Friday, 9 January 2009

Turn the sound on

Some music pt.2

Many years ago I discovered the concept of net labels. Like a record label but without the actual records. The music can be downloaded and distributed for free under the Creative Commons license. For some reason this world seem to almost exclusively dwell within minimal/dub techno and ambient electronica. I would love to see this concept applied to many other genres in the future. Anyhow, I used to scrutinize these sites quite frequently, but as with record browsing this is more of an exception now a days. But it happens occasionally, like yesterday (that was probably the first time in about a year).

One net label that stands out is Sutemos from Lithuania. Somehow they manage to gather a whole bunch of famous (within the electronica scene that is) artist to contribute on their compilations. Their latest two releases, Intelligent Toys 5 and Myrakura are top quality.

You can find both these and many more releases here: http://www.sutemos.net/


Artwork from Intelligent toys 5


























































Artwork from Myrakura


























Despite that the productions are "as clean as a surgeons knife, as crisp as the midnight snow" to quote a friend. I feel its very much been done before. Could have been any release on Expanding records or similar. Though its enjoyable but not quite the same as that steaming hot summers day in Stockholm many years ago when I heard those minimal dubby clicks for the very first time.

While on the subject of net labels, I got to mention Gas - Microscopic. By accident I came across this video clip on you tube.



The track and video can be downloaded for free
http://www.microscopics.co.uk/electronic_music.html#free
I'm not sure if they got anything to do with GAS releasing records on Mille Plateaux many years ago.

Thursday, 8 January 2009

Some music pt.1

I'm going to dedicate this post to music and its whereabouts. It's tricky and I fear this post can end up very long so I might slice it up into parts.

As I claimed a few years ago, the music cant survive on its own anymore. Perhaps it never did, just me not realizing it. I believe most kinds of music can be good if it serves it's purpose in the right context. Therefore I discovered a lot of music first when I heard it at the right time at the right place.

But my musical interest has changed a lot for the the proximate last 5 years. From being heavily into electronic music, spending hours sniffing the internet and browsing crate after crate of vinyls to find the hidden gems and stay in touch what was new and fresh on the market, it all came to an abrupt end. It's not that music became unimportant to me, it was rather other things that became as interesting and started fighting for my attention. Not only that, but also many other genres of music have come into my life. This would require a post on its own, and some of you might get really surprised of what I'm listening to now a days. I'm not quite going to reveal that to you yet.

It still happens I come across those tracks and records that I know I will never get bored of. They might last for a life time. One of those was Solo Piano by Gonzales that I discovered in 2007.

You can download the album as a .zip file here
Solo Piano

Someone claiming to be Gonzales requested me to remove the zip.



Or if you just want a teaser, go ahead and listen to these tracks.
Gonzales - Overnight
Gonzales - The Tourist

There might be sequels to this post in the future, till then you better listen to something good.














Tuesday, 6 January 2009

Another Award!

Another project I worked on at the end of this summer won an FWA award today (http://www.thefwa.com/).

The site was initially only in Swedish, but was recently translated to English (for award purposes I guess). The speaker voice accent is pretty bad, apparently it was deliberate to make it sound more Swedish. Any how I think its not going to harm my portfolio with another award.

You can check out the site here: http://www.aspirant.nu/english/
(for you who prefer the Swedish version: http://www.aspirant.nu/ )


Funny things

Craigslist have released a list of the funniest entries of 2008. For you who don't know Craigslist, its a bit like Gumtree, and for you who don't know Gumtree either. Its a website where you can put an add in, buy and sell second hand stuff, find a date, find an appartment, flatmates etc. etc.

Here are 3 higlights
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/fay/938646501.html
and
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/hou/852526961.html
and
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/nyc/907788944.html

And you can find the whole list here:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all/

Monday, 5 January 2009

Please Vote!

The Coke Zero Game site I was working on has got the chance to become site of the year 2008 on the FWA.

Please help out by giving it a vote. Follow this link: http://www.thefwa.com/pca2008/

Its the third one from the top COKE ZERO GAME, just klick VOTE, and then we are happy days.

Thanks for helping out.


Saturday, 3 January 2009

Great things

I have seen some great things this weekend.




















































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