The Tree of mrcury

Earlier tonight I came across this great article by Rob Sheridan which covers the topic of music distribution in a market led by major labels’ interests, after the murder of the great filesharing community OiNK.cd. I wasn’t part of the OiNK community, but I wish I had. The original announcement on the shutdown website couldn’t have depicted it further from the truth.

If you’re ready for a long read, take it away. There are also some worthy links in the article. Yeah, so much to make you spend the night reading blogs and news posts like I happened to… I was discussing the possibility to translate it to italian and let it spread a bit like it deserves to. I think I will, maybe with a little help.

Coming up next, a cross-blog post where I explain why I’m pissed at Radiohead.

There isn’t much to write, there is a lot more to read.

Music is not a product.

Let me repeat that for you: music is not a product. Read it aloud and listen to the sound: music is not a product.

MUSIC IS NOT A PRODUCT.

Check this Pitchfork article out: photography and electronic music compared, intertwined, deconstructed, glorified. Kind of.

Electronic music and photography have more than a few things in common: crucially, both genres’ dependence upon mechanical, electronic and/or digital reproduction. Perhaps more importantly, both genres have lagged behind their older “siblings” (painting or traditional acoustic or electrically amplified music) in becoming fully recognized and validated on their own terms. Far from being a coincidence, their shaky reputations are wholly wrapped up in their reproductive methods.

And

Electronic music– especially in its popular, club-oriented forms– remains a second-class citizen, the black sheep of the musical flock, for many of the same reasons that photography was denigrated for so long: Mediated principally by machines, it’s often believed to be inauthentically expressive– the expression not of the artist but of the automatic device he or she wields.

I’m drooling. I’ve also found out about Gabriel Ananda. Nice minimalist techno. I want to do electronic music so bad. It just sound easy! I love it. I miss the good days when I used to compose electronic pieces with ReBirth. That was so fun and easy. That’s what makes it for me: you can basically have a finished product in few hours. I heard Aphex Twin saying how even back in the mid-90’s he had some 150 hours of completed music. Think about it.

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, mail- upgrade it, charge it, point it, zoom it, press it, snap it, work it, quick- erase it, write it, cut it, paste it, save it, load it, check it, quick- rewrite it, plug it, play it, burn it, rip it, drag it, drop it, zip- unzip it, lock it, fill it, curl it, find it, view it, coat it, jam- unlock it, surf it, scroll it, pose it, click it, cross it, crack it, twitch- update it, name it, rate it, tune it, print it, scan it, send it, fax- rename it, touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it, turn it, leave it, stop- format it.

I have too much James Brown in my Playlist. I have made an unwritten contract with myself, stating

“I shall listen to every song in my iTunes playlist at least once”.

But there’s just too much James Brown, and too much Pearl Jam also. Not that I don’t like those, they’re on my playlist for a reason. But too much is too much. I think I’ll skip it and see if I can get something new on random.

Oh, noes! It played through. np: Mountain Goats - Prana Ferox. Better.

I read it on greenplastic: Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has an album coming out for XL records. It’s titled The Eraser and I don’t know why but it makes me giggle. The animation on the official website is great, I just love that graphic style. I’m eagerly waiting for the release, july 11th.

Sweet! I really didn’t think I could find a brand new copy of this anywhere in the nation. This is the brand new entry in my Halos collection. Still missing: Halo 01, Halo 02, Halo 03, Halo 04, Halo 09, Halo 11, Halo 12, Halo 13, Halo 15, Halo 17, Halo 20, Halo 21. What cracked me up is that they’ve written the BPM for each track on the CD. March Of The Pigs counts 269 BPM.