Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Better late than never? My fave music of 2011.
Here’s my thoughts on 2011 music to which I listened and
preferred:
This year I got overwhelmed by the amount of music I
listened to for 2011. This semester in my MIS class, I had an Access
project to do, so I decided to use that as a way to solidify my rankings.
I think the running total for new albums last year for me was well over
300. I arbitrarily chose a five-star rating system, and the following
list is everything that scored 4.5 or higher. There’s additionally lots
of stuff I liked that was rated between 3.5 and 4, but that would make this
list just too unwieldy. Big surprise for me—almost no metal made the
list! Also, there’s lots of links for you to hear and watch for yourself.
Here we go!
Esmerine – La Lechuza ( http://soundcloud.com/constellation-records/sets/esmerine-la-lechuza-preview
)
What I would classify as Post Rock and Modern Classical
(which gets a lot of love from me this last year). Similar to Godspeed
You! Black Emperor and the world/folk of someone like Dead Can Dance.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Really fun and kinda weird Dutch rock band that reminds me a
lot of Faith No More, not so much because they sound like them (although the
vocalist does have some very Mike Patton moments), but because they have a
large variety of styles that somehow meld into a cohesive whole. Aside
from Faith No More, they also remind me of Queens of the Stone Age, Firewater,
Spoon, Man Man, Tom Waits, ZZ Top and probably some other stuff I can’t
remember right now. I’m betting they are a lot of fun live, but because
they are Dutch they will probably never come remotely close. In addition
to some of the videos you can see on the previous link, here’s a few
more. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIy6iGg5vt8&feature=related
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orrQGLIJMTQ
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hZ-3RevUzc&feature=relmfu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Atlas Moth – An Ache for the Distance (http://www.screamingattheskypoundingontheearth.blogspot.com/2012/04/atlas-moth-your-calm-waters.html
)
One of my few metal entries (really, the only one), these
guys are if Mastodon ate Alice in Chains and then had sex with A Storm of Light
while listening to Thou.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Noah Gundersen – Family (http://noahgundersen.bandcamp.com/
)
Heard this guy first on the last season of Sons of Anarchy,
and had to go find out who it was. Folky and a bit like Damien Rice, it’s
all good, but my fave is the title track.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glorie – Glorie (http://glorierock.com/album/glorie
)
Another instrumental, Post Rock, Modern Classical
group. Moments of Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and movie-scorer
Clint Mansell. Here’s my fave, http://www.screamingattheskypoundingontheearth.blogspot.com/2012/03/glorie-looking-through-mirror.html
.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graveyard – Hisingen Blues (http://www.nuclearblast.de/de/label/music/band/diskographie/details/265695.219863.hisingen-blues.html
)
Mainly grabbed this because it was turning up on a lot of
the blogs I visit and I thought the album cover was fantastic. It’s as if
a classic rock band has been transported to modern times. Think Led
Zeppelin, Soundgarden, Trouble. http://vimeo.com/35288994
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Julia Kent – Green and Grey (http://music.juliakent.com/album/green-and-grey
)
Another Modern Classical. She’s a cellist for Antony
& the Johnsons, though I didn’t know that until later. This is also
in the vein of Clint Mansell or Kronos Quartet—think the scores to the movies
Last Requiem For a Dream, The Fountain and Sunshine.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light (http://soundcloud.com/igamusic/sets/tv-on-the-radio-nine-types
)
If you know Christin and I, you have already heard most, if
not all, of this. One of our favorite bands, and this album might be my
favorite yet. They manage to meld rock with electronic and R&B and
manage to sound like something completely their own. That being said,
it’s kind of like David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Prince playing together.
Sexy, sexy = http://www.screamingattheskypoundingontheearth.blogspot.com/2011/05/tv-on-radio-will-do.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Radiohead – The Daily Mail & Staircase (http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/111219/The-Daily-Mail--Staircase
)
This is kind of cheating. These are actually B-sides
recorded during the King of Limbs album sessions. That album has taken
more than a year to grow on me, and didn’t quite make the list. It’s the
version of Radiohead that does electronic music. It is essentially a
chillout record. These two songs however, are reminders that they can
still write songs the rest of the band besides Jonny and Thom can play live.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Olafur Arnalds – Living Room Songs (http://livingroomsongs.olafurarnalds.com/
)
Yet another Modern Classical, Post Rock album, this one from
the land of Bjork and SIgur Ros. Here’s what the website says about this
album: “Icelandic contemporary composer Ólafur Arnalds created and released a
new song, one per day for a whole week during the month of October 2011. The
songs were recorded and filmed live in the living room of his Reykjavik
apartment and released instantly for free as streamed videos and mp3
downloads.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saul Williams – Volcanic Sunlight (http://www.saulwilliams.com/ )
Again, if you know us, you know this already (especially
since most of you travelled with us to see him live). We have loved all
of his work, but this one is more pop and less hip hop than usual. It
came at the right time for us, as it seemed his spiritual and personal journey
was mirroring our own. It is a positive album. An album of
love. If you watch the interview underneath the video for DNA on the
website, you will hear that it was the first album he created that was not out
of anger.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foo Fighters – Wasting Light (http://wastinglight.foofighters.com/
)
We watched a documentary on the Foos right after this came
out. I had listened to the album, but not paid that much attention.
