Music and internet, what else?

Apple AirPlay

2011-04-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

Just a re-publication of this mail. Just in case.

Hi all,

VLC has had RAOP output for a while; is there interest in RAOP input as well?

I've extracted the Airport Express RSA private key that is necessary to implement this.
An example implementation is available at:
http://mafipulation.org/blagoblig/2011/04/08#shairport

The private key follows.
Regards,
James

-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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=
-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----

Hardware

2011-03-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

Don't you just hate it?

My hardware broke yesterday, so now I'm writing and running from my laptop. Hell, maybe now I'll waste less time playing Doom and more time writing blogposts. Good for you.

Earthquakes

2011-03-11T02:07:00.000-08:00

So yeah, even though this blog is supposed to be dead, here's one post of good luck to the Japanese people. May they survive their earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
Thank $deity that the nuclear plant(s) were not damaged or leaking radiation.

AFK, KTHXBAI

2011-02-11T23:28:00.001-08:00

Hi,

As another weekend arrives, I again do not have time to make an extensive post. That said, I leave you with the following:

NEW DORNENREICH!

Also, I will be spending most of today coding on portunes.

listening in 2011; January 29th.

2011-01-29T11:28:00.000-08:00

Howdy. Time for new music!

Here's a pleasant surprise from chillwave artist MillionYoung. As with most chillwave artists, I'm not familiar with this guy's previous work, but the tracks off this album on HYPEM suggest I should.

Next is a rather odd track by an (apparently) French duo titled Slippery Slope. The single, Too Insistent (RYM) is also pretty good.

Beatdown hardcore. An appropriate moment for live samples (also, their quality is decent and I couldn't be arsed to find anything else). Fucking want. The crowd looks kind of bored, though.

Next, indie pop fans will want to check out Gimme Some by Peter Bjorn and John. Second Chance is a pretty catchy song, and though it doesn't make me personally want to hear the album badly, I can imagine the indie crowd drooling over this. Also, cool album cover;

The Go! Team has a two-song single (RYM) out. The songs, Buy Nothing Day and I'm Not Satisfied are on HYPEM. I blogged about these guys previously; I wasn't excited then, and I'm not now, so I'll give the album a no-thanks.

Overall, some pretty good stuff seems to (be) com(e/ing) out this year! Time to go listen to MillionYoung. I think I'm going to do a first-impression-review.

listening in 2011; 28 & 29 January

2011-01-28T17:25:00.000-08:00

Hi folks.

Yesterday, I didn't really hear anything interesting, but I found it worth mentioning that tracks off the new Belphegor album, Blook Magick Necromance were rather disappointing. These guys kicked some ass back when I was a young metal kid attending my first festival (even though I ended up missing Kataklysm to see them)! However, this just doesn't have the power I expected it to have.

Now, on to good music.

Monumental Torment is apparently a new technical death metal band, and this is their debut. Judging from Element of Chaos and Seek To Destroy, they really know their scene. Actually, not really; they seem to be moving to a somewhat math-y sound, compared to generic technical death.
Many will probably pass this off as guitar wanking, but I've never cared much for that before, and I wont now. I do hope that the album as a whole will contain some changes of pace (it does seem to have some song(s) with calmer passages).
A lot of death metal (in general, but the technical subgenre in particular) suffers from the faster-is-better paradigm. While it applies to some extent, playing only at high speed is just boring, similar to listening to the same speedcore sample for several minutes.

Off to different territory, Curren$y put out a new mixtape (don't ask me why they're listed under compilations on RYM). Record Deals has a nice beat, but it's rather lengthy. Similar issues arise with Frost; the sound is okay, but the rest is kind of boring.

Minks - By The Hedge is the final album for this post; this seems to be one of those albums that just kind of drifts besides you in your speakers. Though, not quite; there are some more upbeat tunes, too.HYPEM has a bunch of songs. Go listen for yourself.

Good night!
note: unlike usually, I will now make new posts instead of appending to old ones.

listening in 2011; January 23rd

2011-01-23T13:11:00.000-08:00

Huh, wow. Just, wow. This caught me by surprise. Check out this track by Israeli metal band called Arafel, Sword's Hymn, the first track off their album, For Battles Once Fought. Sounds promising!

The new album by semi-legendary post-rock band Mogwai, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, has been gaining significant hype all over the web. If you think songs like San Pedro really qualify as post-rock, anyway (you can hear some on HYPEM). Personally I'm kind of indifferent about it.

