Archive for March, 2009

In the world of audio engineering, the name Neve has become almost mythical. Rupert Neve was responsible for a very popular EQ and preamp circuit design that helped produce many a hit record over the years. I personally love the Neve sound and record everything through a set of four Neve clones. While clones are great and can approach the sound of the original, they’re still not truly a Neve. So to see an actual Neve Sidecar show up on Ebay was a surprise. Just seeing pictures of these is pretty intense, I can’t imagine what it would be like to actually use one. To me, the color and design inspire a sort of reverence, kind of like the Futura of the sound engineering world; classic, refined, and functional. At any rate, a $40k mixer is just a dream…but what a nice looking dream.

Our favorite Scandinavian pop star Erlend Oye is back with his band The Whitest Boy Alive, by the sound of it after skipping thru some of the songs on the LP I feel like we got a intimate recording of the band in the studio, each instrument is upfront in big bold letters. I’m really loving the key work on the whole LP, gonna take a walk and check out the whole thing now.

Mux Mool’s new EP dropped today exclusively on iTunes, you may know him from the Ghostly Swim compilation or the intro song for the engadget podcast called gdgt run by Peter Rojas and Ryan Block. The synth bass in this song is as warm as butter and the melody sounds like its straight from a soundtrack for an ending of a 80’s tropical action film, too good to miss.

Digged up an old Casino Versus Japan 10″ that was released on Wobblyhead years back, made me really miss Erik’s work. If your reading this Erik email me i’ll put out your album! damn you’re good at melody my friend.

MF Doom hrrrmm I mean Doom just never fails me, the instrumental here just guns down any imitators, the intro horns remind me of a fuzzy memory of watching an A-Team & Airwolf marathon on the USA Network in 1989.

The Whitest Boy Alive – 1517

Mux Mool – Teal Trim

Casino Versus Japan – Via Rouge

MF Doom – Kon Queso

The above are part of Richard Misrach’s On The Beach, a series of large scale (six by ten feet) photographs of swimmers and sunbathers in Hawaii. You can pick still pick up the book (though it looks like it’s become quite expensive), or if you find yourself on the East Coast, you can see the exhibition in person. It was recently on display the National Gallery and is scheduled to be in Atlanta until August of this year. I highly recommend seeing these in person; they are absolutely massive and are truly awe-inspiring viewed full size.

The last image is my favorite photograph of all time. When I first saw it, it affected me like no photograph ever had. I was left speechless, and am still not able to really explain what it is I find so powerful about it. It’s hard to tell on screen, but the little dot in the water is two people embracing. I like that you can’t see the shore; for all we know, they could be floating out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, all of the photographs were taken out of Misrach’s hotel room window, so they can’t be too far out there, but it’s easy to forget when all shoreline indicators are absent. Perhaps it’s this sense of remoteness and potential danger, combined with the serenity of the overall scene, that gets to me. I feel worried and calm at the same time. I would almost fly to Atlanta just to see it again; it’s like a drug.

“The Olivetti Lettera 32 is a portable mechanical typewriter designed by Marcello Nizzoli for Olivetti in 1963 as the successor of the popular Olivetti Lettera 22. This typewriter was popular amongst journalists and students.
The typewriter is sized about 34x35x10 cm (with the carriage return lever adding about 1-2 more centimeters in height), making it portable at least for the time’s standards, even though its 5.9 kg weight may limit portability somewhat.”
– Wikipedia

A friend that I used to work at Adobe with sent me this Adobe UI Gripes site yesterday. I really can’t say why I find it so amusing but maybe it’s just nice to see someone going through the same frustration I feel sometimes with Adobe apps. I guess when you’ve essentially monopolized the creative software market like Adobe, you make a pretty easy target for stuff like this. Anyways, it’s a fun read and there are gems like this sprinkled around here and there. I’ve encountered a lot of these before and just asked why, but I’m not sure I ever got as worked up as this. Link

