe to his blog you’ll be kept in the loop about all the latest stuff.
Low Light Mixes - Ambient Mixes For Late Night Listening
I found Low Light Mixes via a link in the Bigchill forums (you can tell I spend a lot of time on there right?!) and instantly fell in love. You can tell when the mixes are put together with care and love and these certainly have those qualities in spades! In particular, a drift on the signal is my personal favourite - it’s mellow ambient style music interspersed with some haunting short wave radio sounds which gives it an eerie and ethereal sound. Almost like someone is broadcasting from beyond the grave! Check it out here.
One On Twoism - If You Lke Boards Of Canada You’ll Like this
I have no idea who is behind this project. The website has an about page which is cryptically obscure, referenceing Twoism message boards which I can’t find, websites which don’t exist and people I’ve never heard of… That only adds to the magic though of this sublime mix. Based loosely on the Twoism album by Boards of Canada it has a similar feel. Beautiful obscure music you’ve never heard of! I really like this mix and listen to it a fair amount, full of wierd sounds and samples which somehow pull together to form one seamless coherent mix which really hits the spot late at night. Visit the beautiful site and download either a single mp3 or a lossless collection of files.
Fluidnation - just.beautiful.music
If you ever had to write a thesis on chillout music you would have to make sure you referenced Ben Mynott. One half of fragile state, DJ, music journalist and all round stellar guy he brands himself as Fluidnation. You can download some of his mixes here, you can listen to his weekly radio show here, you can catch him on real radio here and you can see him DJ in real life here. Phew - he’s a busy guy and he knows his chillout. If you’re a fan of the genre you will certainly be a fan of Fluidnation.
Aurgasm - The Best Music You’ve Never Heard
There are a bazillion music blogs out there, most of which output rubbish. Aurgasm is different. Paul puts out some really good, unknown artists and gives them a chance to shine. I’ve found some gems on there and always pay close attention to what he says. It’s also a very well put together blog with clean design and nice working links. There’s a wide range of music but you can be sure it’ll be good music.
Last.fm - The Social Music Revolution
One of the best web 2.0 sites to grace the face of the internet. I love last.fm it’s that simple. Make sure you download the scrobbler and it quietly sits in the background while you play your music then compiles recommendations for you, shows you people listening to similar things to you and generally is awesome. In the same way that Amazon recommends books to you that you didn’t even know you liked Last.fm recommends music to you you’ve never heard of but that you love. Add friends with similar music tastes and find out what they’re listening to. The real power though is that you can listen to music through their player before you buy it. Create radio stations around your favourite artists and so much more. The awesomeness just goes on! View my profile and add me as a friend here.
Elbo.ws - Music Search Engine
Just like with music blogs, there are plenty of music search engines out there that are quite frankly terrible. This is the only one I’ve found which does a decent job of actually finding you tracks you’re looking for. If you hear a track on an advert and want to hear the whole thing or get recommended a track by a friend and want to check it out this is your baby. It can also find music blogs which talk about specific artists/tracks too which makes it even more powerful than a simple music search engine. I don’t use this too often but when I do it always comes up spades. Search away my friend!
Firstly let me say that Ben Mynott has never given me any money, he has never paid me a single penny nor has he ever persuaded/bribed/asked me to spread the word about Fragile State. Now that’s out the way, let me assure you that my Fragile State EVANGELISM is due to one thing and one thing only: the sheer brilliance of the music.
First the facts: this is a 3CD product containing both original Fragile State albums (’the facts and the dreams’ and ‘voices from the dust bowl’) and a remix CD with remixes both for and by fragile state. It’s available on amazon for only £8.99. It will be the best value for money product you’ll ever buy.
Now the dreams: I recall I first purchased my first Fragile State album (the facts and the dreams) back in 2004 (2005 maybe?) after finding it on someone’s Amazon listmania list. I read about it, thought I might quite like it and so decided to purchase it but it wasn’t until a few months later when I was in HMV that I spotted it and went to buy it. On the way to the counter I spotted Koop’s ‘Waltz for Koop’ and oh so nearly bought that instead. THANK THE LORD I WENT WITH FRAGILE STATE.
Fast forward a few months and I’ve purchased the second album (voices from the dust bowl) and they have both helped me through my finals revision at university. It’s about this time I discover the BigChill festival and book tickets to my first every festival (incidentally with the same good friend I was in HMV with when I purchased my first album). So I turn up to the BigChill not really knowing what to expect but on the first afternoon one of the first bands I saw was Fragile State. A sensational live set which it turned out was their last ever live performance! Since that day I’ve been a devout Fragile State fan and rave about them whenever I get the chance.
So, enough gushing about how much I love them - onto the music! Let me re-state something: for £8.99 you get 3CDs of pure aural chilled funky AWESOMENESS. The first two original albums are really chilled but at the same time funky and motivating. Ideal for listening to when you’re run down - they’ll sooth your brain and warm your innards and then when you start to relax they pick you up and make your head nod with some funky beats. No vocals so to speak but some vocal effects. Both albums are full of tracks which meld together perfectly while each track maintains an individual texture. Unlike a lot of chillout albums which fade into obscurity as you listen to them over and over - this one really stands out as fresh and unique and brilliant every time you listen to it.