For those of you who enjoy black metal, Helrunar is putting out a new (double!) album, titled Sól. You can hear the first three tracks off the first disc here (the first track is an intro). Given this alone, I must say there isn't much new here. Melodic bits, atmospheric bits, reasonable vocals, but nothing really standing out. More importantly, nothing I can listen to for two album lengths. If you dig this kind of stuff though, by all means, go for it.

And the last for now is Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes by Social Distortion. Though this is apparently a band with some punk history, this is just straight-up rock. Good stuff, though. Machine Gun Blues and Can't Take It With You are pretty good songs.

listening in 2011; 22 January

2011-01-22T03:46:00.000-08:00

Hi there,

This post sort of continues from last Thursday; except I'm going to look at the 2011 - everything chart from now on; this chart includes singles, EPs and other stuff, though I'll probably ignore videos and bootlegs.

Anyway, there's a bunch of 'yeah... not for me' material here now; a single from the Kanye album, which turned out to be a good song except for, you know, Kanye (listen for yourself).

Moving on, we see Nicolas Jaar with Space Is Only Noise, which I think is microhouse. A truckload of samples, vocals here and there. HYPEM has a few tracks. Again, not really for me.

Cut Copy with their album Zonoscope is up next. They must get calls from the 80s all day, asking for their sound back, but the songs themselves aren't exactly bad. It just sounds kinda dated. Take your shot of nostaliga here.

Stratovarius is also still putting out albums; is their 2011 offering. I have my doubts about these guys (and power metal in general), but Darkest Hours and Under Flaming Skies sound great! The production is relatively heavy, but they're getting no complaints from me. A pleasant surprise!

Last, Adele has a new single, Rolling In the Deep, which is quite pleasant.

Destroyer - Kaputt

2011-01-22T01:52:00.000-08:00

Psst! guess what! HYPEM has the album Kaputt by Destroyer as a preview! You can hear it here. It's pretty damn good. Go listen to it.

(this album was previously mentioned here and also covered by theneedledrop).

listening to 2011; January 20

2011-01-20T01:48:00.000-08:00

Hi,

So it turns out RYM's charts only update bi-weekly. I've been busy studying anyway. Now it's time for a break. Lets have a quick look at the new charts. First thing noticed: damn, it already went over five hundred rated albums. That's quick.

Anyway, here's the top five (from 1 to 5). Lots of metal. Approve.

this track from Mitochondrion - Parasignosis sounds promising.

New Ulcerate! I'd already wishlisted this after their previous album as well as an excellent live performance.

Falkenbach is a band I've heard of, but never really bothered to check out. This track from Falkenbach - Tiurida doesn't give me any reason to do so now. Check it if you're into folk metal, though.

New Earth! Truthfully, I've never looked at the band much beyond their debut, Earth 2. Looks like this will make me regret it.

Destroyer - Kaputt was already mentioned here.

Univers Zéro - Clivages

2011-01-12T13:56:00.000-08:00

A very impressive release with an insane amount of intense moments and western classical music styled grandness. Seriously. This is, HUGE. You thought Boris sounded huge? Sure, they may have bigger guitars, but the sheer atmosphere and scale of this album surpass almost anything I've heard.

That said, this album also suffers from being stretched. After 'Straight Edge', one of the most epic hi-lights off the album, finishes, it kinda feels like the album ends. There are more such moments that augment the intense and epic hugeness of 'Warrior' and 'Straight Edge' with calm music. While this works, I think there's a little too much of it.

So in conclusion, this album is great. Maybe a little too great, even. But definitely worth a listen. I could see the average 'open-minded' metal fan enjoy this, in particular (apart from fans of this genre, of course).

github repository of random code I wr(i|o)te

2011-01-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

clicky

listening in 2011: Sunday 9 January

2011-01-08T16:32:00.000-08:00

Hi again. This blog continues from 'yesterday' (= before 0:00).

The Cave Singers - No Witch. This is decent. HYPEM has some tracks. Maybe you'll dig it. Vaguely bluesy, kinda folky. Name reminded me of our ol' buddy Nick Cave.

Braids - Native Speaker
This sounds intriguing. It's also getting hype. I can see why. Can you? HYPEM will help you determine that.

James Blake - James Blake
HYPEM. Gotta hear more of this; Limit to Your Love is pretty awesome, but looking at the RYM reviews I think it doesn't cover the style of the whole album.

