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Beethoven’s 9th on Russian doll theremin.
From NPR: So here’s Beethoven’s 9th played on 167 theremins built inside Russian dolls. Oh, and wait for the boogie, about 1:20. HT Liam Proven.
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Black MIDI is not as cool as it sounds, but is still pretty cool.
When presented with a new musical technology, the first question that occurs to a certain sort of mind is “what happens if I press all the buttons?” People used to do this with pianola rolls...
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Macaulay Culkin has formed a pizza-related Velvet Underground tribute band.
That is all. Available on Bandcamp.
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The levels of musical appreciation.
From The Dark Side Of The Room. I’ll note that Rocknerd has already reached the later levels. HT Ms45.
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Why we love repetition in music.
Why do we listen to our favourite music over and over again? Because repeated sounds work magic in our brains. Do anything repeatedly and it is music. And even if you consciously avoid repetition,...
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The Church of Scientology has its own kiddie pop groups.
As if the Scientology rap wasn’t enough, Tonedeaf gives us Kids Of Today For A Better World. “In time we’ll become the leaders of the brand new world.” You weren’t using those ears for anything, were...
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Links for your delectation.
You don’t play the ANS synthesizer (Russia, 1938) with a keyboard. Instead you etch images onto glass sheets covered in black putty and feed them into a machine that shines light through the etchings,...
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Links links links.
My daughter just started learning viola. She could, of course, be the next Jimi Hendrix. There’s a whole genre of 9/11 Truther songs, and they’re insane. (Some handy rebuttals in case these people...
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Alvin and the Chipmunks at 16rpm.
Retrospectively obvious, but this is what Alvin and the Chipmunks sound like at 16rpm: normal vocals with GRIND CORE DEATH SLUDGE DRONE music. That being how they were actually recorded. I think we’ve...
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Doctor Who goes disco. Delia, we are so very sorry.
The Doctor Who theme has of course been done in every possible style. Today we have disco versions from Space Disco and Mankind. But the most instructive example is by Ron Grainer, the original...
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Today’s links.
“Happy Birthday” is finally acknowledged as being public domain. Probably. The history of the hidden track. Format-shifting music you’ve bought in the UK is illegal again. It is possible anyone will...
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The ultimate hold music.
Spotted in The Register: I get 20 sales calls a day at least, as our organization is relatively large. All of them are unsolicited, and they use shady tactics to make it past the receptionist. So...
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The original song for the worst hold music ever has been found.
The original song the ultimate hold music was built around has been found. It’s called, of course, “Picture Perfect”. He told me that this song was so good, that he’s going to be very rich and planned...
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Scott Walker and the freedom to go seriously weird.
Listened to Scott Walker’s 1984 comeback Climate of Hunter again recently. It’s a strange record, but Scott went strange pretty much as soon as he could. After his early pop hits with the Walker...
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Death to the traitors, death to the traitors, death to the tra-ai-tors.
Canadian Cultural Worker’s Committee: “Death to the Traitors” from The Party is the Most Precious Thing, 1979. This album is a real thing that exists, and the Communist Party of Canada...
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Today’s unbelievably terrible sounds for your delight: neo-Nazi rap.
Hey, it worked for Christians,[citation needed] perhaps co-opting rap music will work for neo-Nazis! Multiculturalist site Imagine 2050 writes of White Power rap used as a recruitment tool in Germany....
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Links: Dr Dre and Apple, Alan Vega, Dangerous Minds.
iCompton: Dre as Apple product. I missed this one from Phil Sandifer last year, but it’s shockingly timely with Apple’s ridiculous DRMable headphones now on the schedule. Dammit, this is the sort of...
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Links: bad lyrical subjects, worse record companies, Psychic TV and Polka Floyd.
Things you should never write lyrics about. Who could treat their customers even better than the major record labels do? The phone company, obviously! Psychic TV and The Temple of Psychick Youth have...
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Rosebud: Discoballs: A Tribute to Pink Floyd (1977).
Thanks to Paul Haesler for tipping me off to this inspiring work after he saw the Polka Floyd video yesterday. Have a Cigar / Free Four / Summer 68 / Interstellar OverdriveMoney / One of These Days /...