The doc reminded me how many great songs they had written, and just how cool
and down-to-earth Dave Grohl really is. I’d argue that if the first song,
Bridge Burning, doesn’t get you pumped, then you just don’t like rock
music. My personal fave is Dear Rosemary, which features really cool
backing vocals from Bob Gould from Husker Du and Sugar. This in turn, led
me to listening to some of his stuff, and I must say, when you hear Bob Mould’s
solo stuff, you will hear where Dave gets his melodic influences from. We
also took Christin’s 14 year old nephew to see them for his first concert,
which let us be the “cool” aunt and uncle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-DB2btV2oQ
)
By now, you probably already know who these guys are,
especially if you know what’s going on in the country music world.
They’ve had careers before becoming the Civil Wars, written songs for other
artists, won Grammys and been featured on the second biggest movie of the
year’s soundtrack. I was unfamiliar until bloggers I follow almost
unanimously put this album on their year end lists. They’ll probably just
get bigger and bigger if they keep writing albums like this one. Plus,
they are both pretty easy on the eyes, no?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Puscifer – Conditions of My Parole (https://store.puscifer.com/ )
Vastly prefer this album to their first. I’ve always
described Puscifer as Maynard’s attempt to make trip hop like Massive Attack
and Tricky. If you go into it expecting either Tool or A Perfect Circle,
you will probably be disappointed. Ever since Maynard has been harvesting
grapes from his vineyards in the hills of the Arizona desert, water has become
an even more present theme in his lyrics. Live show is really fun; a mix
of vaudeville, music and philosophizin’ (plus now he uses one of my celebrity
crushes in his touring band).
Love it in this video when he prompts “Go Shaefer!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bigVpjDEoCo
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lamb – 5 (http://www.last.fm/music/Lamb/5
)
Speaking of Trip Hop, Lamb reunited after a long hiatus, and
I’d say the time off served them well. These guys started not long after
other acts, like Portishead and Massive Attack, but didn’t get quite the same
attention over here in the states. Lamb is kind of the other side of the
coin opposite Portishead. Where Portishead is more samples and blues,
with Beth Gibbons’ tortured lyrics and darkness-soaked vocals, Lamb is more
drum n bass and jazzy, with Lou Rhodes’ words more positive and empowering and
her vocals more childlike and light. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMQVqps9utg
By the way, here’s the video that got my attention back in
the late 90’s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt1Ef_ai_C4
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alfheimr – What Allows Us to Endure (http://alfheimr.bandcamp.com/album/what-allows-us-to-endure
)
OK, another Post Rock album! The answer to the
potential question asked by the title of the album? Hope. I’m not
sure if he’s from Iceland or not, but he’s definitely influenced by Sigur
Ros. Obviously also a reader of Kundera. He is incredibly
prolific—if you look at his Bandcamp, you’ll see he released several albums
last year, but this is the one I liked the best. His albums are also
quite different. Some are more like Sigur Ros and Mogwai, while others
drift towards the electronic (like M83), and yet others are more ambient or
just soundscapes instead of the typical song structure. He pretty much
does everything himself, including recording. Fun fact, Alfheimr is home
to the elves in Norse mythology.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LHIYEf7nro
)
You probably already know these guys too; they’ve been
around awhile. Some people, too cool for me, complain over the change in
his sound, especially recent live shows. He’s still folky, but live, the
arrangements are often different, not just structurally, but the range of instruments
as well. He’s got an incredibly talented backing band (lots of guys that
used to play in Califone), and yes, that is Marketa Irglova (from the movie
Once and the Swell Season with Glen Hansard) you see in the video doing backing
vocals. People that are complaining simply haven’t been paying
attention—his introduction of additional and electric instruments, as well as
percussion and drums started back in 2005. He reminds me of a lot of
classic folksters: James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, Dan Fogelberg, Cat
Stevens. I like how his music seems like it comes from another
time. And those different arrangements? We thought every change was
really cool when we saw them live, and that is the mark of a talented
songwriter.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Saul Williams - DNA / Coded Language
From what looks to be a cool website that I must spend some time perusing, http://www.southernsouls.ca/
8 Visionaries on How They Spot the Future
From Wired.com:
Spotting the future is an art. We asked eight of our favorite visionaries for their techniques.
