More of my weekly music picks. They are free of charge, as long as you’re in the right place to get them. This week’s favourites: The Six Degrees Sampler and the great Loscil ambient track.
Acoustic Spanish guitar lead, dreamy electronica backing, earnest piano melody growing to sustained sound-wall with psychotic fiddler – yes, people, we have a decent instrumental chill-out track on our hands.
A taster for the latest teen heartthrob. Disco heaven but I’ll be waiting until his voice breaks before I listen again.
If you don’t already have it, bookmark Mercedes-Benz Mixtape. Every eight weeks the M-B marketing folks post a new mix of new artists on this page, complete with a zip-file of the MP3s for easy download from anywhere (mouse over the player and click “MP3 Downloads”).
Another week, more music picks (a bit early because there has been some great stuff this week). I keep playing Lake Orchard and I think JagaJazzist is a real find here.
Another group I’ve missed all these years, playing musical yet experimental jazz that is definitely worth a try. Video below too. Sample track: Going Down
Actually it wasn’t all that lazy, there has been so much to do. But here are some music picks for the week – don’t miss the Sister Hazel double album if you’re in the US, and the Turin Brakes track is the pick for the UK.
§ I’m still listening to new music and it seems the proximity of SXSW is triggering a cascade of releases. Here are some samples from this week’s listening.
I usually do a best-of playlist for SXSW but this year I’ve not found the monster download of all the tracks. However, as second-best, NPR has seleted their top 100 tracks (that’s 10% of the festival) and put them online as streaming continuous-play radio.
Or, “how to ensure your customers can’t use your product and become ‘criminals'”. Great illustration of why “technical measures” are ridiculous and counter-productive.
The huge problem with the Digital Economy Bill – and one which I can’t help thinking is part of its design – is that it’s easy for attempts to fix it to be just as bad as the poison they are trying to fix, unless the fixes are very well thought through indeed. This is a case in point, where the opposition politicians are proposing amendments that sell our rights down the river too.
§ The last of the series of songs by Dave Carroll after his lousy experience flying United is finally out. I think song one was by far the best (song two lacked zing), but this one is pretty good:
I’d like to be able to say it’s hyperbolic, but unfortunately the trip I took over the weekend once again poured fuel on the fire (one friend I was travelling with had luggage lost by them on 2 of the last 3 flights) so sadly I think Carroll still has a point. Song one is just coming up to 8 million views on YouTube so I think United has a problem and the rest of us have a marketing case study.
The finest possible visual aid for why we can't rely on automatic means to "filter" content. Lessig, as the world's leading authority on "fair use", is assumed guilty until he declares – and perhaps proves – himself innocent.
I'm not a huge fan of 7Digital after some early customer experience of them, but the pressure on them to lean up their act on formats and DRM will be welcome. Does the world really need yet another music store though?
This looks very do-able and it's the perfect solution for a group of people gathered to discuss a document together and all running different platforms and software tools.
While this is all good, it is not sufficient as ACTA will address far more than just “graduated response”. This looks to me like a co-ordinated action by the Commissioners in response to obvious concern, to try to prevent the Parliament forcing their hand in the negotiations. It’s still important to get MEPs to sign the opposition text.
This is an excellent and on-target discussion on the ridiculous case where a lobbying organisation acting on behalf of BSA, RIAA, MPAA and others is able to direct the US government to discriminate against governments choosing to prefer open source software.
All views expressed on this blog are those of Simon Phipps and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other entity, including current and former employers and clients. See my full disclosure of interests.