The Go! Team - Rolling Bloackouts offers some up-beat mixture of electronic and rock music. It's kinda loud, though. Could use some work on the production side of things.

The Decemberists - The King is Dead is an album that probably isn't for me. But even so, the songs are impressive. Down by The Water (hypem) is particularly interesting (more @ HYPEM).

Destroyer - Kaputt (HYPEM)
Well, this is new. I've never heard of 'Sophisti-Pop' before, but apparently it's a Jazz and Soul influenced pop genre. It kinda sounds like the 80s. The jazz is kinda in the background, while in the foreground we find calm, slightly dreamy vocals, backed by a very solid rhythm section. I wanna hear more!

EPs
Dimlite - My Human Wears Acedia Shreds can be heard on bandcamp. Kinda glitchy, hip hop-esque. Decent.

Hammock - Longest Year: well, here's some post rock for ya. Actually, it borders on ambient music; you can barely make out the guitars. Check Longest Year (youtube). I'm not a post-rock fan (not anymore, anyway), but this is worth checking out.

listening to 2011: wishlists & ignores: Saturday 8 January

2011-01-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try out doing this kind of posting every weekend day (assuming I'm not too busy). Why? Well, I feel I should listen to a whole album in order to rate it, and listening to many, many full albums doesn't work. This is an intermediate solution: check out some songs, then wishlist or note them here (or ignore them). Ignores will be labeled on RYM. I wont write about them unless there's a good reason to do so.

This weeks' postings will be kinda full, since there are a lot of albums coming up and I haven't looked at 2011 much except for this post. I'm using this RYM custom chart as a reference (its updated once every X, I think X=1 week). Currently I'm trying to check everything in the top 25 and everything coming out in January.

Now, on to music. First off, handle what I've already checked today. First the 'decent, but...' things. Then some wishlist-worthy stuff (marked by the use of an image). And then more (note: there is one slightly NSFW cover).

Quintessence Mystica - The 5th Harmonic of Death was decent, but not really my thing. Listen to it if you're into symphonic black metal, though (spotify has it)!

Earthship - Exit Eden has some sludgy goodies, but doesn't really deliver much more than familiarity.

Over the Rhine - The Long Surrender may appear on the wishlist later. HYPEM has the song The King Knows How.

The Dark Water Hymnal - Collapse the Structure has some decent pop tunes; Chandeliers and Center of The Spark (both myspace).

The Carrier - Blind to What is Right delivers some melodic hardcore: myspace has the title track. Maybe I'll look some more into this later.

The U.V. Race - Homo (no cover at RYM), via two songs: Lost My Way (myspace) and Burn That Cat (youtube); apparently there's also a cassette version (cover pictured).

Fujiya & Miyagi - Ventriloquizzing
Intresting stuff. Four tracks (Minestrone, Tinsel & Glitter, Yoyo, Sixteen Shades of Black and Blue) are on HYPEM. There you can also find older tracks.

Universum - Mortuus Machina is solid melodic death metal, by the sound of this song anyway. Christian Älvestam does something on this track (presumably vocals). Wikipedia says he's known from Scar Symmetry.

Young Prisms - Friends for Now
You dig yourself some shoegaze? Some Neo-Psychedelia? You'll probably want this on your wishlist, then. HYPEM has four tracks (I Don't Get Much, Sugar, Eneli, Feel Fine).

Monster Rally - Coral. I hereby predict a massive shitstorm of hype around this album. This is something I would see music websites like pitchfork shitting themselves over.

Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots. This sounds kinda like Kings of Leon (on Because of The Times), judging from one of the singles, Used to Be a Cop (youtube).

Isolée - Well Spent Youth
Microhouse, eh? I think I'm finally starting to see the differences between it and Minimal Techno. Anyway, HYPEM has some tunes (note their search fails; a properly spelled Isolée gives no relevant results).

Macabre - Grim Scary Tales: hey, guess what, these suckers are still around. I remember when I was a good ol' metal kid and first heard Dahmer (ages after it came out, of course, but still). It was hell-a funny, with that humour and that sick vocal style no other band had. Now, that still applies, but its kinda annoying too. This release seems to mark less deathgrind, more actual songs and some with clean vocals (Nero's Inferno), as well as their trademark style(Locusta).

