Beautiful vinyl
-
- Japan
-
- Cantonese Boy
I’m pretty sure that I had this when it first came out, but I’ve just got it again as I’m collecting vinyl once more. It was a beautiful release back then, and still looks and sounds great today.
Molecule Synth news and pictures
-
- Molecule Synth wins
-
- Molecule Synth at maker faire
-
- Molecule getting new features
-
- The new table of elements
Good to see more features coming along to molecule synth. Looks like there’s plenty to look forward to in the not too distant future, and new features that are going to make it easier to interface with other hardware.
Tapes are still lovely: Depeche Mode Cassette Singles
-
- The wonder that is a cassette single
-
- Depeche Mode: Everything Counts
-
- A single side and a live side too
-
- Depeche Mode: Get the Balance Right
With a return to buying vinyl I thought I’d look at cassettes again and I found these on eBay.
The Daphne Oram Tapes
-
- The Oram Tapes 1
-
- The Oram Tapes 2
-
- The Oram Tapes 3
-
- The Oram Tapes 4
Just got this today. Looking forward to listening to it a lot.
Digital, Vinyl, and cassette, music as an art object
Since going along to Rough Trade East for record store day 2013 I’ve been thinking a great deal about formats. There are the obvious ones, vinyl, cassette, CD, digital, all of which I’ve owned stuff on over the years. However, it’s the characteristics of physical formats that I find most interesting and thought provoking, so I thought I’d write something about it.
There’s no doubt in my mind that digital music is incredibly convenient for a lot of my own listening needs. I love using spotify and I’ll often buy music digitally simply because of its convenience. However, remembering a love of vinyl has made start to question my buying and listening habits for the first time in many years, and made me remember some amazing releases in a variety of formats that are more art objects in some cases than just releases.
I’ll start with some tape …
I’ve been a big lover of cassettes since I was in my teens and I still love the idea of the cassette, but I haven’t bought a cassette release for years, or at least that was true until a day or so ago. I still have a handful of cassette releases, but none are as beautiful as the first edition of the Unknown Public, which I only bought on cassette by accident. I’m glad I made the mistake though, it was worth it.
Unknown Public was meant to be a monthly music magazine with a release of a selection of new musical works around a theme. I don’t think it ever became monthly and struggled to even be quarterly. However, every issue was worth a listen, and I’m glad I collected them all. Looking back they’re each a unique object that is more than just the music it contains.
-
- Unknown Public: First Edition
-
- Inside the Unknown Public Box
-
- Unknown Public information
-
- Unknown Public cassette
-
- Cassette inlay
CDs have a bad reputation, but here are a few examples that redeem them
So, the humble CD has had a bad reputation for a while, but I have some nice examples of CD releases that show what can be done with a simple CD release. Here’s David Sylvian’s Manafon boxed set and Amplified Gesture film.
-
- Manafon
-
- Side view
-
- Manafon and Amplified Gesture books
-
- Manafon CD
-
- Amplified Gesture DVD
In the case of the Manafon limited edition set I think that the object itself is almost more beautiful than the actual music, although I do like some of the album, and the DVD of the film is a great insight into the process that Sylvian and the other musicians went through to produce the album.
And so to some vinyl …
-
- Pocket Calculator
-
- Modified Toy Orchestra
There are some wonderful things on vinyl, and I have a few. This was something I realised that I had never listened to until I bought a new turntable the other day.
So, where does this lead? It’s certainly made me rethink how I buy music and how I think about what is important to me in terms of objects that are music. I’ve found myself considering which format to buy things when they’re are options available.
Formats are important, in some ways they add something to the music itself, make it more enjoyable in many ways. I’m enjoying discovering them again, and I hope to even find a few more to explore. One thing that it very interesting is the rise of cassette labels again, but that’s for another post I think.
Another track from me, a little wintery actually
Made with NanoStudio
Record Store Day
Great to see record stores so full. What a great day, I’m so glad I could go along today. Rough Trade East was great even though they’d sold out of what I was after.
Never mind.
OMD, Metroland, and playing things to death
I listened to this on Spotify and was really impressed by how good it was. Very well produced synth pop music. In many ways what you’d expect from OMD. So I played it for a few days and now I’m starting to move on again. I’ve probably over listened to the Metroland remixes and had enough, for now anyway.
So i makes me wonder what is it that gets us to obsessively listen to something for a while, a few days usually in my case, and then move on. Of course, it could just be me, but I don’t think so. I do know that a few of my friends are like this too. It comes in cycles usually. I’ll listen to something intently for a while then put it down, then in a few months or years I’ll come back to it and rediscover just how good it is. I suppose that’s the thing with ‘pop’ music isn’t it.
Revisiting Nine Horses
I had a 40 minute drive to do (each way) today and realised that my iPod was completely out of charge, so I had no choice but to take a couple of CDs with me for the journey. One of these was Nine Horses ‘Snow Bourne Sorrow’, which, in hindsight, as it’s been a snowy day, perhaps wasn’t such a good idea.
Anyway, I listened to Snow Bourne Sorrow on the way home, and I was so pleased that I did. It has amazing songs, but most of all I was impressed with the quality and poignancy of the lyrical content. I’d forgotten these songs, and they deserve a listen quite regularly. So I think a Nine Horses re-listen is on the way for me very soon.
Laurie Spiegel
I couldn’t resist getting a Laurie Spiegel t-shirt after discovering her music and work recently. So here they are, both together.
By the way, Lauris Spiegel’s album “The Expanding Universe” is excellent and well worth a listen.
First ‘patch’ with molecule synth
Starting to try this out with something simple. The analogue into the speaker module controlled by the pressure sensor. Let’s see how it goes.
I don’t know if ‘patch’ is the right word for this though?
Checking through the Wire’s top albums of 2012
This is an annual event where I see just how many albums out of the Wire’s top 50 I have bought or have listened to. I’ve not done too badly at all this year so far, and for the first time I’ve got the no.1 album in the Wire top 50 already! It’s Laurel Halo’s Quarantine, and it is a great album, of that there’s no doubt.
So overall I’ve not done too bad for 2012.