Paul Saffo
A longtime technology forecaster, Saffo is a managing director at the Silicon Valley investment research firm Discern. Formerly the director of the Institute for the Future, he is also a consulting professor in Stanford University’s engineering department.
There are four indicators I look for: contradictions, inversions, oddities, and coincidences. In 2007 stock prices and gold prices were both soaring. Usually you don’t see those prices high at the same time. When you see a contradiction like that, it means more fundamental change is ahead. The second indicator is an inversion, where you see something that’s out of place. When the Mexican police captured the head of a drug cartel, in the photos the perpetrators were looking proudly at the camera while the cops were wearing ski masks. Usually it’s the reverse. To me that was an indicator that Mexico was very far from winning its war against the cartels. Then there are oddities. When the Roomba robot vacuum was introduced in 2002, all the engineers I know were very excited, and I don’t recall them owning vacuums. I said, this is damn strange. This is not about cleaning floors, this is about scratching some kind of itch. It’s about something happening with robots. Finally, there are coincidences. At the fourth Darpa Grand Challenge in 2007, a bunch of robots successfully drove in a simulated suburb. The same day, there was a 118-car pileup on a California highway. We had robots that understand the California vehicle code better than humans, and a bunch of humans crashing into each other. That said to me, really, people shouldn’t drive.
Esther Dyson
Founder of the influential Release 1.0 newsletter and PC Forum conference director, Dyson is an angel investor in technology, health care, and space travel companies. She sits on the boards of 23andMe, the Long Now Foundation, the Santa Fe Institute, and Evernote, among others.
The first thing I do is go where other people aren’t. I leave Silicon Valley and spend a lot of time not just in New York but in Russia and in other far-off places. Any time you approach something as an outsider, you’re able to see what people who are familiar with it can’t. I love traveling because I love seeing how many different ways there are to do things. The other thing is to be curious. My parents are both scientists, so I learned to ask "Why, why, why?" Mostly I look at what I’m interested in, and that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what the world will find interesting. I can be self-indulgent.
Juan Enriquez
Enriquez is managing director at Excel Medical Ventures and chair and CEO of Biotechonomy, a Boston investment firm. He’s the author of The Untied States of America and As the Future Catches You.
A clear view of the future is often obstructed by taking too much for granted. Like: "We are the human species." Really? It turns out that when you consider Cro-Magnon, Australopithecus, etc., we’ve had 29 upgrades. So unless you believe that the purpose of all of this evolution was to create Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern and then flatline, you have to ask: Is it possible to have another upgrade? Or what about "In 50 years, the US flag will still have 50 stars"? So why would you assume continuity for the next 50 years? It’s when we question our most cherished assumptions that it gets really interesting to play with this stuff.
Tim O’Reilly
Founder of the eponymous tech book publisher, O’Reilly launched several influential gatherings of the technorati, including Web 2.0, Foo Camp, and Maker Faire.
I don’t really think I spot the future; I spot the things in the present that tell us something about the future. I look for interesting people. I find the cool kids and then say, what are they doing? The myth of innovation is that it starts with entrepreneurs, but it really starts with people having fun. The Wright brothers weren’t trying to build an airline, they were saying, "Holy shit, do you think we could fly?" The first kids who made snowboards, they just glued skis together and said, "Let’s try this!" With the web, none of us thought there was money in it. People said, "This document came from halfway around the world. How awesome is that!"
Vint Cerf
As a Stanford professor in the 1970s, Cerf co-invented TCP/IP with Bob Kahn. He helped pioneer packet-switching and went on to lead development of email and data infrastructure at MCI. In 2005, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Cerf is now chief Internet evangelist at Google.
I like Alan Kay’s comment "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." Sometimes spotting the future is really a question of realizing what’s now possible and actually trying it out. In my case, working with Bob Kahn, what became the Internet was not possible until certain economic conditions were satisfied—equipment had to be affordable, certain kinds of technology had to be readily available. So some things get invented because it is suddenly possible to invent them.
Chris Sacca
A former Googler, tech executive, and venture capital attorney, Sacca invests in early-stage startups through his firm, Lowercase Capital. His portfolio companies include Facebook, Instagram, Posterous, Twitter, and Uber.
