nanovivid

There have recently been a couple of bugfix updates to the Lala Userscripts package. The biggest fix was to MiniMode so that it will actually load every time. See, I kind of forgot to include the code for loading jQuery, so MiniMode 1.0 would only load if you also had the Amazon userscript active. Oops! So that’s fixed (and both MiniMode and Amazon will alert you if for some reason jQuery didn’t load properly). MiniMode also will resize the player better if you’re shrinking from a very wide window.

As always, leave any comments, requests, or questions on the Lala Userscripts page.

♫ Le Knight Club - Hysteria

I can never really leave well enough alone, so after my last adventure I went and wrote some more userscripts for Lala. Now in addition to Growl notifications, you can get a mini mode, Dock menu items and badging, and Amazon Universal Wish List integration. Check out the Lala Userscripts for more information.

♫ The Killers - Human (Thin White Duke Mix)

Recently, Jeremiah was kind enough to introduce me to Lala, which is a wonderful music browsing/listening/collecting/buying site. That’s a little convoluted, so maybe a “web-based iTunes with some community features” might be the best way to describe it. Easily my favorite feature is that you can listen to entire songs before you buy, not just 30 second snippets. That’s a huge win compared to most competing stores (Rhapsody MP3 lets you listen to full songs as well, but it lacks an easy method of queueing entire albums). Pricing is another advantage; most albums are $7.49 or less, beating iTunes, Amazon MP3, Rhaposdy MP3, and just about everyone else.

Almost as soon as I started using Lala, I realized that it really needed its own Dock icon and separate browser window. Enter the wonders of Fluid. I created a SSB (Site Specific Browser) for Lala with a cassette tape as the icon. (Sure, it might not make perfect sense, what with it being digital music and all, but it’s better than using Lala’s favicon. If you want another option, the speaker icons by Jonas Rask are very nice.)

However, one important piece of functionality was missing. I’m very accustomed to having Growl notifications for music that’s playing, and while Fluid supports dispatching Growl notifications, there weren’t any existing Userscripts to make it happen. Of course, I couldn’t leave well enough alone and spent a couple hours poking around Lala’s JavaScript to see if I could find anywhere to hook in and grab player notifications. Eventually I tracked down the Header.updatePlaybackNowPlaying function, which had exactly what I needed, and I was able to write a Userscript to generate Growl notifications on Lala track changes.

You can get the Growl Userscript as part of the Lala Userscript package I’ve put together.

If you want to be my friend on Lala, here’s my profile page.

♫ M83 - Couleurs (Sasha Invol2ver Remix)

As I’ve alluded to previously, I have a bit of a weakness for droning, repetitive music. I’m not sure how it happens, but I sometimes have an almost physical reaction to it that feels as if I’m being wrapped in a comforting blanket. No other artist that I’ve discovered can do this to me quite like Tim Hecker.

I discovered Hecker’s music quite by accident. I think I stumbled across Harmony In Ultraviolet while checking out From Here We Go Sublime by The Field on Amazon. Harmony was listed in the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section, and for some reason, it caught my eye. I clicked on over and was presented with this brilliant review (seriously, go read it). That right there was reason enough (well, along with checking out the samples) for me to stick the album on my wishlist.

Fast forward to January. I had gotten From Here We Go Sublime the previous fall and was thoroughly enjoying it. For those of you who don’t know, The Field makes amazingly ear-wormy minimal techno. His songs don’t bother with verses, choruses, breakdowns, or builds because they don’t need to. Instead of having a couple hooks in the song, he chooses exactly the right hooks and then loops them. Even though it’s completely repetitive, there are all kinds of tiny alterations and changes happening throughout each song, keeping it from becoming boring. I listened to the album quite a lot and The Field is currently at #17 on my Last.fm profile.

Then I finally bought Harmony In Ultraviolet and, well, here’s what happened to my music listening (courtesy of LastGraph):

Harmony is a massive album. I think the term “ambient” gets close, but it’s also very droning, sometimes very dark, and often noisy and full of static. The first time I played it, I simply sat in shock of the incredible, almost overwhelming beauty. Whether it’s the time-worn loops of Chimeras, the calming fuzz of Spring Heeled Jack Flies Tonight, or the massive synths of by Radio Spiricom, the music is not quite like anything I’ve ever heard before. I think it was also custom-tailored for my drone-loving brain.

I’ve also purchased the (oddly punctuated) Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again, which is a fantastic album in its own right. Where Harmony can be imposing and almost overwhelming, Haunt Me is warm and calm.

Tim Hecker’s music is in some ways the polar opposite of The Field’s. There are almost no beats and the hooks, such as they are, are drawn out over minutes. However, they both make use of minimalism in their own ways, and I’m powerless to resist either.

♫ Tim Hecker - Boreal Kiss (Part 1)

New Underworld, Oblivion With Bells, coming in October with fantastic cover art! Squeeeeee!