Realistically, I really only have a few problems with CS4. At the top of the list would be Bridge. Somewhere around CS3 Adobe decided to cripple Windows machines and remove the thumbnail icon viewing capability from the OS file explorer thereby forcing you to use Bridge (pretty clever). This wouldn’t be a big deal, I actually like Bridge a lot, only problem is it crashes nearly every time I use it for more than 10 minutes. There’s a fix for 32-bit windows installs but not for 64-bit so we’re left with the generic icon when trying to browse PSD’s in explorer. A couple others would be the permanent hand icon mode (you’ll know it if you’ve encountered it…thankfully there’s any easy fix: reset warning dialogs, but why?) and the delay in dragging content from one tabbed window in Photoshop to another tabbed document, you have to hold that thing up there for waaay too long. How about you, what Adobe bugs do you love to hate?

Our very own Alex Cornell designed this poster for the live 2 hour solo acoustic set he’ll be playing this Thursday at the California Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Be there! His set is part of the Nightlife series featuring a lecture by WIRED magazine.

Edit: Unfortunately, it looks like it’s sold out.

Edit #2: Apparently there are tickets to be had at the door. Just make sure to show up a bit early…

I’ve been seeing these 2 Periodic Tables floating around, the larger version of the typeface one is pretty fun to look over and I guess the Photoshop CS shortcuts one is a poster and there’s also ones for Illustrator and InDesign as well.

Track Listing:
School Of Seven Bells – Half Asleep
Gang Gang Dance – Egowar
Mahogany – One Plus One Equals Three Or M
Empire Of The Sun – Walking On A Dream
The Whitest Boy Alive vs Mylo vs Cut Copy – Otto’s Golden Journey (Andy Webb’s Dreamy Blend)
Phoenix – 1901
Air France – No Excuses
College – The Energy Story
Christ. – Cordate
Flying Lotus – Auntie’s lock/Infinitum (featuring Laura Darlington)
Flying Lotus – Roberta Flack (Mike Slott’s Other Mix)
The Avalanches – Since I Left You (Cornelius Remix)
Super Furry Animals – Some Things Come from Nothing
Engineers – Let’s Just See
Sigur Rós – Gobbledigook
French Kicks – Abandon
Blind Man’s Colour – Brother Sport (Animal Collective Cover)
Beirut – The Concubine
The Kooks – Kids (MGMT Cover)
Benoit Pioulard – Ash in the Sky
Bibio – Bewley In Grey
Daedelus – Experience

Unless you’re an RSS subscriber (if you are, click here to view player), you’ve probably noticed the new audio player at the top of the page. I’ve been wanting to add a flash based player for a long time because while the small single track player we have been using (and will continue to use) for music posts is good, it’s not something you can just turn on and let it play while you work. This new player is based on the JW Player framework and supports XML playlists and all the good stuff. It was a total pain to develop though, the documentation was a little thin in the skinning department so it’s been a very protracted process to say the least. I ironed out the last kinks over the past week so here it is…finally: the ISO50 Playlist. We’ll be refreshing the playlist often, usually with 16 or so song mixes probably every couple weeks or so.

The initial mix I put in tonight is just a collection of some of my favorites from the blog over the past year or so, nothing too specific or themed. Every song in the player (now and in the future) will be songs that we’ve previously posted on, so if you’re looking for more information on the song or artist just type it in the search box below (also new…well the design at least) and the relevant post(s) should come up. This is definitely a beta so give me the heads up in the comments if you run into any issues with the player as only a few people have tested it so far. On a related note, I’ve added a “featured posts” column in the hopes that it will make older posts a little more discoverable. I’ll also be adding a “featured categories” section next week as well in which I’ll try to compile some nice groupings of related articles on various subjects. As the blog gets on in years and the posts pile up, most of these additions are aimed squarely at highlighting older content, music and otherwise.

All of these changes and additions may get you thinking about the redesign I had discussed a while back. I haven’t given up on that plan, but it’s definitely taken a back seat as the process of finishing up my next album has sort of consumed me. I decided to make some incremental upgrades (like those mentioned above) using the current theme and then treat the redesign as it’s own phase a little later. Still contemplating that light background…

At any rate, the Playlist is here and I hope you enjoy! As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated.

