Category: music

The Little Things: Super Mario Galaxy.

I am apparently so easily amused that you don’t even need to give me a game to make me happy — a good UI is good enough for me.

Electroplankton experiments.

As long as I’m in the mood to post half-assed audio rather than any real blog posts, I might as well put up some experiments I did a while ago with Nintendo’s not-really-a-game, Electroplankton.

Holiday crafts.

Some people cook. Some people decorate. Some people goof around and make crummy little songs.

Phase for iPod.

It’s like Frequency and Vib Ribbon had a little iPod shaped baby, and that is awesome.

The Arcade Fire: Neon Bible.

My biggest problem with Neon Bible may be the mix, although it feels lame to pan an album on technical grounds.

Joanna Newsom: Ys.

I’m listening to Joanna Newsom’s album, Ys, for the third time today, and I’m still not sure what to make of it.

Alchemists of Sound.

The people who made sound effects for the BBC in the 50s and 60s did everything by cutting up little bits of tape and sticking them back together in endlessly inventive ways.

A dangerous discovery.

I may never get any work done again.

You are not a unique snowflake, and that’s OK.

It should probably bother me to discover that my listening preferences overlap so heavily with those of a 24-year-old Colombian woman, or with the entire readership of Cat and Girl.

Why do I have a CD full of nature sounds on my computer?

When last.fm tells me that my favorite artists are Stereolab and They Might be Giants, I’m inclined to ignore it, even though it’s probably right.

Guitar Poseur!

Guitar Hero allows you to play like a rock star without having to bother with niggly little details like actually learning to play the guitar.

The Decemberists: Picaresque.

Great stuff if drinking-hall operettas are your thing, but if they’re not, these songs can get kind of tedious as they wallow in their quaint mannerisms.

Aimee Mann: The Forgotten Arm.

You don’t really need to pay attention to the saga of Caroline and John if you don’t feel like it, though; you can simply appreciate The Forgotten Arm as a really good album.

Monade: A Few Steps More.

With Monade, Laetitia Sadier has room to do her own arrangements of her own songs, and the result is a much warmer, looser sound than the immaculately-produced soundscapes that Stereolab tends towards.

Beck: Gameboy Variations.

Hearing Beck’s spacey voice swaddled in the SID’s sound isn’t a nostalgia trip, it’s what pop music should sound like.

The Arcade Fire: Funeral.

I’ve never been to a funeral. I don’t have a car. These facts don’t prevent me from enjoying The Arcade Fire’s first LP, Funeral.

The Postal Service: Give Up.

I’m still trying to figure out whether it’s a good or bad thing that one of their main influences seems to be The Human League.

Mates of State: All Day.

Mates of State makes joyous, full-throated, big-hearted music, and it’s a wonderful thing to hear.

Bloc Party: Silent Alarm.

The propulsive rhythms and laminated production are no longer at odds, but combine to create a sense of clarity and urgency, of an understanding of what’s wanted and a desperate desire to pursue it.

Eno vs. Crow: Fight!

It’s like a Rorschach Test for your musical allegiances.

Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga: Boss battles and cybernetic rituals.

When we fight a boss battle, we give up the freedom to choose and change the game’s world in favor of performing a specific set of actions under the game’s direction. What’s up with that?

Be careful what you wish for.

GarageBand is fun to play with, and this site needs a theme song. Josh spends a nice afternoon coming up with ways to make your eardrums cry.

Comfort food, a security blanket, Chrissie Hynde’s voice.

Anytime I put this many question marks in a single paragraph, it’s probably a sign that I’m not sleeping well or thinking straight.

Makes me miss my old tractor-fed Epson.

Some person out there, presumably a genius, has gone and reprogrammed an old dot matrix printer for use as a synthesizer.

LEGO Harpsichord.

Screw GarageBand. This is the musical instrument to end all instruments.

Apple: enabling everyone to embarass themselves.

GarageBand is a nice way to make stupid music.

Look out for Puffy Ami Yumi.

Like all Shibuya-Kei artists, Puffy plays mix-and-match with various pop styles, while assiduously avoiding outright parody or kitsch.

Johnny Cash, 1932-2003.

I’m pretty immune to the deaths of celebrities; even Curt Cobain’s suicide left little more than a dull coldness in me. But then I watched Cash’s final music video, for his cover of Nine Inch Nails’s Dirt, and found myself blinking back tears.

Dear God, make it stop, please.

On the fabulous radio show Crap From The Past, Ron Gerber just played a hard-house remix of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” by one DJ Russ Harris.

iTunes? I want my iRoms!

Imagine it: you open up your front end and look up the game you want, the program asks you if you want to download it. Click “buy,” and badabing, badaboom: your credit card is charged, files are downloaded, and away you go.