Viejos Hombres & Per

We've had two new releases on Fwonk* records, an ambient-noise LP from Viejos Hombres de Abejón - a supergroup of three Fwonk* drone meisters, and Ettertid from Fwonk*s resident genius and polymath Per Byhring. Two new releases, and both for free!

Click on the covers below to download...

Viejos Hombres de Abejón - Viejos Hombres de Abejón
Per - Ettertid

Cable Sceptic

Look at James Randi. Take a good look at him. That's a photo of him not believing a word you say. Not a word. Not unless you can prove it.

Mr Randi is sceptical. That's his job. He makes a living debunking phoney psychics (not that there are any real psychics) but also casts his sceptical eye over ridiculous claims made by various companies.

Recently he has turned his attention to cables aimed at the 'audiophile' market. He has noticed that Pear Cables are selling their 'Anjou' speaker cables for $7250 for a 12-foot pair.

The company claims that the cables have a "new and completely unique hybrid geometry for the ANJOU Speaker Cable", resulting in "sonic beauty without compare".

Review of the cables online claim they are better than any other cable they have ever tested.

Randi calls this "nonsense" and has thrown down a million-dollar challenge to anyone who can positively tell the difference between the 'Anjou' and a bog-standard speaker cable in a Pepsi-challenge test.

So far he's had no takers.

Read the full article here.

Code Organ

Code Organ is a clever little webamajig that turns internet pages into sweet sweet music.

The makers say:
THE CODEORGAN ANALYSES THE *BODY* CONTENT OF ANY WEB PAGE AND TRANSLATES THAT CONTENT INTO MUSIC. THE CODEORGAN USES A COMPLEX ALGORITHM TO DEFINE THE KEY, SYNTH STYLE AND DRUM PATTERN MOST APPROPRIATE TO THE PAGE CONTENT.

FIRSTLY, THE CODEORGAN SCANS THE PAGE CONTENTS AND REMOVES ALL
CHARACTERS NOT FOUND IN THE MUSICAL SCALE (A TO G), AND THEN ANALYSES THE REMAINING CHARACTERS TO FIND THE MOST COMMONLY USED 'NOTE'. IF THIS IS AN EVEN NUMBER THE PAGE IS TRANSLATED IN TO THE MAJOR PENTATONIC SCALE OF THAT PARTICULAR NOTE, IT BECOMES MINOR IF THERE IS AN UNEVEN NUMBER.

SECONDLY, THE CODEORGAN DEFINES WHICH SYNTHESIZER TO USE. THIS IS
BASED UPON THE TOTAL NUMBER CHARACTERS USED ON THE WEBPAGE – THERE ARE CURRENTLY 10 SYNTHESIZER EFFECTS AND THE ONE CHOSEN IS PICKED BASED UPON THE PERCENTAGE OF CONTENT.

LASTLY, THE CODEORGAN SELECTS A DRUM LOOP BASED UPON THE RATIO OF CHARACTERS ON THE PAGE VERSUS THE NUMBER OF CHARACTERS THAT ARE ACTUALLY MUSICAL NOTES – THERE ARE CURRENTLY 10 DIFFERENT DRUM LOOPS TO PICK FROM.

GO AND MAKE BEAUTIFUL MUSIC TOGETHER.

THE CODEORGAN PEOPLE

It's dead clever.

Go and play.

Groovy

Fellow audio-geeks over at Synthgear.com have published these amazing pictures of vinyl record grooves under an electron microscope.

Mmmmmm, vinyl.

Read the full article here.

Oh, and if you've got some 3D glasses handy, check this out:

John Bonham Breaks

Those superb folks over at Salad Records.com have posted some awesome links to John Bonham's drum out-takes from 1979 album "In Through The Door".

Bonzo's drum stylings have been sampled by everyone from Eminem to The Prodigy. Now you can get in on the act too.

Grab the files here.

Don't fear the pirates

http://www.newmusicstrategies.com/2008/04/03/should-i-be-worried-about-piracy/

This is probably one of the most clear-headed articles on piracy, the internet, life, the universe and everything.

And here are three more things to consider:

1) People who share your music are recommending you to people who respect their taste and opinion;

2) The vast majority of people who have unauthorised copies of your music would not have ordinarily paid for it anyway;

3) Do you really want for people who cannot afford your music to be prevented from ever hearing it?

The single most effective way to stop people from copying your music is to stop making music. If that’s not an option (and why would it be?) then accepting that this is the world in which we live is a good start towards successfully negotiating the new media environment.

Free Music Tuesday - Four Tet

You can grab two full length mixes from Four Tet's very own Soundcloud page. Go get them!