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Welcome to Iceworld

OK, I really have to get back to blogging again. I suppose I blog the most when exciting and interesting things are happening, but the last few weeks, filled with chores between the end of one semester and the start of the next, have been difficult to say the least. I have tried hard to keep my weekends free from work-related tasks at least, though - with varying levels of success. Will try and post a few updates on current projects over the next few days.

One thing I have been able to do is to compile Iceworld, a CD of some ambient soundscapes I've tinkered with over the last few months. These are mainly improvs very much in a 'drone, bleep, blurt' mode, recorded live and edited into a series of individual tracks. The CD clocks in at just over 70 minutes and generally has a somewhat antarctic feel to me (hence the title); I've made it available here in MP3 format under a Creative Commons licence. Having listened to them a few times today, I'm quite fond of these tracks - "The Factory Ship" in particular has some very impressive bottom end on a good sub-woofer... Any comments are very welcome. (I might write a little more about how I've recorded these at another time.)

Iceworld CD

Iceworld front coverIceworld
Snurb



Tracks:

Iceworld Suite

(26:43)

Consumer Alert

Following on from my recent email conversation with King Crimson biographer Sid Smith, he's asked me to help pass on this alert to fans:

Inside King Crimson DVD and CD

A statement from Robert Fripp and DGM

The Inside The Music series is a "pot of gold" for Bob Carruthers & classic rock productions. It addresses a valuable & useful area of popular music studies; but in a cheap, nasty & cynical fashion that exploits everyone & scams the artists, the music & the fans.

Open Source Panel

Early Start...We've now started the last day of the conference proper here in Helsinki - with a session on open source cultures that also contains my own paper. I'll blog most of this but of course not my paper itself - I'll upload this to this site soon. Not a bad turnout for a 9.30 start on a Saturday morning, either!

Mark Tribe has now made a start on his panel, beginning with a brief history of free and open source software (FOSS) and its ideology. But Mark's own interest is in open source as a broader cultural phenomenon, which also occurs in the domain of art (and he quotes Stravinsky as saying that "a good composer doesn't imitate, he steals"). This of course is a key development of the last century - the conscious building of new art on existing material, be it ideas or actual found material (as also in the emergence of collage as a new art form - take the dada movement for example).

Fripp Was Here

 

Well, not really. But looking at this rack you might be tempted to mistake it for Robert Fripp's lunar module... On the far right, Richard Barbrook also seems impressed.

Filesharing Myths Unravel

This article in the Guardian was flagged on nettime: more evidence that filesharing does not impact CD sales in the way that the music industry claims it does. My favourite quote from the article is that the net effect of filesharing on sales is "indistinguishable from zero". Music industry ideologues take note.

Downloaders 'unfazed by lawsuits'

The latest dispatch from the filesharing frontlines - interesting reading. As predicted, movie filesharing is now joining music, and legal actions or legal services have little impact so far.

Musik.Ger

The Musik.Ger-FAQ, not surprisingly, is the list of frequently asked questions, and sometimes even some of their answers, for the German-language FidoNet echo Musik.Ger, which is best described as 'an experience'. Equally unsurprisingly, the FAQ in its original form was all in German, 450k, and pure ASCII, so I've come up with a vitamin-enhanced Web version of it, which you'll be able to read here. It's still all in German, though -- tough luck. If you still want to go on, grab a comfy chair, get yourself a nice cup of tea enriched with your favourite ingredients, plant your tongue firmly in your preferred cheek (to avoid suffocation from swallowing it) ... and ... click ... right ... here. Wuhaha[[tm]] !

Music Wantlist

Definites:

  • KCCC
  • Yes Remasters: Box; more
  • VdGG - Present
  • Banco - Live 1975
  • White Willow - Storm Season
  • Magma - Ka
  • Genesis Box II ?
  • AMY CD (http://www.cdbaby.com/amycd)
  • SBB
  • GY!BE
  • Anekdoten - Gravity
  • Cowboy Junkies - Radio One Sessions
  • David Sylvian - Blemish
  • echolyn - A Little Nonsense CD Box
  • Trey Gunn - Road Journals
  • 21CSB CD/DVD / CD
  • La Maschera di Cera - Il Grande Labirinto
  • Grobschnitt

Maybes:

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