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“Oh, I already wrote the greatest pop song of the 21st century. Did that in...
Andrew Hickey: And going back to the post about The Manual, the blagging thing is the most important part of having any kind of success in the arts. I was having a conversation with Bobsy Mindless a...
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Reviews: Nápoles, Damsel in the Dollhouse, Digital Logic (2016).
So I use the Bandcamp new arrivals as a radio, so what, so should you. NÁPOLES: Nápoles — “Valentina” is jangly guitar indie with a simple but attention-catching intro. The chords are cliched, but...
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Industry links: Consumers may only rip CDs to properly copyright-levied 80...
35 Years Ago Today (well, yesterday): the launch of Home Taping is Killing Music! Yet more major label promises they completely failed to come through on. I ask you. Some elements are trying. Music...
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30 gigabytes of lost cassettes from the ’80s underground.
The Internet Archive has thirty gigabytes of cassettes from the ’80s for your delight and horror, from the collection of CKLN-FM host Myke Dyer. The collection was first put on line in 2009 as the...
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Lou Reed: Metal Machine Music (1975).
I had an acquaintance that had an eight track player bolted to his bedroom ceiling. Metal Machine Music was in it and it played non-stop, 24-7 for months. If he needed to listen to his stereo, he...
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Links: Soviet techno, music as a weapon, archive your damn tapes, oh Earache no.
Гимн СССР, techno remix. (And the light jazz-funk version.) From Nickelback to Sesame Street: how music is used to battle crime and fight wars. Why do they never pull out Metal Machine Music or...
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The Voices: Oneiric Anthem (2016).
THE VOICES: Oneiric Anthem (Masked Dead) — today’s “what the hell even is that”: a capella experimental progressive rock. (Also, why are most of the promos in my email prog.) It’s a record assembled...
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The political event of the day: the Ithaca Psychogeographic Liberation Front...
Ithaca residents and our co-conspirators Phil Sandifer from Eruditorum Press (“If capitalism is a dead beast, we’re David Cameron“), Meredith Collins from Along came a Cider and Alex Reed from...
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Links: Robin and Zappa, streaming piracy and the musical taste of dogs.
Dogs like reggae, apparently. It turns out that streaming exclusives encourage piracy rather than subscribing to the service. Gosh, etc. The story of Robin from the ’60s TV Batman, Burt Ward, and...
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Reviews: Quimper, Chrysta Bell and David Lynch, Black Tape for a Blue Girl...
QUIMPER: Retrieval (Soft Bodies) — quiet atmospheric and somewhat sp00ky instrumental pieces. The piano-based “Boundry” introduces you gently. My other favourite was the title track “Retrieval”....
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Links: Marquee Moon, CD rot, how to be a better producer, rockin’ nuns.
Marquee Moon by Television was released forty years ago today. Don’t forget: CDs rot. Make sure you back yours up. Training your ears to be a better producer. Not every nun needs a Synthi, some just...
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Reviews: Venus + Mars, Carla dal Forno, The Black Veils (2016, 2017).
VENUS + MARS: Pelsia (SC9) — pleasant vaporwave; two or three things played at once over a good beat with ethereal vocals as occasional decoration fading in and out. Mostly beautiful, sometimes turns...
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Links: VPN survey, a generated music startup, Metal Machine Music for Lou’s...
For when you need to hoist the Jolly Roger browse with privacy: TorrentFreak’s 2017 VPN survey. Amper is a technology startup to sell procedurally generated music. (They use “artificial intelligence”...
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Alixandrea Corvyn, Amongst Animals, Near Death Experience, Tangerinecat —...
I automatically staked out my life-long spot at stage right, leaning on the PA. I grabbed this spot in 1985 and shall not relinquish it. Tangerinecat started with a super-loud electronic bass loop....
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Lester Bangs on Brian Eno.
Yesterday was Brian Eno’s 69th birthday. Lester Bangs interviews Brian Eno, apparently an unpublished interview. Mr Eno is a thoroughly delightful fellow. I found this from looking at the Dangerous...
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The Ithaca Psychogeographic Liberation Front succeeds, as well as seceding.