DK - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegitables

2011-01-08T03:29:00.000-08:00

Note: this is a review-during-first-listen. You should try making one. Its fun.

So here we go. I've been forgetting about DK for a little while. Maybe too long. I recently heard Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust, Inc. again (which just contains the album and the EP), so I figured I would try their other 'landmark album'. Most of what I heard so far is decent... but what lacks is DK's touch for good songs. Sure, the lyrics are probably good - I'm not that good at making them out, but the titles speak for themselves.

California Über Alles is a great song (fuck you jello, for fucking pronouncing Über wrong). After that, things seem to go back to the hardcore/punk mixture we're used to hearing from DK. Sure, it's entertaining, but it doesn't have that edge to make it a great album.

My conclusion? Go with Plastic Surgery Disasters / In God We Trust, Inc. first. If you want to hear something like the EP, though a little calmer and (imho) less lyrically interesting, go for this. But, you need to hear California Über Alles, just like you need to hear Nazi Punks Fuck Off (and the Napalm Death cover)!

Hey guys, guess what

2011-01-07T14:09:00.000-08:00

its 2011 !!!!1

Time for a 2011 album.

You love you some trip hop sounds, but think all those big albums are a touch too boring? You think there should be more 'hop' in trip hop? (An) Earthling might just be your new pet.

album on bandcamp.

Also, fucking bandcamp and their motherfucking paypal. Note that 'buying without paypal' also goes through paypal. I do not want paypal.
Seriously though, why can't there be a simple system like the iDeal we have here in the Netherlands (shh, don't tell apple!), which just provides an API-like service between the seller and the bank. So I log in to my bank, pay, the seller gets an 'he paid' message, I get my stuff. Why do we need the evil that is paypal?
<insert huge rant here>.

Oh right, a blog

2011-01-04T03:05:00.000-08:00

Happy new year, blog.

Time for a review of 2010? Well, I dislike top lists, especially when I'm the one making them. I always feel its hard to draw a line of what goes in and what doesn't. Some stuff is 'just good'. Some stuff is old ratings, things I thought I'd listen to more than I did, things I have to hear again before I put them on the list and before I know it's the end of the next year.

So instead, I give you here a non-exhaustive list (last updated: 12 January 2011, last new addition: 12 January 2011). Of noteworthy albums(/EPs) from 2010. ~~This is in the order of this list~~ nevermind that. I left out a lot of albums that are either not noteworthy or that I need to hear again. You should hear all these albums, or at least some portion of them. For your (my) convenience, I've partitioned the list in roughly 3 broad sections;
Metal and punk, aka loud; Hip Hop, soul, R&B and jazz pop (it just happened to be convenient); Folk, indie, alternative, rock, aka (usually) hyped stuff.

note: I will probably add reviews and/or sample songs later

Metal, punk

Aeternam - Disciples of the Unseen

This album is currently the highest rated 2010 album I have on RYM. Does that make it my album of the year? Yeah, I guess so. It's pretty awesome. Oh, some sources have this album as being from '09. But fuck those sources.

Melechesh - The Epigenesis

More "middle-eastern" metal. Pretty awesome, though maybe a little over-the-top in terms of length. Like melodic black metal? This might just be your "album of the year".

Winterhorde - Underwatermoon
Some pretty amazing melodic black metal with a healthy dose of prog metal right here. You think melodic black is kinda boring and repetitive? Listen to this, think again.

Stam1na - Viimeinen Atlantis

Despite the l33t name, these guys make an interesting mixture of fast, technical thrash metal backed with ideas from progressive metal. Also, note the awesome clean Finnish vocals.

Taperedmind - Breathe Again

Kick-ass Alternative Metal.

Fear Factory - Mechanize

First 2010 album I bought; Fear Factory is back!

Heidevolk - Uit Oude Grond

Heidevolk kicks the shit out of your favorite folk metal band.

Kvelertak - Kvelertak

Hipster scene kids from Norway playing a fusion of black metal and sludgy punk. Points for uniqueness.

Magrudergrind - Crusher

Magrudergrind on a big label. Controversy, the grind scene shits itself. Music fans cheer for the win of good free music.

Mael Mórdha - Manannán

First 'Celtic' Metal album I've heard. Doomy, too. Try it.

Star One - Victims of the Modern Age

I like Ayreon. I like this side project. You like Ayreon? You'll like this. subject to change

Electric Wizard - Black Masses
Electric Wizard progresses their sound after witchcult today. Heavy Psych sounds remain. Sounded better live.

