FineTune.com

FineTune.com -- this is what epitonic.com could have become. FineTune has it all, shared playlists, regular radio, music preference based radio, and a huge catalog. I'm waiting to see how this will play out -- it's hard to imagine someone being faster than Pandora at getting new music in the catalog. And musicovery has that multi-directional next button. They're all good.

Far From Showbiz net label

Netlabels.org pointed me to this recent release on the Far From Showbiz net label: Dark ambient, drone, martial... and many more delights here.

Darkness and Silence:
Semper Fidelis
Occidit, Occidit Spes Omnis

soundZcapa:
The Night Of The Accident

Brian Eno Installation

Saw this story about Brian Eno's installation at the Venice Biennale.

DJ Tiesto video

Saw this video on StumbleUpon videos... this is a performance last year by DJ Tiesto at a music award show in the Netherlands. The best part of the video comes early -- somebody holding up a sign for their grandmother to see on TV. Am I missing something, or do DJ's just not get this kind of respect here on these Pacific shores?

Dave's Imaginary Sound Space

Dave's Imaginary Sound Space found this earhead blog six months before I found him. There's probably many cool Windows Live Spaces out there, but this is the first one I've noticed, and it will save me a lot of time to keep checking in with his lists. Many useful music related links and a lot of web 2 goodness too. Make sure to check out his media distribution list.

FilterMusic.net

FilterMusic is a net radio portal that sorts radio stations by genre. It doubles as a screen saver, with a feed of beautiful and dramatic background images (scroll down to get the "full screen effect").

Very useful.

Milhaven

I heard Milhaven on Bleepwatch. They're a German post rock band that released their EP I.M. Wagner this past November. Long, lovely sounds, and starting with a song about the Pacific Ocean that sounded like they'd be right at home playing here at Ocean Beach.

Oh! Great Pacific

Clean Room

Milhaven has an earlier release, which includes this song with an Apocalypse Now! theme:
Bars Closing Down: Drink A Pint Of Blood A Day

Musicovery

Stumbled upon Musicovery today. Sorry for the old news -- just in case someone else missed it too...

Musicovery is what you get when you combine LivePlasma (music mapping) and Pandora (musically mapped radio). Just pick a mood (or a genre) to turn on your radio channel. Your channel is illustrated with a map of "nearby" tracks. Instead of clicking the next button, click on any of the nearby tracks.

Getting lost on the map is too cool. If I'm not careful I might miss Xmas.

Heard on Bahgheera's Orbit

Another highlight from Bahgheera's Orbit...:

A big beautiful sound...
The Big Sleep: Sleepy Kid Waltz

Recording Industry News

Three stories about the RIAA this week made me lose even more respect for them -- I know... I am occasionally given cause to pitch music CD's here, but how can anybody buy music in good conscience anymore, when they know it puts money in these pirates pockets?

The RIAA is pressing forward in this case against children... whatever happened to the old "slap on the wrist"??? With all this talk of protecting the works of musicians, I find it ironic that the RIAA is now lobbying to reduce payments to artists. This response from songwriters makes an interesting read. And finally, about claims the RIAA makes about loss due to illegally downloaded music, the RIAA is balking at a judges order to justify their claimed loss.

So the world turns... meanwhile, remember to support musicians by attending their shows and buying their merchandise... from them!

TuneGlue vs LivePlasma

TuneGlue, another musical preferences mapping service, hit the news last week. TuneGlue draws on data from last.fm and amazon.com. I saw it mentioned on The Music Weblog and Hypebot. I can't really see much difference between that and LivePlasma, which in addition to mapping out "music that sounds like <your preference>" also maps out movies and directors that draw on similar viewer preferences.

I think LivePlasma takes the trophy home though... when I search Sigur Rós on LivePlasma, it points out a newish compilation CD from Iceland that looks interesting. That might make a nice Xmas stocking stuffer for someone.

Music for Christmas

Just 12 days 'til Christmas... it's high time for a thematic post, and what better place to start but with the Messiah himself...

