Monthly Archives: September 2005

5 posts
Music

Resonant Hum

New mix up at AOTM. As always, if you’re interested in a copy, let me know. And, no, don’t ask how I got the Boards of Canada this early.

1) Broken Social Scene: KC Accidental

2) Menomena: The Late Great Libido

3) Architecture in Helsinki: Maybe You Can Owe Me

4) Sufjan Stevens: All Good Naysayers, Speak Up!

5) Butterfly Child: Young Virgins Cry for Mutiny

6) Books: There Is No There

7) Bark Psychosis: 400 Winters

8) Prefuse 73/The Books: Pagina Ocho

9) Boards of Canada: Dayvan Cowboy

10) Explosions in the Sky: Your Hand in Mine

11) Tarentel: For Carl Sagan

12) Yo La Tengo: The Sea Horse

Music

Polygon_Cities by Monolake

If I had to pick an act that serves as the apotheosis of Basic Channel records, it would be Monolake. Like the rest of the roster, Robert Henke (and a revolving crew of collaborators) specialize in German minimalist techno. Sure, there’s a ton of that stuff out there, and most of it is downright embarrasing, but the guys on Basic Channel tend to push it into more interesting directions, if only in subtle ways.

Previous albums had ranged from Musique Concrete or dub experiments, but over the last few records, he’s been pushing in a more rhythmic direction, culminating in 2003’s excellent Momentum. The general mood is dark and metallic, and very sterile. This is music for airport runways at night or dark subway tunnels. There’s very little melody, and samples are used sparingly if at all, and are often so obfuscated as to be unrecognizable.

Polygon_Cities doesn’t push the envelope so much as strain at the edges a bit.

Continued...

Audio Technology

Rockbox: new life for the iRiver ihp-120

I’ve talked about my experiences with the ihp-120 previously. It’s a great piece of hardware, but iRiver really fumbled the software, and though they promised updates to rectify some of the more glaring omissions, nothing was ever released, and the product line has since been eclipsed by newer models. This left many users (myself included) feeling burned.

I ended up returning mine for a Rio Karma, which is a wonderful player, but Rio’s closed up shop, and their promised next-generation players have gone from vaporware to ghostware.

A few months ago, a friend of mine decided to ditch his ihp-120 for one of the new Iaudio players, so I bought it off him for $40. At the very least, it comes in handy as a 20GB portable drive. I never expected to use it as a music player.

Enter Rockbox, the folks who wrote a wonderful open-source firmware for the old Archos series.

Continued...

Civil Rights

More on the forced evacuations in New Orleans

Yet another video feed of citizens being forcibly evicted from their homes in New Orleans. Notice that these houses are not flooded or significantly damaged. Notice also the heavy ordnance that the police are carrying. I guess the 4th amendment is on hold in Louisiana until further notice.

Direct quote: “(…)the police power of the state trumps an individual’s right when there is a public health emergency.”

Welcome to Ted Kennedy’s America.

Humor

Why the internet is evil and sick.

Recent IRC quotes:

<Staberinde> The worst of the bunch was this

* Staberinde points at his crotch

<Staberinde> “Ya know this thing isn’t going to blow itself!”

<CrashCat> it will if you wire it with explosives

<Staberinde> Well yes, but that’s only when the zombies are near

* Ouroboros does a robot dance in FLB’s pants.

<FLB> …

<Ouroboros> Well.

<Ouroboros> I mean.

<Ouroboros> You have spare pants, right?

<FLB> Yeah! Of course!

<FLB> That’s what you meant

<Ouroboros> Yes.

<Ouroboros> It is.

<FLB> Umm.

<FLB> You can keep that pair.

<FLB> They’re on the house.

<Ouroboros> KTHX