How do I spot the future? Two words: flux capacitor. No, really—I think we venture capitalists get too much credit for predicting the future. We can look very prescient when we talk about why we invested in a company, but we’re wrong more than we’re right. It just turns out that when we’re right, we’re really, really right. It used to be that when you invested in a company, you looked at a business plan. But now we don’t have to invest in ideas anymore; now I invest in live URLs and apps that I can download. Plus, the users do the due diligence for us. I search Twitter to see what actual users are saying about something I want to invest in: Is it buggy? Is it a pain in the ass? Are they evangelizing it? After seeing hundreds of positive mentions of Heroku on Twitter, I was in. Salesforce ended up buying it for $225 million. Another thing I do: I walk around Best Buy every three to four weeks and watch people. When you do this, you see how normal people make product decisions, what their price breaking points might be. In a world of people who’ve got stock options, there isn’t a difference between a $80 thing and a $110 thing, but for real people working hourly wages, there is a huge difference.
Joi Ito
Ito is director of the MIT Media Lab and the former CEO of Creative Commons. He was an early-stage investor in Flickr, Twitter, and Kickstarter.
I believe in serendipity, and in the strength of weak ties. I connect with people from different fields and different places and always use pattern recognition and peripheral vision to spot opportunities in unlikely places. Agility is essential. Your ability to respond to a suddenly emerging trend is most important. During the financial crisis, the companies that were successful were prepared for anything. Most of the people had prepared for the wrong things. By being agile and having your antennas out, you can react when you see the trend starting, rather than relying on these multiyear, multimillion-dollar analyses on the future of X. Instead of being a futurist, you want to be a nowist.
Peter Schwartz
A cofounder of Global Business Network and a senior vice president at Salesforce.com, Schwartz is an expert in scenario planning and the author of several books, including The Art of the Long View and The Long Boom.
You look for technologies that are likely to create major inflection points—breaks in a trend, things that are going to accelerate. Those tend to be very powerful. This is especially true with scientific technology and tools. For example, we are seeing the speed and cost of DNA testing falling dramatically—there’s now a $1,000 DNA tester. That’s clearly going to create an inflection point in the health care curve. Another way to anticipate change is to watch where scientific talent is heading. Science advances in part by attracting talented people. So if an area is attracting great talent and money from governments and companies, you can expect to see important change.
Spotting the future is an art. We asked eight of our favorite visionaries for their techniques.
Paul Saffo
A longtime technology forecaster, Saffo is a managing director at the Silicon Valley investment research firm Discern. Formerly the director of the Institute for the Future, he is also a consulting professor in Stanford University’s engineering department.
There are four indicators I look for: contradictions, inversions, oddities, and coincidences. In 2007 stock prices and gold prices were both soaring. Usually you don’t see those prices high at the same time. When you see a contradiction like that, it means more fundamental change is ahead. The second indicator is an inversion, where you see something that’s out of place. When the Mexican police captured the head of a drug cartel, in the photos the perpetrators were looking proudly at the camera while the cops were wearing ski masks. Usually it’s the reverse. To me that was an indicator that Mexico was very far from winning its war against the cartels. Then there are oddities. When the Roomba robot vacuum was introduced in 2002, all the engineers I know were very excited, and I don’t recall them owning vacuums. I said, this is damn strange. This is not about cleaning floors, this is about scratching some kind of itch. It’s about something happening with robots. Finally, there are coincidences. At the fourth Darpa Grand Challenge in 2007, a bunch of robots successfully drove in a simulated suburb. The same day, there was a 118-car pileup on a California highway. We had robots that understand the California vehicle code better than humans, and a bunch of humans crashing into each other. That said to me, really, people shouldn’t drive.
Esther Dyson
Founder of the influential Release 1.0 newsletter and PC Forum conference director, Dyson is an angel investor in technology, health care, and space travel companies. She sits on the boards of 23andMe, the Long Now Foundation, the Santa Fe Institute, and Evernote, among others.
The first thing I do is go where other people aren’t. I leave Silicon Valley and spend a lot of time not just in New York but in Russia and in other far-off places. Any time you approach something as an outsider, you’re able to see what people who are familiar with it can’t. I love traveling because I love seeing how many different ways there are to do things. The other thing is to be curious. My parents are both scientists, so I learned to ask "Why, why, why?" Mostly I look at what I’m interested in, and that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what the world will find interesting. I can be self-indulgent.