Dan Sindel shares a multi-track solo guitar spectacular:
Exerpts from Handel's Messiah

It's a San Francisco tradition -- we go to Ocean Beach and watch the surf. Surely, it's a perfect moment for some Pollo Del Mar seasonal surf sounds:
Carol of the Bells

New computer for Christmas? Watch out, Robert Lund sings a scary Elves Gone Wild tale by Spaff:
Nuttin' But Spam

Need more Christmas musical goodness? Starfrosch offers a music video tour of Santa's new digs, there's some pretty cool electro-Christmas mashup music there too.

OWL: Find Music Through Music

Yet another cool tool for music discovery: OWL. Pick any MP3 file from your collection, upload it to OWL, pick the bit of the track that makes it special to you... and it will search it's database of Creative Commons shared works, and recommend music with similar sounds. I tried two tracks and was very impressed by what it found -- some of it was stuff I already knew I liked, but there was a lot of stuff I hadn't heard before.

Get an account before you upload your music. The process of uploading and picking the bit you like takes a bit of time. I wanted to start organizing my search results right away, but I couldn't because I hadn't signed up yet.

tribalmixes.org

I was lost at tribalmixes.org for a few days... the first time I've dabbled in P2P (peer to peer) BitTorrent style downloading, so it took awhile to adjust. For e.g., there's no preview, so you must download, and you pay for downloads either with money, or by sharing them with other downloaders. Now I'm sharing a dozen mixes (or, in bittorrent speak: I have a dozen torrents seeded), I can see which files I'm uploading to other downloaders at any time.

About 40 contributers upload 50 new mixes a day to tribalmixes. All club music DJ mixes, some of them mixes for tribalmixes radio. There's also an interesting positive participation/contribution "immortality rating" system that encourages you to particpate.

If P2P sounds like too much work -- there's still podcasts and the radio programs. In addition to Flower Powder, Armando Rossi, from Australia, has caught my attention:

Armando Rossi: Tribalmixes podcast #9

Find out all you need to know about BitTorrent at Wiki.thePPN.

Psytrance Day

I returned to listen to an old favorite today, Flower Powder, who keep a great collection of DJ mixes on their blog. They also perform live mixes psystream radio and tribalmixes radio. Other psytrance radio I like is the Digitally Imported chillout channel, and HBR1.

A recent Flower Powder mix from the Chill Bill series on tribal mixes:

Flower Powder: Chill Bill #3

Bleepwatch

I stumbled upon Bleepwatch today -- I think bleep must be short for "net label release," because that's what it watches. There are lots of treasures to find here... heard these among today's releases:

VS: Silencio

Atomic Death Circle: Travel Beyond C / Chapel of Light

Monoton: Cycklamat

Dirty On Purpose

In keeping with yesterday's theme about radio... here's a funny video I spotted on FreeIndie.Com.

Dirty On Purpose - No Radio

Hear more music from Dirty On Purpose here.

The Internet Killed The Radio Star

I remember the last time I listened to music on the radio -- it was the day Clear Channel banned John Lennon's "Imagine" from the airwaves in 2001. Six years later, people are starting to accept the fact that we can listen to what we want to listen to here on the internet, and the RIAA can't stop it by suing music fans. The Transmit conference in Vancouver, Canada, last weekend discussed themes about the future of music:

...music fans are slowly but surely regaining control over the music industry, and hearing music the way people did 30 years ago - purely by recommendation...

Read about it on 24hrs and canoe.ca.

Negative Sound Institute

Dava Sobel was featured recently on indieish CC track of the day. His music is released by Negative Sound Institute, a net label with a catalog that offers a variety of ambient treats:

Dava Sobel: Berzelii Park
Closet Ballerinas: Roaring Silence
Gurdonark: Galveston Island in December
Thomas Nunnally Trio: After Image (2)

Alcian Blue

What a beautiful noise... and I missed it -- Alcian Blue just split up after 10 years of making music. They've released an album this year, and left a beautiful legacy of shared music, including these:

Never Go Away
Angelica Take Me Down

DJ Maer

I continue to enjoy mixes by San Francisco local, DJ Maer. He is involved in several net music websites, including OEM Radio and the Dub Beautiful Collective net label.