Nobody reads Rocknerd (trust me, nobody reads Rocknerd), but those of you who do read it keep working hard to make the world a better place. Frank Muller read the Ithaca Psychogeographic Liberation...
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Producers: Max Martin literally farts a top ten hit; Butch Vig; Brian Eno’s...
Brian Eno’s original handwritten “Oblique Strategies” cards. Below: Eno explains the cards to Jarvis Cocker. And Alan Moore interviews Eno. Butch Vig on producing everyone that mattered in the late...
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Karlheinz Stockhausen as synthesizer music for ten year old children.
Karlheinz Stockhausen was some of the first electronic music I listened to, as a ten year old in 1977 listening at the Western Australian State Reference Library music section (my school was just a...
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Links: Pat Mills/2000AD, fund The Quietus, shoegaze in Asia, MRI rockin’ beats.
Pat Mills of 2000AD in The Quietus. The Quietus’ advertising has dropped right off, it’s going broke and it needs your money. Shoegaze in China, Taiwan and Japan. That RUBUR track is really good! I...
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The Residents, Croxton Hotel, March 2016
Certain bands make an initial mark on the world with icons. Whether it’s as simple as the Dead Kennedy’s logo, or as offbeat as Devo’s energy domes and radiation suits. But few are as memorable as The...
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Links: Constance Demby, UK copyright trolls’ multiple extortions, The Return...
Constance Demby’s Space Bass. This thing sounds AMAZING. UK copyright trolls try extorting people multiple times. Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds pens a paean to the deeply underappreciated and...
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Links: Devo “Satisfaction”, failed electronic instruments, subgenres of...
Devo got their start with their cover of “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. Warner Music required them to get approval from the writers … and Mick Jagger liked it. Their performance on Saturday...
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Links: Sex Pistols, Peter Hook, Martin Hannett, Lee Ranaldo, how music feels,...
John Lydon and Glen Matlock go track by track through Never Mind The Bollocks. Peter Hook on Martin Hannett. Music is of course about everything as well as the sounds. Measuring how people experience...
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Links: The KLF at the Shard, the fake grunge lexicon, how to swear on radio.
The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu: Burn The Shard. 23 November. AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. How to say “fuck” on the radio: 1. Be in Canada. 2. Put lots of French before and after it. (The original...
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Richard M. Stallman: The Free Software Song (1991, 2011).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Richard_Stallman_sings_the_Free_Software_Song.webm The above crawling horror is a classic of the software development field. You may not like that,...
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Links: Frank Zappa ad jingles, runout grooves, AACS keys leaked, old Severed...
Frank Zappa’s short career in advertising jingles — for cough drops and … electric razors. With Linda Ronstadt. Another article on runout groove messages that starts at George “Porky” Peckham, as is...
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Theodor Adorno wrote all the Beatles’ songs as a Cultural Marxist assault on...
One of the finest conspiracy theories concerning popular culture is the claim that Theodor Adorno, a main figure in what became known as the Frankfurt School — proponents of an obscure academic...
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Richard Syrett on Theodor Adorno, the Beatles, conspiracy theorists and … me.
Richard Syrett hosts a podcast, The Rock’n’Roll Twilight Zone — in which he covers the weirder corners of the history of popular music. Today’s episode is: “Were The Beatles a British Psychological...
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Records: The Rolling Stones, Deerful, Benjamin Shaw (2016, 2018).
THE ROLLING STONES: Blue & Lonesome (RSR) — I just found out this existed. It’s post-1971 — so it’s Ry Cooder But Wrong, as Andrew Hickey, in the process of being right about everything about...
View ArticleOwen Kentauros brings you the 1980s on ukulele, in Japanese.
I was idly searching on “Asylums in Jerusalem” by Scritti Politti last night, and tripped over Owen Kentauros’ YouTube channel. His version, on ukulele and occasional kazoo, works alarmingly well. Owen...
View ArticleLinks: Bauhaus, WFMU Free Music Archive saved, post-punk indie labels, Pete...
Bauhaus have released the other recordings from the “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” session. Here’s David J talking about the session. The WFMU Free Music Archive has found a new home — it’s been bought by...
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