Then there’s the newly released 3rd CD of remixes which really exceeded my expectations. I’ve never been a huge fan of remixes in general but this CD is like the long lost studio album from Fragile State where they were playing around a little more and experimenting with different genres. Having said that - the CD really delivers and has some amazing tracks on it such as the Digitonal remix of Song Of Departure.
I simply cannot rate this collection highly enough. If you’re in the slightest fan of chillout then you’ll love these albums. In fact if you have a pulse then you should consider buying this - if you don’t like it I can guarantee you one of your friends will.
PS - you can read my review on Amazon of this here.
Rui over at the bigchill forums alerted me to this awesome free download:
I’ve been playing around with this today and it’s an excellent mp3 mixer with an easy to use interface. Ok, it lacks a fair few features but if you currently don’t have an mp3 mixer (like me!) then you should check this out! Combining this with winamp’s shoutcast allows for radio broadcasts over the internet so watch this space!
So, while I’m still largely talking to thin air at the moment it’s posts like this that I’ll want to go back to and savour when I’m still blogging in my old age.
A cracking mix from Lenodd here:
Go download the mix for free here!
Lushous it is. Great tunes, great mixing, well worth your time!
NINJA!!!!! You’ve gotta love those ninjatune folks. You really do. I first heard the track “Build a church with your fear” from disc 2 of the Xen Cuts 3CD
Animals on Wheels - Nuvol I Cadira
While it’s no Bonobo - this album certainly falls under the ‘laid-back beats’ moniker. Slightly more rhodes and a slightly moe punchy feel to it than Bonobo but made from the same vinyl tree. It’s mellow, it’s funky, it’s beautiful. Yeah, there’s a few tracks on the album that don’t live up to the high standard of the good ones but it’s still a solid album all round and I would recommend to anyone who likes their ninjas mellow.
So, in what will become a regular feature on this blog I’ll be cataloguing all the new music I buy. How much fun is that for you guys!! Well screw you, I’m doing it for myself ok? Should have bought this album a long time ago but only just got around to it for whatever reason.
I first heard this album in Fopp (may you rest in peace) while at university many many (ok, only about 4) years ago and instantly fell in love with it. I’ve never been a huge ambient fan even though I love relaxing and chilled music but something about this album resonated with me. I’ll admit that a large part of this probably boils down to the fact that it’s called ‘Music For Airports’ which is just a great title and conjures up feelings of long waits late at night at train stations/airports/hotels. It’s that sense of timelessness that comes with travelling and is the reason I love train journeys so much. After all you can be going somewhere - your life, momentarily, has purpose - and yet you have nothing to do but sit back and watch the view. Travelling in airplanes and taxis and trains shows what life should be like on a microcosmic scale. And so it should be with this album - sit back for a while and travel with the music and just enjoy the ride for a change.
“Do no evil” - Google circa early 21st century
This is the quote I envisage in a museum somewhere in 100 years (less?!) next to a picture of the Google logo and pictures of world terror.
Sometimes, when I’m searching all day long it occurs to me that I’m going to outlive Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In fact even more troubling is the fact that I’m almost certainly going to out-live all the top execs within Google right now. Even if I don’t, any children I have will. Sure, Google isn’t that bad right now but who can say who will be at the helm in 20 years? 50 years? I’d like to put a bunch of school kinds in a room and let them play chinese whispers with “do no evil”…
War is Peace. One of the famous party slogans from 1984. The war on terror has already started. Anyone know when that war ends?
If any of this remotely clicks with you then you need to follow this link and read this story. Sure, it’s just a story. A fantasy, a fairytale, a nightmare. It’s not real right? Right….?
(Found via Graywolf)
As an individual who is quite a long way from the statistical norm I’m scared. Not worried but scared. I think I might go and sign out of all my Google accounts for the rest of the day (oh, if only it was possible to spend a whole day of using the internet without being signed into any Google account)….
This is going to be a regular feature on this blog, a graph of my music listening habits over the past month (I might move to weekly if I think it’s worth it).
These graphs are created using this: http://lastgraph.aeracode.org/ and all the data is pulled from last.fm (click on the image below to see full size)
As you can see Silent Poets get a huge share which is largely because I’m making a new compilation at the moment encompasing electronic dub music hence I’ve been playing a lot of silent poets. Although I like them a lot you won’t usually see them this popular in my listening habits. You can also see some of the usual suspects there, Koop, Django, Bonobo etc.
Note to self: listen to more Nightmares on Wax!
So, I can’t say that I’m a huge Saul Williams fan when he does solo stuff (though I am a big fan of Mr Nichols and a few others he’s done) but he seems to be a clever guy since he’s adopted a similar tactic to Radiohead for his latest album release:
EDIT - I tried to embedd the nifty little widget that you can get the code for from the Saul Williams site but it broke my blog. Turns out he’s not as clever as I thought!! If you’re going to implement, make sure you implement well.
Hat tip to DeanI think this business model scales well and I think that we’ll see many many bands and artists adopting a similar approach to releasing music. What this means of course is that a whole new industry opens up for online PR/internet marketing for artists and bands.
I mean, once everyone is releasing music this way there’ll be the need for good music aggregation sites so you can easily find the music which you like. Someone like last.fm would be well placed to release or partner with this kind of service since they already know my music preferences. Once these portals are in place there will be the need for MEO (music engine optimisation) to ensure that your album gets as much exposure as you can.
Viral marketing will also play a huge role in spreading the word about album releases. Watch this space!