Samples:

DJ Maer: Where No Dub Fears To Tread

Adham Shaikh with Shankar: Tongu - Mbira Remix (Live)

Dora Flood

Heard Dora Flood on reloda, they're a Bay Area band. I love my local talent. They've shared their whole catalog... unfortunately, I must wait for the new CD. Forget about shoegazing -- there's a lot of stars to count here... from Deep Purple, Procol Harum, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, The Guess Who, and all the way up to Radiohead.

A chronology from five releases:

1301 EP: Faith in Doubt
Walk A Light Year Mile: Black Widow Walking
Lost On Earth: Mafioso
Welcome: Starflower
Highlands: Stargazing

Four more tracks from the new We Live Now CD at Dora Flood's myspace page.

Streampad Web Music Player

Earhead#101111 has joined the ranks of the 1700 bloggers that elbo.ws aggregates. I found some very useful posts in the forums there, including one about Streampad.

Streampad is an ajax/web2 style music player that has some overlap with Songbird in it's usefulness for finding music on the internet. I particularly like the Streampad playlist feature. I can organize music I've found without having to download it or open winamp, and sharing is easy.

So, without further ado, please press the big play button in the SP Player you see here. Watch out, pressing pause stops the music, but not the download -- click refresh if you want the music and the download to stop.

My first SP playlist: Michael Franti. You must know someone that would love to find music for peace in their Xmas stocking???? Buy it at Michael Franti's music store.

Free Download of the Day

Many sites with large catalogs have either a featured artist of the day, or a free MP3 download of the day -- or both. I like them because it's a good way to follow who or what is new in all genres. Four I follow are:

indieish.com -- cc:365 -- track of the day with a Creative Commons license, usually accompanied with a link to the netlabel release.

GarageBand -- Face Off, actually two free tracks a day, plus the added twist that you get to vote (registration required) for your favorite. One voter wins around $200 worth of gear every day. The favorite band of the day can go on to win a recording contract. (Warning! highly annoying intro on Face Off page -- turn your volume down!)

Napster -- track of the day (registration required, unless you solve the puzzle). They have the last 7 days available for download.

emusic -- just today's track. I find that emusic has the selection I enjoy most.

Creative Commons goodness

I saw two posts in the last couple of days about artists that mash up other artists work on videos uploaded to YouTube. One on Digital Music Weblog and this one on Brown Sweater, White Cat, created by CCmixter contributor gurdonark who mashes up a Lisa DeBenedictis tune with a selection of CC photo's from Flickr:

There's also some fan made videos of Sigur Rós on YouTube.

She, Sir

She, Sir is a Texas band I heard on 3hive. Thankfully, somebody is picking up where My Bloody Valentine left off.

She, Sir: It's My Way of Staying Connected

Blue Foundation

Spotted this on The Digital Music Weblog... another great Danish band raises it's head on the internet: Blue Foundation -- lots of tunes there to listen to on their web player.

Update May 31, 2009: Blue Foundation disabled embedded video's -- but it's definitely worth a click.

Surf Music Day

I've been stricken with surf music fever. It started with The Whys and Pollo Del Mar on Sunday, and it's been continuing unabated. I didn't realize Surf Music is so big in Japan, they call it Eliki Boom (electric boom), and the Ventures can still fill a stadium full with devoted fans!

This Eliki Boom may not be podsafe, but I found it on a radio station website, so I'm going out on a limb here because 1) it's from 1967, and 2) you just have to hear it:

Takeshi Terauchi and The Bunnys: Theme from Symphony No 5

Radio WMFU has more from Takeshi Terauchi here and here.

Q. Is there Podsafe Surf Music.
A. Yes. Lots.

The Mermen (a favorite local band) have more than 50 live concerts at archive.org including a couple from Burning Man.