Årabrot - Revenge
Sludgy metallic Norwegian noise rock.

Karma to Burn - Appalachian Incantation

More stuff I heard live. Wohoo, new Karma to Burn! ... Except Almost Heathen is quite a bit better. Sure, this has some nice production touches, and it's still one hell of a stoner album, but one can't help but expect more.

Trap Them - Filth Rations

Seizures in Barren Praise was good; so is this. Slightly different sound. Also, WTF, what is Southern Lord doing here.

Hip Hop, R&B, jazz pop

Zwart Licht - No JuJu

Dutch hip-hop/grime release. First I've heard. Picked it up last week. subject to change

Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid

Wow, an Contemporary R&B album I actually really like. Granted, it is hardly your average R&B tune, but still. Plus, at the moment of writing, RYM has this genre as the main genre for this album (with 73 positive votes and 7 negative votes, along with art pop at 61+/20-). Anyway, try some.

Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer

Surprisingly not shit. subject to change

Caro Emerald - Deleted Scenes From the Cutting Room Floor

Great Dutch jazz pop.

Folk, indie, hyped stuff

Ólöf Arnalds - Innundir Skinni

Contemporary Folk music from Iceland. Hyped somewhat for Björk being on this track. Care. But anyway, Vinkonur is a pretty great song.

Marnie Stern - Marnie Stern

Marnie goes (more) listen-able and pop.

Big Blood - Dark Country Magic

Weird, psychedelic, folkyness. subject to change

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs - ゼロコンマ、色とりどりの世界

Hyped from heaven to hell and back again. Great vocal delivery. Good sound.

Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky

Swans is back. subject to change

Anathema - We're Here Because We're Here

This gets a little soft and slow toward the end, but overall its worthy alternative rock.

Univers Zéro - Clivages
Here's to some epic and grand asskicking avant-prog from this French band. review

Hello world

2010-12-19T14:29:00.000-08:00

Cablegate: the game

A silly little game where one tags names, organisations, places, events and topics in the 'cables' (the diplomatic communications leaked by wikileaks). It isn't clear whether any of the tags are actually used by anyone, though. Can't hurt to browse a little, though :).

Unhosted is another interesting project I read about earlier today. Apparently, they want to distribute hosting over the web, to protect against vendor lock-ins and government shutdowns. They have a manifesto and a work-in-progress protocol. While their goal is very noble, ~~I am unsure how they will achieve a fully distributed system aimed at something that can change on the spot (web 2.0 apps)~~. Actually, their focus lies on the application itself, not the data. So the 'program' Google Docs or last.fm's radio and recommendation system, but not the data behind it. The idea seems to be to move all the processing to the client; the server is then only used for serving the code (that is, the program) and storing the data.

An interesting thought, but unlike many open-source projects (eg, the linux kernel, Django, Python, Firefox and so on), this project is unlikely to succeed for the very reason that this concept would take away control of the user from the company that controls the program; after all, if this becomes reality, saving you google docs document on one of Microsoft's services should be trivial!

Wikileaks

2010-12-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

Here in the Netherlands, the website joop.nl started a petition to call the prime minister Mark Rutten (of the VVD party) to save wikileaks. More specifically:

The site will be welcome in the Netherlands and protected against take-down actions
The arrest warrant against Assange will be ignored by our police
We will offer political asylum to Julian Assange

At the moment almost 5500 people signed the petition. The question is, will it end in time? According to the petition website, it wont be until the 3rd of March (2011). I just hope it isn't too late by then. Assange may be an asshole (at least, according to some sources), pushing wikileaks a little too much to the sensational corner, but the work of the website is important nonetheless.

The joop.nl article mentions one interesting point that will make this hard(er) to refuse on the part of our government: quoting the coalition agreement, "The government encourages a free and open Internet" (translation by google translate). I figure this is enough incentive, but you never know.

Magrudergrind - Crusher EP

2010-11-29T12:07:00.000-08:00

Free download!
Hell yeah bitches!

(sauce & stream)

Nederpopshow

2010-11-27T01:18:00.000-08:00

Wow, the Nederpopshow start again. Why didn't anyone tell me!?