You may have seen Ryan Jeffery’s name on the blog before, he did the Benoit Pioulard video about a year ago. I first met Ryan when he did live visuals for Adelaide, he floored me, not only was the band amazing but the visuals that Ryan put together couldn’t of been done more perfectly. Ryan is the real deal, he would have about 3 mic stands around him and would have the top bar sitting horizontal that held about 80+ looped pieces of 8mm film each taped together separately making it look like he was surround by 80+ fastened thin belts. He then had 2 vintage projectors that sat side by side and pointed in the same spot on the screen that sat behind the band. What set him apart from any visual show was that he layered the 2 projections and would slowly fade in and out live and did his damnedest to sync his visuals with the music while changing the 8mm film live like a mad man. It was pure genius and I still to this day couldn’t believe his dedication to the minute by minute work he put in for every show. To explain how breathe taking the show was I one time saw Adelaide play in Lansing, MI a few years back and they played a show that had 9 bands playing that night but all of them were hardcore bands besides Adelaide, I stood their with the band and most of us had some kind of western shirt on or a plain tee but every single other person I swear had a black hoodie waiting to mosh and once Adelaide started and Ryan had the visuals going each and every kid sat down in that building indian style like 1st graders and watched them play each song, I couldn’t believe it.

I really had to dig for these videos and figure out how to convert them so I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, I hope Ryan doesn’t mind that I grabbed them off a DVD that he gave years ago, maybe if enough of us fall in love with them he’ll let us keep them up.

Adelaide – Bombadiers

Adelaide – Bombadiers from Moodgadget on Vimeo.

Adelaide – Entrance

Adelaide – Entrance from Moodgadget on Vimeo.

I know very little about Sebastian B. besides the fact that he has a great record collection, when I visited Cincinnati last summer and ran into the super kind guy that was full of knowledge about his vinyl I realized he was pretty old school about things, I don’t even think he has a myspace which is pretty unbelievable to me in 2009 but also a nice change of pace. The tracks he picks in this mix range from 1981 to now, I really adore the ending few songs but one thing I learned about mixes recently from Michna who put out a mixtape on cassette this year is that they’re not made to be skipped around on to find what you want, you just have to trust the DJ that put it together to give you an hour of fresh and enjoyable songs.

DOYOUPKMELANGE? mixed by Sebastian B.

DJ Harvey/Mystic Slot
No Way Back/Disco Adventure (Black Cock/UK) (London/Los Angeles) (1993)

Trus’me
Nards (White) (Manchester/UK) (2008)/(Jacques Renault Laser EFX – IGETRVNG/NY) 

Phreek Plus One
New York Dolls (CompostBlackLabel/Munich) (Brescia/Italy) (2007)

Runaway
Just Got Paid (Wurst Edits/NY) (New York) (2008)

Force of Nature
Unstoppable (Version Idjut) (Headinghome/LA) (Tokyo/UK) (2005)

Kerri Chandler
Track 1 Atmosphere EP (157Shelter/NY) (New Jersey) (1991)

Chez Damier
A 2 1/2 Step (KMS/Detroit) (Chicago) (1992)

Radio Slave
RJ (RunningBack/Munich) (Berlin/UK) (2009)

Still Going
On and On (DFA/NY) (New York) (2007)

The Orb
A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld: Live Mix MK10 (Big Life/UK) (1991)

Grover Washington Jr.
I Can’t Help it (Motown/Detroit) (1980) (C/O (W)ALTZ SUNDAY HAPPYSET)

Linda DiFranco
T.V. Scene (WEA) (Tokyo/Italy) (1985)

Ryuichi Sakamoto
Saronoie (Plexus/Holland) (Tokyo) (1981)

Loose Joints
Tell You Today (Dub Version) (4th&Broadway/NY) (New York/Iowa) (1983)

Recorded using 92% vinyl

DOWNLOAD THE MIX HERE

Sebastian B. – DOYOUPKMELANGE?