The Mermen: Little Stinky Kitty (burning man 2004)

I came across a Surf Radio station at SoundClick that features hours of listening, plus downloads including:

The Amino Acids:

The Whys Invade San Francisco

It was a once in a lifetime opportunity... a Japanese Hula Girl Surf Band playing Wipeout! at the Hotel Utah... and I saw it! Pollo Del Mar was there with them...

Pollo Del Mar: Cutlass Supreme
more shared music at their website.

The Whys: Sunset Party

The Whys perform Wipeout! by the Surfaris:

Under Byen

Under Byen is a Danish band I heard on 3hive. Under Byen means "underneath the city"... it's dark down there...

Under Byen: Plantage

Trick or Treat?

Some Halloween treats:

John Robinson reads Edgar Allen Poe: The Tell Tale Heart

M Bridgeford Ultra Groovy mix: It Came From Cyber Space

Some "interpretive" tricks:

Notiluca: unsane

The Batcave Terror: Locked In A Shell

Watch out for the monsters!

Psychotronic Horrorbeat

Some horror music for halloween...

The Threshold People:
The Threshold People
Radio Zombi

Orbital picks

Recent highlights from Bahgheera's Orbit... he picks well:

Play this with your Mogwai and M83:

Explosions in the Sky:

Yasmin The Light
Your Hand in Mind

Some atmosphere from found sounds: Arturuo en el Barco: Candy Tucker

French Dub Released

More heard on Britney.: French Dub Released is a netlabel, home of the Dub Echoes compilation... plus other releases:

Zaruts: 80's

R2jeux: Corde à sauter

All releases are in an RAR format. (There's a download link for extraction software on the release page).

Reading from Britney.

The other side of Britney. is starfrosh (starfrog), a blog where artists post samples and news about their new, mostly net label releases.

Also spotted bahgheera's orbit, a music blog that doubles as a bahgheera music showcase: Take a listen: Bad Polarity.

Dharmasound net label

I saw Dharmasound, a netlabel, on Britney. Dharmasound represents several genres of music. Some samples from the catalog:

Paco Alvarez: a summer day
Mark Hamn: on cherche se rapprocher d'un ideal

NPR picks

Picks from the last couple of weeks of NPR music news:

Sting's 'Labyrinth': 16th Century Pop Music
Easy Star All-Stars: Radiohead Meets Reggae
Ed Palermo: Making New Arrangements for Zappa
San Francisco: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

James Brown Live

Just noticed this gift NPR gave us last summer:

James Brown: live in Washington, DC

Troorg netlabel

Came across the troorg netlabel at Britney. Dedicated to exploring biodiversity of sound, and experimenting with found sounds to make music that you can dance to -- electro-organic dance music. Some samples:

Bpill : 120 disco road
D-jet : eastmoon

And if you got this far... don't forget to check out the map of the troorg fan fairy ring!

Songbird

Don't know what I was waiting for to check this out... maybe because it's version 0.2 -- but that's no reason to wait. Manage your music library, follow your favorite music blogs, search for music, and do even more things with songbird. Oh, and don't forget to check out the screencast demo.

sonicSquirrel

SonicSquirrel is a platform and distribution channel for 500+ netlabels. No rating here, listeners create and share playlists. The proposed wikipedia entry goes like this:

"one well-known trait of some species of squirrel is the gathering and storing of free music. these squirrels are scatter-hoarders, i.e. they will gather any kind of sounds and store them in an accessible and open hiding place, usually by uploading them on a web server. recent research shows that they have excellent memories for the locations of these caches. the sonicsquirrel is a social animal and likes to share its gathered treasures with everybody.

Splice

Remix and mashup online at splice. And share the Creative Commons way. I heard rig there:

Listen:
Triumph... or remix it.
Epic Orchestra... or remix it.

Give the remix a try -- click play and watch the music go.

The Meeting Places

Noise pop from Los Angeles. I discovered The Meeting Places on Pandora today.