Seriously though, the second series of episodes apparently started last sunday (re-watch here, requires silver/moonlight). For those of you who aren't familiar with it; it's a TV show, quiz and live music, all around Dutch music history and current music. Last series, I discovered some awesome stuff there (among others, zZz and Daily Bread). They have plenty of variety; this particular show included the horrible de jeugd van tegenwoordig as well as someone called eboman (apparently an interesting figure in Dutch techno, with this song that could be described as sample heaven) and loads of other kinds of music. Which is what makes it so fun for me.

So yes. Go watch.

Marnie Stern - Marnie Stern

2010-10-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, more music from Marnie Stern. I clearly remember her debut; when I heard it the first few times, I really, really loved it. Couldn't stop listening, in fact. A while back I figured I would listen to it again (I actually wrote a 'review' at the time) but I never really got back into it.

And now there is this album. My initial feelings are again the same; this sounds like an album I'm going to thoroughly enjoy. I just hope it wont turn out like her debut in the end. I doubt it, however: Marnie took an entirely different direction. This album has much less shock value, is much less loud and has much more song. Thumbs up for Marnie!

SINT

2010-10-16T14:12:00.000-07:00

Guess what, I just read that the Dutch commission for commercials (Reclame Code Commissie) is going to research (in Dutch) complaints about the following ad for a horror movie:

Some background for those of you readers that don't know anything about Sinterklaas: it's a yearly event for children, roughly analogous to Santa (there are some minor differences; for example, there is lots of tasty traditional food such as pepernoten, various forms of chocolate and other candy, as well as other speculaas products). He appears on a white horse, with a large staff.

All this sillyness about a damn horror movie reminds me of that good ol' Futurama episode: A Tale of Two Santas. I'm not much of a movie guy, but perhaps this movie will be interesting :-). Meanwhile, go watch the trailer (again, in Dutch) here (or on the page of the news article). It's really hilarious.

New Additions

2010-10-10T03:08:00.000-07:00

After the Paramæcium post earlier today, I figured I might as well post other albums I also picked up:

Melodic Death Metal with a LOT of keyboards and generally touches from gothic metal. Pretty fun. And no, it is not the same band as the Swedish death metal band that the cosmic hearse wrote about a month or two ago.

I bought this mainly because I enjoyed this Belgian noise (rock) duo's 2008 album, All Lined Up Against the Wall so much.

Last but certainly not least is this album, Mahjongg's debut album. This is some very solid dance-punk (at lack of a better genre name).

With these four purchases, I received the Röyksopp single Eple for free, as well as a promo for some anti-aids compilation.

In another store, I picked up:

I liked Paul's Boutique and given the legacy of this album.. well, 'nuff said.

Room Eleven was a fairly new Dutch jazz group with a very gentle sound. The band recently disbanded, and that's quite a shame.

I guess I will be writing something about the above albums in the near future.

New purchase: Paramæcium - Within the Ancient Forest

2010-10-10T02:16:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was a sort-of-outsider kid, totally into the harder forms of electronic dance music. I just started the second part of high school (at the school I went to, the last three years were on another location), I got some friends that listened to metal. Soon, I came in contact with a lot of bands from various styles -- Vomitory, Arch Enemy, Nightwish, Slipknot, Darkthrone are those I remember clearly. Just after that, I went exploring on the web (broadband was a new thing back then). Soon, I found this style called 'doom metal', of which somehow I hadn't heard anything. And there it was - Paramaecium, with the album Exhumed of the Earth (though admittedly, there was also My Dying Bride). Seeing as this was the age of limewire, I had but a few tracks of this album. But amazing as it was.

Now, roughly six or seven years later, I stroll through a local music store and I see this cover. I couldn't read the logo on the front - I believed I found some black metal by a band called 'Within the Ancient Forest'. Only when I got home I realized- Paramaecium! And what a feast of doom, nostalgia and joy it is. Who ever said Christians can't make good music?

Thoughts: Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation

2010-10-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

I finally took it upon myself to write my thoughts on this album down. I posted the result on RYM originally, but I guess I might as well put it here too. This is a cut-paste copy (except I've mentioned the band names for referenced albums):

Ah yes, Daydream Nation. Sonic Youth's 'landmark' album. After hearing (Sonic Youth) Confusion Is Sex / Kill Yr. Idols a few times, I picked this up. Sure, it was okay, but it never quite clicked for me. This one has been in the CD rack for a (too?) long time. Likewise, C=S/KYI has been buried deep in the depths of my digital music collection. Every once in a while, I dig around and decide I really should hear X again. So here was today's choice. Anyway, the experience is the same as previously: sure, I don't mind listening to it, and it has some areas that grab my attention, but they quickly let go again. Also, seriously, a double album? 70 minutes is just too long for most albums, including this one.

