It's all coming together (with Glue)

Every time I get on the computer I have work to do so my blog hasn't had as much attention, but I have been collecting interesting things. Here is enough crazy stuff to last all week.

I have been changing it up recently. I moved from my long time indulgent job at Urban Records to an even more indulgent job at Billy Hyde Music as their resident audio tech guru (more of a disciple at the moment). So I used to sell music, now I sell tools for making it.

David Scharpf and I have continued to write even though he is in Vienna touring with a big funk band. Aint' the Internet grand. We have a heavy metal remix and a doco soundtrack on the go, as well as an experimental tracks with Violinist Jessica Yeh.

Finally the software I have been heavily beta testing for the last year and a half is coming out from Andrew Simper's company 'Cytomic' and Fxpansion. Andy ended up using my name idea and calling his mastering compressor 'The Glue'. I am currently going crazy with the synth programming, creating sounds for Fxpansion's awesome D.CAM SynthSquad (the guts of which are also written by Andy). The problem I have is that I keep writing new grooves with sounds I create instead of spending all my time writing more sounds. Preliminary info HERE

Most of the people I work with communicate online now, so I am online heaps. My laptops WiFi is great and even my phone does decent internet. I have found myself posting on forum while heading to my girlfriends on the train. It's just all so interesting. So here are some of the places I like to head to online.

Some sites I have been into lately:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/

Creative electronic music site. Lots of insane instruments and software news. Great for creative tech junkies.

http://www.photographyserved.com/

A brilliant photo gallery from professional photographers around the world. Very inspiring.

http://www.synthmania.com/Famous%20Sounds.htm

Classic stuff for people into the history of electronic music. It's a list of heaps of classic sounds and where they came from.

http://soundcloud.com/

The MySpace of the future. This is a professional MySpace, setup to help musicians and labels collaborate. It's very smooth and impressive (unlike MySpace). You can upload any audio or video file format. The catch is that it costs (which may actually keep it pro).

http://www.themovieblog.com/

A classic Canadian movie review site that has some great podcasts. They are movie geeks and proud of it.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

This is a shrine to honesty. It's beautiful. People send their deepest secrets, anonymously. It's moving.

http://infinitecanvas.appjet.net/

Here is a new concept from the recently active Microsoft labs. It's a great artwork and storytelling system for anyone. Really very impressive and smooth to use. This is how the web will look in the future (hopefully). The front page isn't much but the art is great.

http://conceptships.blogspot.com/

Oh, god, I love this site. This is a teenage fantasy. Professional spaceship design gallery. Aaaawesome!

digg.com

If you don't know about Digg then you don't stay in enough ;) It's news selected by the people (mainly geeks like me). The net is never a boring empty place with Digg.

http://www.tun3r.com/

There are literally thousands of free radio stations online. Just randomly tune into one. It's so cool.

http://www.sonicstate.com/video/index.cfm?keyword=Sonic%20Talk
This is my favourite podcast. I set my Nokia E71 phone to download it automatically once a week. It's a bunch of professional electronic musicians and producers talking shit. It's supposed to be music industry and tech news but sometimes they talk about stage outfits, having children, touring, drug binges... It's recorded in England but includes guys from Germany and the US also.

http://www.rocksolidarcade.com/games/robokill/

I got a bit hooked on this game. Luckily it is more of a demo, I think I would have wasted a lot more than one endless night playing it otherwise. Web games have come of age, this is slick. this is the article where I found it:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2340700,00.asp

http://issuu.com
If your into magazines check out.

http://www.ted.com/
If your into fascinating talks on everything, this is a great place to hang out. Some of the talk go for over an hour. There are so many great talks from: scientists, poets, musicians, rock musicians, Buddhist monks, sociologists...


Maybe it's the competition, but strangely Microsoft has been innovating lately. Their mad about interactive digital environments. This vision of the future is pretty cool. I have to admit to having a bit of a fetish for nice graphical user interfaces (GUIofile?)


This is the house I would like to live in (as long as it's not too hot). I love the raw rusted steel, it looks great. From this great architecture and design site:
http://dornob.com/


I bumped into this the other day. It has to be one of the greatest Ali G interviews. The man is a genius and I have to give a bit of vibe to Posh Spice, she's a bit cute in this.


For people who think sampling isn't music, you have to listen to this. Kutiman has taken the art of mashup to a new level. This is a track made of clips off YouTube. Make sure you hear the end it's surprising and quite moving.


Last but not least. This guy really PLAYS the piano. I love it. It's more about cathartic expression than actual notes. He is playing with sound and texture not just complex notes. Like a modern Sun Ra but brilliant instead of novelty. I'm intrigued to hear Cloud Kollektiv keys players David Scharpf and Brian Kruger's opinions on this one.

I'll post some of my new mixes next.

Cheers, all.

t