Take a listen:
Take To The Sun
Numbered Days

Britney. Social bookmarking for music

Britney is a social bookmarking site for music (in all genres) that can be freely shared. Think digg for downloadable music.

ccMixter mix

Earhead#101111 spins his first playlist: Ninety minutes of electro chilled beats from ccmixter.org.

listen   info

Church of High Dub

Stumbled across some very cool radio at Shoutcast: dub electro chill from iwayhigh.net. Heard some interesting Radiohead covers there.

Concertino for Cell Phones

NPR had this story about audience participation at the Chicago Sinfonietta. The audience was instructed to use their cell phones whenever a green light was on during the performance.

Here's a review with cool photo of a performer in a tux using his cell phone.

Day Against DRM

Today is the official "Day Against DRM" -- you know -- Digital Rights Management -- or don't you know? The guys that count the money don't want you to know how they control what and how you consume "their" music and movies. Read about DRM here.

Join an event in your community.

limbus: Best of Breed

The album cover art draws you in... after the apocalypse we will be dead -- but the machines won't notice. This album sounds like it was entirely pasted together with found sounds -- very well done, with a good amount of industrial rhythms and drones mixed in.

Listen: limbus-remix
Listen: s1

iadcell - limbus dark ambient industrial on Jamendo

Warning: Bush Bashing

Here's a funny one -- tho I must tell Eric -- he didn't need to bash Bill's wife to make it funny... it's such a guy thing to blame the wife!

PS: this is more fun if you sing along!

The world remixed at ccMixter

Heard this at ccMixter:

Code: Noite de Carnaval

DJ Kryptide: Sanidade (Dover Demon Remix)

The Internet, The Music, and the implications

I read these two stories at The Digital Music Weblog about recent news items. This item about the USA Today's take on the music business. And, this item about the BBC's finding that a huge proportion of iPod owners prefer to buy and rip CD's over buying music directly from iTunes.

Tuvan Chillout

Ran across this today... wow! As chilly as Siberia is, I didn't expect I'd see Siberia on the chillout map.

Sainkho Namtchylak: Let The Sunshine

Monster Movie

Heard Monster Movie on 3hive today.

Monster Movie: Letting You Know

Hope for Peace

Nice music listening website.

9/11 tribute

Circle of Willis tribute to the 9/11 tragedy: USA

The Empire Fights Back

David Byrne comments on a new internet music venture that offers free (as in advertising supported) music downloads from two of the worlds largest catalogs.

via The Digital Music Blog

Roots of Electronic Music

Emerson Lake and Palmer brought some respectability to the synthesizer, but it wasn't until Gary Numan and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark that the synth sounds took center stage... There's a 7 part video series about Gary Numan at Sonic State.

Gary Numan Are Friends Electric

OMD Maid Of Orleans

Funny voice response prompt

listen: Mental Health Hotline voice response prompt.

Which number did you press?

c|net's music genre explorer

c|net's music download website is pretty cool -- seems a little like epitonic -- well suited to exploring genre's of music. Each genre has a pick of the day, an editor's playlist, and an audience playlist. Many downloads, and some entire albums to download.

Michael Franti and Spearhead

Heard "Yell Fire" on 3hive today. How timely... Local boy, Michael Franti, throws his annual Power to the Peaceful party in Golden Gate Park next weekend... you can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb the world to peace. Michael Franti and Spearhead went to Iraq earlier this year and have a new album out.

Michael Franti and Spearhead: Yell Fire

Check out the Yell Fire poster contest.

Twenty Fifth Hour Meets DJ Darkstep

Did you see 25th Hour? It's a film Spike Lee made about a guy's last day before going to prison. At one point, our hero goes into a rage about the fundamental unfairness of his prison sentence... but he still has to go.

DJ Darkstep: Exterminate All Humanz ft Redone.

We send a lot of kids to prison here in the USA, so I think every American should give this a listen.

a pschedelic activation portal

Bulgarian net label, Ouim.net, lots of gold to mine there, everything is on a Creative Commons license.

Sample from Samdelia: Endless.