Listen to this for its historic value. Listen to this to hear some solid alternative rock. Yes, it is also noise rock, but in the 80s, noise rock had much more to say in the form of (Swans) Filth, James Chance and the Contortions or (High Rise) II. Daydream Nation isn't bad, it is just inseparable from the very, very high expectations.

Filth

2010-09-25T04:05:00.000-07:00

In honour of a new Swans album. Here's to it being as good as this.
Filthy motherfucking Swans, bitches.

Bash scripting

2010-09-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

I wrote a little last.fm related script today. Before you start bashing, I'll point out this is (one of) my first bash scripts. It takes as input an artist or band name (the target), along with an optional depth (D, defaults to 5) and width (W, defaults to 7). Starting from the target, it takes the first W similar artists, creates and edge (target, similar) for each. This is performed for each of the similar artists, until depth D is reached (where initial target = depth 0). This creates a graph of (at most): sum( (for i=0..D : W^(i)) nodes (so 1+7+7^2+7^3+7^4+7^5 for the default values). The tool dot makes it really easy to create directed graphs from edges; all I had to do was filter out duplicates.

I use the following tools (which I believe aren't strictly part of bash):
wget
sed
grep
dot (part of graphviz)

The script is here.

Flickr / Fear Factory - Mechanize

2010-07-21T04:30:00.000-07:00

So yeah, remember my last post, where I said I was probably going to forget about the whole artwork thing? I totally lied about that. Here you can see the images of my copy of Fear Factory's Mechanize (see also below). Definitely one of my favorites as far as artwork goes. This version includes an extra track (Crash Test), as well as "special bonus content" (don't ask, I have no idea, it's probably some piece of shockwave or flash bloatware).

Anyway, the music is pretty cool too. I've known about Fear Factory for quite a while now ; I've had my period where tracks like Edgecrusher and Slave Labor were among my favorites. Around when this album was brand new, I remember downloading it, mostly out of nostalgia and slightly out of curiosity whether these guys actually made good stuff. After giving it a listen, I happened to stumble upon this version in the store. Impressed as I was, I bought it right away; and it was damn worth it. The only critique I really have is that the production is too loud, making this a little hard to listen to (no doubt this was intentional, but still). Samples on youtube: Mechanize, Powershifter. Other tracks I mentioned: Slave Labor (Archtype) and Edgecrusher (Obsolete).

New Music!

2010-07-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

So on the trip to Norway I posted about in the previous post, I bought a bunch of CDs:

NAS - Illmatic

This has been one of my favorite hip hop albums for quite a while now. Sure, it may be a popular choice, but this album just gets hip hop stripped down to the essentials, focusing on them, working them out in great detail. It's a little bit of a grower, but the raw beats and (generally) interesting lyrics really make this shine. It's just bad-ass.

Dinosaur JR. - You're Living All Over Me

Another album I enjoy quite a bit. Unlike Illmatic, which I play a lot, I don't listen to this album that often (at least, not before buying it). However, as I was going to see them live, I was so enthusiastic I picked this one up, remembering how I liked it when I first heard it. And it was definitely worth the money!

Meyvn - Splintered Skies

Here's one I had never heard of. However, for a mere 2.50 euro's and awesome artwork, I really couldn't leave it. I expected something symphonic metal, in the line line of Epica or After Forever, but instead I got something better; a lengthy progressive metal album with plenty of impressive guitar, synths and heavyness. A friend compared them with Dream Theater; I actually don't like them- but if he's right, maybe I should give DT another chance.

Lee Morgan - The Sidewinder

Another 'classic' that I hadn't heard in a while. The RVG edition of this album is impressive like all the RVG jazz remasters I've heard (Ornette Coleman, I'm looking at you). Though perhaps not as avant-garde as I usually like my jazz, this album still has plenty of variety to offer and is a must-hear if you're working yourself through jazz.

Anathema - We're Here Because We're Here

(the text is on a plastic sleeve)

And here is a new album. I got this one with perhaps a little too little thought; I actually thought I was buying an atmospheric metal album. Surprise soon made place for enjoyment, however; this album is extremely pleasing to the ears (Steven Wilson- you actually did a good job here). However, unlike Porcupine Tree, this album doesn't suffer much from boringness (or at least, not yet). Also, this album includes a DVD-A of the album (which I have yet to try). Pretty good, for the price of a regular new CD. Oh- did I mention the carefully crafted packaging?

