Music Posts

• 02.24.09 Music, Alone (Ideas, Me, Music)

  The feelings created by music are so strong, for me, but so ineffable. The problem of perception is usually described using color — how can we know if the visual sensation I call “red” is anything like the one you call “red”? — but only gets worse as you ascend to higher order perceptions, where even names become harder to apply. What do you call the feeling incited by “Guernica”, and even if you find the same words I would, is it the same feeling? And yet vision is our strongest, highest-bandwidth, most describable sense. We struggle to describe sound without using the technical terms of musicians, or vague metaphors.

  It doesn’t help that so much of the music I like is so inward-focused: the guitarist gazing (not at shoes) at effect pedals, the producer sliding waveforms around a timeline, the listener bracketed in headphones like my picture above.… MORE

• 04.12.08 But First, This Brief Message About The End Of The World (Me, Music)

  Speaking of my projects, here’s a different one that’s actually finished: a new mix entitled The Fall Of The Towers.
  … MORE

• 02.26.08 Over 2^32 Sold! (Nearly) (Humor, Music, Computers)

  CUPERTINO, California—February 26, 2008—Apple® today announced that iTunes® (www.itunes.com) is now the number two music retailer in the US, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*. Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers. iTunes has sold over four billion songs, …

  I really hope they thought ahead and used a 64-bit int for the number_of_songs_sold variable, otherwise some Bad Stuff might happen in the … MORE

• 02.24.08 Shiver 2 - A new mix CD (Music)

  
  I’ve just finished a new mix CD. As the name “Shiver 2” implies, it’s a sort-of sequel to my 2003 mix Shiver, with more plucked guitars, tremolo, and glitchy electronics … but where the first was a summer mix, this is music for winter, when no matter how many logs crackle on the fire, rain and wind wait patiently outside.… MORE

• 05.26.07 “Cut The Lights” (Music)

  This is a mix of post-punk (old and new). I made it about a month and a half ago, but hadn’t put together a cover until today. Now it’s ready…

  [web page] [MP3] [more mixes]

  

  

• 02.18.07 Music (Prologue) (Music)

  The problem with writing about something I dislike is that, after the momentary pleasure of getting it off your chest, there’s not a lot of motivation to read people’s responses (especially the argumentative ones.) Better to pick as a topic something that I do like very much … such as music.

  I can’t claim to be an expert on music: I can only barely play an instrument, my dj skills are wack, the theory hurts my brain, and my knowledge is encyclopedic only in a few micro-genres. But I’m rabidly enthusiastic about it; and fortunately, music nowadays is tightly entangled with computer technology, which (like any engineer) I can easily sound like an expert on.

  … MORE

• 05.19.04 Cocteau Twins interview (November 1985) (Music)

  This is one of my favorite interviews ever, and it reminds me of a long-gone era when the Cocteau Twins mattered, mattered really deeply, and were making music I could barely believe possible. Music I was not the only one to find wholly impossible to describe…

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• 08.24.95 Jens The Consumer (Ideas, Me, Music)

  The problem of leisure
  What to do for pleasure
  Ideal love a new purchase
  A market of the senses—Gang Of Four, “Natural’s Not In It”

  “He realizes everything he does is second-hand, a waking dream, a dream someone else has dreamed for him—when he walks into a pub and greets friends with a line he’s half-consciously lifted from last night’s sit-com, he’s an advertisement. He hears himself and he feels tricked, … MORE