There's also a sister site ouim.org -- the descriptions are in Bulgarian (I assume) -- but more to listen to there.

Don't Download This Song

Weird Al Yankovic on the hell of music downloading... check out the video.

Duncan Garage Showroom Radio

This is cool... an eventful/podbop mashup: Duncan Garage Showroom Radio.

Official website: Duncan Garage Showroom

Immashoo Group Schizophrenic

In their own words:

Blind man's bluff with the keychain found Tuvan trance music. All in good fun, naturally. Created with wierdo spirit voices, software, found sound and so forth.

5 stars at the Internet Audio Archive: Mongolian Keychain

RIAA continues to amaze

In a recent RIAA case, the RIAA wanted to question family members about their deceased father's music downloading crimes. You can stay informed about all RIAA lawsuits against music fans here: Recording Industry vs. People.

The more I read about the RIAA, the more I don't want to buy music at all... seems the only way to put money in a musician's pockets these days is to buy a t-shirt off their merch table.

Flower Powder

A DJ from Sweden, Flower Powder, offers psytrance, and progressive mixes and more. You can can find much of their catalog at their page on the Internet Archive. A sample: Mexikhali.

Stuff to put on your music player

Today's link: a large directory of podsafe audio sources at ourmedia.org. This is also a good source of information for publishing media on the internet.

Frequently Awkward Questions

Some interesting questions for supporters of DRM... like -- how much of the $75 million the RIAA has won by suing music fans has it actually given back to musicians? The answer is none, it goes to a legal fund, so the RIAA can sue more music fans.

More questions from the EFF. And, here's a useful article about your rights, should you find yourself named in an RIAA civil suit.

Acoustical Liberation

Only public domain audio books at LibriVox, including a good collection of children's stories. In the mood for some Alice in Wonderland?

Oh Canada!

The closest I can get to hearing great music at the Duncan Garage Showroom is to tune in on CBC Radio 3. They offer a steady stream of made in Canada tunes, a playlist tool (hear your favorites again), and a playlist sharing/ranking system. All free, courtesy of Canadian taxpayers -- which includes me!

There's also a weekly podcast this week featuring authentic Canadian J-pop sounds from Toronto by Shinjuku Zulu.

RIAA Phonecall

Share this: RIAA Phonecall

Found the tune at zug.com. And, while I'm bashing the RIAA... here's a read from Slashdot: Why we think music should be free.

Music Mining at funender.com

I discovered funender.com today -- it provides MP3 hosting services for musicians and DJs, many of whom offer free downloads. A listener community offers ratings. Unfortunately no way to link a sample here, and you must be registered (free) to listen to playlists. I think it's definitely worth the free registration.

Live from the Duncan Garage Showroom

I'm waiting for the day that my favorite venue streams their shows... but for now, I'll have to settle for Live at The Gig in Hollywood... which appears to be leading the pack on this. Obviously, it doesn't (yet) have the presence of a live performance, but there's plenty of us that can't make it to The Gig tonight, even though we might want to see who's on stage.

Konono No. 1 do CONGOTRONICS

I found Konono No. 1 from The Congo at National Geographic's World Music website. Konono No. 1 make some of their gear out of junked cars... sample some congotronics.

[edit 28 Jan 07]: You'll find videos of Konono No. 1 on the TRÂNSITO music blog... scroll down to 15/01/2007.

National Geographic does World Music

Discover and buy music.

Net Audio Worth Listening

Very useful music blog nwl covering netlabel releases. Today's feature is a Nicorola release on the 1bit wonder net label.

I liked one of Nicorola's mix CD's. Sample: Latex Distortion

Syd Barrett died this week

Syd Barrett[W] started Pink Floyd in the 60's, but the band went on without him in the 70's. Still, fan sites run strong. This is a good starting point, and check out the Hype Machine playlist. Also, sample this pre-Pink Floyd demo tape: Lucy Leave.

Music Machine

From Animusic, this video is very popular at google video right now.

shockshadow

Shockshadow is one of my favorites at ccMixter.