Juan Enriquez
Enriquez is managing director at Excel Medical Ventures and chair and CEO of Biotechonomy, a Boston investment firm. He’s the author of The Untied States of America and As the Future Catches You.
A clear view of the future is often obstructed by taking too much for granted. Like: "We are the human species." Really? It turns out that when you consider Cro-Magnon, Australopithecus, etc., we’ve had 29 upgrades. So unless you believe that the purpose of all of this evolution was to create Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern and then flatline, you have to ask: Is it possible to have another upgrade? Or what about "In 50 years, the US flag will still have 50 stars"? So why would you assume continuity for the next 50 years? It’s when we question our most cherished assumptions that it gets really interesting to play with this stuff.
Tim O’Reilly
Founder of the eponymous tech book publisher, O’Reilly launched several influential gatherings of the technorati, including Web 2.0, Foo Camp, and Maker Faire.
I don’t really think I spot the future; I spot the things in the present that tell us something about the future. I look for interesting people. I find the cool kids and then say, what are they doing? The myth of innovation is that it starts with entrepreneurs, but it really starts with people having fun. The Wright brothers weren’t trying to build an airline, they were saying, "Holy shit, do you think we could fly?" The first kids who made snowboards, they just glued skis together and said, "Let’s try this!" With the web, none of us thought there was money in it. People said, "This document came from halfway around the world. How awesome is that!"
Vint Cerf
As a Stanford professor in the 1970s, Cerf co-invented TCP/IP with Bob Kahn. He helped pioneer packet-switching and went on to lead development of email and data infrastructure at MCI. In 2005, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Cerf is now chief Internet evangelist at Google.
I like Alan Kay’s comment "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." Sometimes spotting the future is really a question of realizing what’s now possible and actually trying it out. In my case, working with Bob Kahn, what became the Internet was not possible until certain economic conditions were satisfied—equipment had to be affordable, certain kinds of technology had to be readily available. So some things get invented because it is suddenly possible to invent them.
Chris Sacca
A former Googler, tech executive, and venture capital attorney, Sacca invests in early-stage startups through his firm, Lowercase Capital. His portfolio companies include Facebook, Instagram, Posterous, Twitter, and Uber.
How do I spot the future? Two words: flux capacitor. No, really—I think we venture capitalists get too much credit for predicting the future. We can look very prescient when we talk about why we invested in a company, but we’re wrong more than we’re right. It just turns out that when we’re right, we’re really, really right. It used to be that when you invested in a company, you looked at a business plan. But now we don’t have to invest in ideas anymore; now I invest in live URLs and apps that I can download. Plus, the users do the due diligence for us. I search Twitter to see what actual users are saying about something I want to invest in: Is it buggy? Is it a pain in the ass? Are they evangelizing it? After seeing hundreds of positive mentions of Heroku on Twitter, I was in. Salesforce ended up buying it for $225 million. Another thing I do: I walk around Best Buy every three to four weeks and watch people. When you do this, you see how normal people make product decisions, what their price breaking points might be. In a world of people who’ve got stock options, there isn’t a difference between a $80 thing and a $110 thing, but for real people working hourly wages, there is a huge difference.
Joi Ito
Ito is director of the MIT Media Lab and the former CEO of Creative Commons. He was an early-stage investor in Flickr, Twitter, and Kickstarter.
I believe in serendipity, and in the strength of weak ties. I connect with people from different fields and different places and always use pattern recognition and peripheral vision to spot opportunities in unlikely places. Agility is essential. Your ability to respond to a suddenly emerging trend is most important. During the financial crisis, the companies that were successful were prepared for anything. Most of the people had prepared for the wrong things. By being agile and having your antennas out, you can react when you see the trend starting, rather than relying on these multiyear, multimillion-dollar analyses on the future of X. Instead of being a futurist, you want to be a nowist.
Peter Schwartz
A cofounder of Global Business Network and a senior vice president at Salesforce.com, Schwartz is an expert in scenario planning and the author of several books, including The Art of the Long View and The Long Boom.
You look for technologies that are likely to create major inflection points—breaks in a trend, things that are going to accelerate. Those tend to be very powerful. This is especially true with scientific technology and tools. For example, we are seeing the speed and cost of DNA testing falling dramatically—there’s now a $1,000 DNA tester. That’s clearly going to create an inflection point in the health care curve. Another way to anticipate change is to watch where scientific talent is heading. Science advances in part by attracting talented people. So if an area is attracting great talent and money from governments and companies, you can expect to see important change.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage
This song is a beast. Probably my most anticipated release of the summer. Below is the studio version.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
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