What do you get when you mix joyriding with DJing and various net audio tracks? You get DJ Pelle's new Bedroom-Projects video. Featuring the music of a few artists you know from previous blocSonic netBlocs — Zengineers, Schaua and Lucrecia, among others. Watch while Pelle takes a joyride in his car and this smooth mix serves as the soundtrack. Download the 621mb DIVX video from Stage 6 (click the down arrow at center of video player).
Have any of you been to Jamendo recently? As you may or may not know, quite a few tracks I have featured on the netBloc series have been found via that excellent net audio site. Well, they've undergone a major overhaul by updating the design and they've implemented direct-download links for all releases. No more do you have to download via bittorrent or emule. Though you can still download via those methods if you choose. Direct-downloads seem to me to be a much friendlier way to get new folks interested in the music that's featured there. Now, if they would only implement FLAC downloads, they'd really be on to something. There’s some talk in the Jamendo forums that that's in the cards. Let's hope.
What's going on at The Archive? If you check their netlabel forums, everyone’s buzzing about the problems with download counts, broken searches and disappearing releases. That's something that's been bugging me about this otherwise excellent service. It's to be expected, considering the amount of content that they serve up. Yet, you gotta wonder where the problem lies? Is it the people in IT? Is it PHP? Is it management? I sure hope that they can come up with a solution that will allow them to continue to grow. It would be a shame if the problems continue to compound without a solid solution and one of the most important FREE internet services goes the way of IUMA. Archive.org, take no offense by the following... it's meant in only the friendliest way... please get your sh*t together over there. It looks to me like you may need a complete overhaul, from the ground up.
Shorthand Phonetics, who was just featured in netBloc Vol. 10, has announced the titles of three new tracks that he's currently working on. "Flower Image Forever (Dance of the Second Choice)", "Not All Slytherins are Death Eaters, Ok?!" and "Yes, joining Castle would be a very bad idea for me but I'm joining anyway," said Hide followed by a string of maniacal laughter as he continued playing Mass Effect and put on chatmonchy for Atsuko to hear." which will all be found on his upcoming third album. On his myspace page you can also check out another new song "The Crappiest Most Harmless Little Protest Song...Ever!" aka "KastilContestSong". No word if it will be included on the upcoming album.
Great news coming from Jahtari, the most-excellent laptop dub netlabel... they've just released a new "Jahtari-NET-EP". Dubmood's "Atari-Ska L'Atakk" features a fantastic cover of Skatalites' classic "Exodus". Grab it here!
If you’re into Jazz, you may be interested to know that Zufall Aufnahmen have just released their 21st release. You may remember Zufall as being Patchwork on the Blues’ netlabel from our release netBloc Vol. 1: The Opening Salvo. ‘Wies dich auch aufzuhorchen treibt’ by Arbeitsgemeinschaft für zeitgemäßen Blickfang is an excellent piece of improvisational Jazz. Also, be sure to check out Zufall Aufnahmen’s new blog Bidala at which are featured recommendations from the world of net audio.
Do you tend toward the experimental? If you do, you may or may not have already discovered Webbed Hand Records. If not, it’s definitely the place for you. The label is run by Chris McDill and his brother Dan as a way of spotlighting their many explorations of sound under various monikers. One of those would be as Akashic Crow’s Nest. From the site, here’s a description of their process:
"The recordings of Akashic Crow’s Nest are created by first making a very long thin picture file that functions much like a piano roll, which is then fed into a software synthesizer which reads the picture from left to right, pixel by pixel, and translates the values into tones, adding variables such as loudness and panning based on information in the picture. The output is then treated to various digital effects such as delays and compression to give the final pieces a warmer, ambient quality."
Well, they’ve just released a new album 'Poste Restante', Webbed Hand’s 90th release. Go.... go and open your ears to something new.
German netlabel iD.EOLOGY have given us a brand new release for the new year. This one from longtime iD artist Sudio. "Sheets of Sound" is Sudio's third iD.EOLOGY release. A solid collection of house tracks.
Be sure to head on over to Vorbic to check out their two most recent releases. First up is "Pun Gun" by Scatterbattery, if only for the release's imaginative description. Seriously, give it a listen... if your ears are tuned into electronic sounds, you're sure to enjoy this one. A highlight from the release is the excellent "Bombard Ear". Next is their most recent release "Sprinkle Rainbow" by Scary. An EP collection of crunchy electronic sounds with sprinkles of melody and vocal samples.
One last note. The Mexican netlabel Vate, which specializes in electronic music, has just released their 10th release entitled "Volt". A good collection of IDM, electro and experimental electronic sounds.
Now do your ears a favor... go grab some new music!
Peace
mGee