Braving The Rain
Below and Beyond

Saxon Shore

I heard Saxon Shore at 3hive today.

A sample: The Revolution Will be Streaming.

Internet sound instrument

Here is an internet collaboration system from auracle.org for voice activated sound performance. It's plug and play, but it might want to install the java softsynth software on your computer.

If you find yourself all alone in Auracle's world, call up some friends and have them plug in -- or just turn your speakers up (a little!), and create a loop between your speakers and your microphone. Careful, feedback loops can gain amplitude quickly. You'll have your whole audio library to experiment with then.

The java softsynth website has many other audio toys to play with on this software.

The Classics @ musikethos.org

Classical music doesn't get a lot of representation on the internet -- you don't hear anybody getting busted for stealing downloading a Beethoven track. musikethos.org is putting an end to that. The classics, podsafe, performed by a group of musicians in Italy. (They have jazz there too.)

A little Mussorgsky anybody? The Old Castle.

Neko Case

I heard Neko Case at 3hive... She's on Anti records, where you'll also find Tom Waits, Tricky and Marianne Faithfull and music to sample. I didn't realize Psychedelic Country was a genre. Or is that Tammy Wynette covering Grace Slick covering Mazzy Star? Neko Case is from my home town... go neighbor!

sample: Hold on, Hold on
Neco Case: website
NPR: Live Concert Series

Spacemusic.nl podcasts

A weekly podcast in m4a format by TC of Rotterdam -- you can find an interview with TC on this Talking Portraits podcast. Last year he did his podcasts in mp3, this is the the best of spacemusic for 2005.

Aeolian wind harp

Let the breeze decide what you hear with an harmonic wind harp.

Listen to a sample.

Mike D.'s website

Mike D. does a weekly show on the cosmic lounge channel at digitally imported. Mike D.'s website features past programs in the listening area, and there's lots to read about the musicians he features.

Pandora gets an upgrade

New Pandora features offer Backstage, a new flavor of favorites, and improvements in the user interface. Read about it here.

organ²/ASLSP

Sorry -- I'm late reporting the news again. Last month witnessed a chord shift, the next one occurs in 2008... what's this about? John Cage's composition As Slow As Possible, a 75 minute piece, elongated to 639 years. Why 639 years? Because when this performance began, that's how long ago it was that the 12 tone (western) musical scale was first hardwired into a musical instrument.

Listen to the current tone and an NPR feature. Read a a review of the performance, and the Wikipedia entry.

Sounds of the Border: Playing the Wall

NPR featured Glenn Weyant's composition SonicAnta, performed with contact microphones and cello bow on a steel wall built on the American and Mexican border in Arizona.

Find sample playlists here.

Aes Dana

Vincent of Ultimae Records, aka Aes Dana ... at ~confluence~ ... a cozy event at Slide Ranch in Marin County, California overlooking the Pacific Ocea:

Aes Dana >  Live at Confluence (ambient trance) sample

Longplayer

Longplayer (composed by Jem Finer): Tibetan bells and gongs streamed live... listen for 1000 years.

Heard at the Audio Archive

Internet Archive > Audio

Unit 21 > September - October (dronology) sample

Remora > Ambient Drones For One Guitar (dronology) sample

Fred Yarm > Far Afield compilation (phonography dronology) sample

Mono

Post Rock from Japan... Mono's mp3's are gone for now... but you can still watch them perform:

2GB SD Flash $75 @ Radio Shack this week

Wow -- hard to pass this up... and it even comes with a $5 mail-in rebate... I've combined it with a $10 IOGEAR USB SD Reader and On The Fly Encryption for a secure -- play anywhere -- backup.

Internet CD Trading Club

Trade CD's at lala.com for a buck a piece.

Screwed with Music

The internet tells me that "screw music" is music that "screws with pitch" -- a technique mastered by DJ Screw[W][?].

Now we have screwmusicforever, a music label that shows no trace of screw music's hiphop origins, but if today's stream of music by Home is any indication -- this is definitely worth coming back to listen to again sometime.