Archive for the ‘Art’ Category
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20
Aug
2010
The Videogame Music Preservation Foundation
A friend came across this website a few weeks ago, and I was very excited about it – an archive of plenty of video game music (mainly for DOS, which is what I grew up with), all recorded properly in order to maximise the nostalgia, and made available in ogg format.
I contacted the guy who runs it about setting up a torrent of the entire archive, and he very kindly obliged. You can get the entire collection here (~4.4GB in total). Enjoy!
16
Aug
2010
Welcome to Reykjavík
An eccentric little piece from Reykjavík’s Mayor. Click to enlarge.
Thanks to Hugh for bringing this to my attention.
17
Jul
2010
For a soldier he leads a very fine life and he always is blessed with a charming young wife
Paul Brady’s legendary 1977 recording of the old Irish anti-recruitment song Arthur McBride:
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19
Jun
2010
Do you think it will always be like this?
Thanks to Paddy for bringing this to my attention. (You should really check his blog out too, it’s excellent.)
Please Say Something is a 10 minute short concerning a troubled relationship between a Cat and Mouse set in the distant Future. The final film was completed in January 2009 and contains 23 episodes of exactly 25 seconds each.
The film won the Golden Bear for best short at the 2009 Berlinale, the Cartoon D’or and several other awards. In 2010 it was given a distinction of cultural significance by the German ratings agency FBW (Prädikat Besonderes Wertvoll).
16
Jun
2010
13
Jun
2010
Unearthed design of the 1950′s
mikeyashworth on flickr has an interesting photostream of old 1950′s design. The most impressive of which are photos, taken officially by London Underground, of posters in Notting Hill Gate tube station, London, which hadn’t seen the light of day for many decades. He writes:
Work at the station has recently uncovered these amazing advertising posters in non-public areas and that date from c1956 – 1959 when the station’s lifts were removed and replaced by escalators. These are in an old lift passageway and will be safe.
Check out more photos, along with scans of mid 20th Century design.
5
Jun
2010
Hauntology
I’ve been listening to Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti a lot today, after having discovered them through this boomkat review. The album is absolutely stunning and while discussing it with a friend, it raised the question of a recently very prominent and fashionable trend in underground music: emulating sounds of the past, not just in style but in their entire aesthetic altogether. (See Nite Jewel, Best Coast, The Advisory Circle, etc.)
The concept of Hauntology was then brought to my attention by a knowledgeable member of the electronic music community. From Wikipedia:
The idea suggests that the present exists only with respect to the past, and that society after the end of history will begin to orient itself towards ideas and aesthetics that are thought of as rustic, bizarre or “old-timey”; that is, towards the “ghost” of the past. In this, it is has some similarity with the cyberpunk literary movement. Derrida holds that because of this intellectual realignment, the end of history will be unsatisfactory and untenable.
The name and concept fundamentally come from Marx‘s assertion that a “spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of communism.” Derrida holds that the spirit of Karl Marx is even more relevant after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the demise of communism, that the West’s separation from the ignorance of the suffering still present in the world will “haunt” it and provide the impetus for a fresh interest in communism.
Fascinating!
3
Jun
2010
Music discoveries of 2009 – Part I
Something I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while. Well, here it is. 2009 was a particularly good year for finding good music, new and old, so I’m going to share some of my most treasured discoveries here. Being anything but a fan of music journalism, I’ll let the music speak for itself, adding as few words as possible.
This first installation in the series will focus on more “traditional” music in comparison to the music that will be featured in the following parts. In other words: plenty of singing; plenty of guitars and drums.
Any artists or record labels who take issue with me sharing these songs need just contact me in order to have the material removed.
24
May
2010
Best EP of 2010?
So far, at least. Grouper‘s split release with Roy Montgomery, of which her part is the stunning Vessel EP, is a masterpiece. The other day I came across the official video for “Hold The Way”, the third track of her EP. Directed by Weston Currie, it begins with a short version of the first track, “Hollow Press”, overlaid with a distorted recording of some speech, before the song begins for real. Extremely dark, it fits the music perfectly. Enjoy:
22
May
2010
Tricks with python and music
From Music Machinery:
One of my favorite hacks at last weekend’s Music Hack Day is Tristan’s Swinger. The Swinger is a bit of python code that takes any song and makes it swing. It does this be taking each beat and time-stretching the first half of each beat while time-shrinking the second half. It has quite a magical effect. Some examples:
Every Breath You Take (swing version) by TeeJay
You can find more examples in the original blog post. The results really are truly impressive. I’m looking forward to playing with Tristan Jehan‘s code, and also having a look at his PhD thesis:
Machines have the power and potential to make expressive music on their own. This thesis aims to computationally model the process of creating music using experience from listening to examples. Our unbiased signal-based solution models the life cycle of listening, composing, and performing, turning the machine into an active musician, instead of simply an instrument. We accomplish this through an analysis-synthesis technique by combined perceptual and structural modeling of the musical surface, which leads to a minimal data representation.
Fascinating stuff!