♫ Feist - 1234

I’ve been sitting here listening to the ends and beginnings of tracks for like the past half hour. And grinning maniacally every time.

Hee! There it goes again!

Let me explain. As soon as I skip to the end again.

Yay! Yayayay!

See, the new iTunes 7 has gapless playback. That means…

Woo!

That means that if you have a continuous mix, or really any album where the tracks go directly into each other on the CD, there’s no longer a little blip of silence between each track when they’re played sequentially.

It’s amazing being able to once again listen to albums the way they were recorded after years of gaps. Apple could have released iTunes 7 with just this one feature and I would have been thrilled. I’m seriously that excited by it.

Again!

♫ Le Knight Club - Mirage

Yesterday after dinner we went to Vintage Vinyl where Hyperbubble was playing. Their music is pretty fun, but they have this one song called Leon that is extra special. Go listen to it, then come back. Catchy, no? I especially like the meows that are interspersed throughout. Bryan decided that Leon needed to be the ringtone on my phone when he calls me, replacing his previous choice of Grillz.

I also (shockingly) picked up a few albums while we were there. After Hyperbubble was done, the store was playing The Eraser (the new Thom Yorke album) and I couldn’t resist buying it. SO GOOD. The Knife, The KLF, The Magnetic Fields, and Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band were my other purchases. There seems to be a bit of a “the” trend happening witch my choices. Interesting.

Today we’re going to see Chihuly in the Garden, which is supposed to be excellent. There also may be some Geocaching. As long as we don’t get heatstroke, it should be a fun day.

♫ The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You

I haven’t shared any music for a while, so today I’m digging into my iTunes to serve up a couple of epic, super-obscure tracks. To give you an idea of how generally unknown these songs are, searching for them in Google gives exactly zero results. Nada. Nil. Well, except for a mention of the first one here on my site as a “currently listening.”

Cloud2Ground - Rush

First on the menu is a spectacular sonic journey from Cloud2Ground. Though no longer around as Cloud2Ground, they went on to form the wonderful Shiny Toy Guns. Cloud2Ground (alias Slyder) put out two full length CDs (E-Majn and The Gate <Beautiful>), but this track is pre-E-Majn. It’s from some various artists collection (the name of which escapes me). If you happen to be familiar with Cloud2Ground/Slyder’s catalog, you’ll hear the precursors of multiple songs mixed in here (largely Score and Raindown). Rush is an eleven-minute trip that is equal parts trance, ambient, and classical piano work. It begins as a fairly minimal drums/bassline/percussion piece, effortlessly morphs into laid-back piano over synths mode, then turns around and explodes into a full blown trance affair. And the vocal samples? Brilliant.

Antidote - Euphoric Recall

Next up is nearly nine minutes of droning, fuzzed-out, pounding techno that I am hopelessly in love with. Antidote released this track back in 2002 as part of their internet-only Future Happiness album. It has fourteen plays in iTunes, but back when I first got my hands on an early version in 2001, I listened to it continuously for about a week. The first thing to hit your ears is the main synth loop as it insistently worms its way into your brain. Then, on the third or fourth repeat, you start to notice all the other little sub-melodies, shifts, and subtle changes happening throughout. From the filtered intro to the slow, pulsing fade, Euphoric Recall is a masterpiece.

♫ Antidote - Euphoric Recall

Felix Drops The Humps returns… with a vengeance! [In case you missed it, here's the original post]. Now in version 2.1, the pitch problems that plagued the original have been (mostly) eliminated. Also eliminated is the chipmunking from version 2.0! There are still a few pitchy spots, but it’s way better.

This is really what the track should have been all along, so if you have either old version in your library, you owe it to your ears to replace it with the new, improved…

Mylo vs. Black Eyed Peas - Felix Drops The Humps 2.1

♫ Death Cab for Maddy - Hung Up On Soul (Amazing Party Ben Mashup)

Tonight I have a special treat for my loyal readers. Yes, all three of you!

For various reasons, I find My Humps by Black Eyed Peas extremely entertaining. Largely because of the line, “what you gonna do with all that breasts, all that breasts up in that shirt.” It’s just so awesomely grammatically incorrect! (According to lyrics sites on the internets he really says “all that breast” but that’s just a vicious lie).

As soon as I heard My Humps, I started thinking that it would go well with the Felix da Housecat remix of Mylo’s Drop The Pressure. So I made a mashup of them! And you should download it!

[Go get version 2 instead. It's so much better.]

Let me know what you think, unless you think it sucks, in which case, keep your opinions to yourself. Fuckhead. (I’m so loving and friendly tonight!) Personally, I think the middle of the song is the strongest, with the beginning and end being a little weak. But seriously, I do want feedback.

One last thing: I need to plug Audacity, which is the amazing (free!) multitrack sound editor without which this little project would not have been possible. Audacity is amazing. And I hope you think that Felix Drops The Humps is amazing too.

♫ Kid606 - Done With The Scene (Brave Captain Remix)