November 20, 2009

Un tour de Manège

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November 7, 2009

Machinarium

Habbo Hotel went under maintenance last night, so I was left with a good 45 minutes or so with nothing to do... I went in search for something to fill my time, when I came across Machinarium.

It's a game developed in Adobe Flash which consists of cute hand drawn robot characters and locations!

Check out the demo, and if you decide to purchase, you also get the soundtrack to the game too! And it's a very nice one at that. Atmospheric bleeps and bloops. ^.^

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October 30, 2009

From the Basement

From the Basement produce a collection of live music performances in an intimate, bullshit free environment.

There are no interviewers. There are no introductions. There is no audience. There is just music.

You have the same level of intimacy and excitement you get when you'd watch MTV Unplugged as a kid, seeing your favorite artists perform live, except without MTV's bitchy gossip and annoying presenters.
The artists get to perform in a relaxed environment, allowing for beautiful live performances to be captured in HD, with sound engineered and produced by Nigel Godrich.

Jamie Lidell's performance of A Little Bit More, live From the Basement.

There's a great selection of artists so far, such as Beck, Fourtet, Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age and more, and there are many more to come.

From the Basement.tv

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October 30, 2009

Heaven's Door

A movie about two terminally ill people. A 28 year old guy and a 14 year old girl. They are coming to terms with their mortality and create lists of things which they want to do before they die. Unfortunately, their journey together while fulfilling their dreams get them in trouble with the law... and a pretty pissed off business man with questionable moral values! "Money or war!!!"

I'd describe this movie as a cross between "The Bucket List" and "Thelma and Louise", only more touching, well written and less exaggerated (for the most part).
You're likely to shed a tear, but there are humorous moments too.

With a cute OST by two of my favorite artists - Plaid

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October 27, 2009

2562 - Unbalance

I'd been putting off listening to any "Dubstep" for the past three years. This is mainly due to the fact that what little Dubstep I had heard, I disliked. I'm also slightly prejudice and didn't want to associate myself with the type of people I thought liked this genre, (whom I imagined as being illiterate pot heads).

The Dubstep which I had previously encountered was composed by the artist "Benga". He's known as one of the pioneers of this genre.
After listening to some examples of his work, I precipitately deduced the elements which comprise Dubstep tracks ; Deep warbley bass-line, 2/4 time signatures, and chord progressions which modulate from tone to semitone, almost forever repeating.

This was not appealing to me.

It was not a completely conscious decision, but I had subsequently avoided listening to anything that was associated with Dubstep because of my previous experience with it.

Until last week! Whilst browsing around on my favorite online music catalog Boomkat.com, I came across 2562's new album "Unbalance". The description of the genre read "Dubstep", but for some reason I was not deterred by this. I went ahead and listened to the preview... Now, I won't say I was blown away, but I was certainly impressed by what I heard. Maybe because I had low expectations to begin with?

I've now listened to the album in its entirety 3 times.
There are similarities to the Dubstep which I'd heard before (2/4 timing, some warbely-bass lines), how ever, the rhythms are slightly disjointed and varied, the chord progressions go further than a semitone, and the sounds are beautifully sculpted. There are subtle melodic sounds scattering through the sound scape from time to time which make you feel almost as if you're in an electronic jungle, listening to a native robot tribe performing tribal robot music! ...I'm not smoking dope.
And I'm always happy when artists use compression and other production tools in a creative way. There's a lot of side-chaining, but it's very tastefully done. It's not there to increase volume, It's there to vary the dynamics in interesting ways.

I realise now that there are two types of Dubstep (maybe there are more), just like there are two types of pot heads, (the second being the literate pot head). There's the repetitive, lazy, copy/paste stylings of Benga, and then there's this. It's not even fair to compare 2562 with Benga, but it's the only comparison I can make. Maybe this is part of a whole other sub genre... "Intelligent Dubstep" or some bollocks like that. Not as if we need any more genres/sub genres!

Anyway, this blog is extremely long winded, so I'll end it with this:
I shouldn't have disregarded this genre, I'm sure now there are plenty of other Dubstep album's I'd enjoy, and I'm now set on discovering a few!
Thank you 2562 for opening my eyes... ears?

Go to Bleep or Boomkat to listen to previews of Unbalance and purchase the album if you like it. ^.^

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October 25, 2009

Skhizein

Know those days when you feel slightly detached from yourself? This guy is 91cm away from himself!
A short animated french film.
I quite like those cute, grainy characters!

Visit Skhizein website.

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October 25, 2009

Klimek - Movies is Magic

A beautiful album which encompasses the essence and emotion of old film music scores, with a couple of menacing tracks too.

"Lifting its title from a Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks song from their 1995 album, Orange Crate Art, the new Klimek album engages with that age-old idea of creating soundtracks for films that don't exist."...
Read more and listen to previews on Boomkat

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