And that reminds me of yet another task I will probably forget about: documenting my CDs, one post for each, with pictures and all that. If I ever do it, the Anathema album, Fear Factory - Mechanize, Sunn O))) & Boris - Altar, Sigur Rós - Takk.., Municipal Waste - Massive Aggressive, Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV, will probably be the albums that go first, since (my editions of) these all have awesome/non-standard packaging.

And again..

2010-07-20T15:29:00.000-07:00

Hey.

So since I was in Tromsø, Norway in (more or less) the previous week, I haven't really written anything. What I've been doing there? Visiting friends, and going to the bukta festival (edit: the search at last.fm for events sucks! I finally found it here). Here's the complete program (discussion below):

DAY ONE
BIG STAGE:
17:00
Big Bang
18:35
Disciplines
20:05
The Sonics (US)
21:45
MEW (DK)

SMALL STAGE
18:00
Kråkesølv
19:25
Navigators
21:05
Hayseed Dixie (US)
NIGHT PROGRAM
DJ Snowball

DAY TWO
BIG STAGE
17:00
Danko Jones (CAN)
18:30
John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen
19:50
Jim Jones Revue (UK)
21:15
Datarock
22:45
Dinosaur JR. (US)

SMALL STAGE
18:00
The Hex
19:20
Let's Wrestle (UK)
20:40
Tellusalie
22:05
Mondo Generator (US)
NIGHT PROGRAM
01:00
The Goo Men

DAY THREE: MORNING (FREE)
BIG STAGE
12:00
Blacksheeps
12:55
Moddi
14:00
Hurra Torpedo

SMALL STAGE
12:30
Mining in Yukon
13:35
Jabba the Butt
14:40
Bits'n'Pieces

DAY THREE: NORMAL PROGRAM
BIG STAGE
18:00
Hellbillies
19:30
Clutch (US)
21:10
Juliette Lewis (US)
22:50
Sivert Høyem

SMALL STAGE
19:00
Bad County
20:30
[Ingenting] (SE)
22:10
Turdus Musicus
NIGHT PROGRAM
01:00
Senjahopen

Day One
Decent weather. A little chilly, but plenty of sun and no rain.
I missed half of Big Bang [sic], but they sounded good enough. Like all the bands on the small stage, this was listen-able. Disciplines, the third band of the day, was a different story. These guys (with one American member), playing "punk" in the vein of The Clash as well as more current-day "punk", had a pretty in-your-face sound as well as a great performance. However, I'd pick The Sonics (one of the bands I went for in the first place) as the best of the day. Old as they are, they still perform their fast garage rock with great charm. MEW, on the other hand, was not quite as good. I had heard of the band before, and I actually had pretty positive expectations from them, but it turned out to be a boring show, where everything drowned in bass and every song sounded like the last. Sure, it wasn't awful, but that's about all.

Day Two
Light rain throughout the evening. Pretty warm (for Tromsø standards; about 15-20 degrees C)
Again, I missed some of the first act, Danko Jones (who plays here every other year or so). This was some badass hard rock. Not spectacular, but the guy has a nose for entertaining the crowd. The following three bands (the hex, john olav nilsen & gjengen, let's wrestle) were all mediocre at best. Jim Jones Revue, a band I'd never heard of, proved to be quite a surprise; some pretty fast, blues-fueled rock they've got going. Great show, too. After an ignorable Tellusalie, the real feast of the festival began: Datarock, funky electronic rock, with an energetic show, followed by Mondo Generator. Mondo Generator did some badass covers of Queens of the Stone Age songs, as well as the Kyuss song Green Machine (one of my favorites) and played some hardcore-speed tracks. They probably take the prize of "best new-to-me band". Dinosaur JR. was a bit of a let-down; their music was high-quality, but not as noisy as I expected. Plus, their show was BORING.

Day Three
Warm day (~20 degrees C). Lots of sun. Great day for a festival.
Morning
I've only seen the last three bands; I heard some of Moddi in the distance, which had awful vocals. Jabba the Butt was an interesting group of two guys; drums and bass only. They played a little sludgy, heavy rock with an experimental edge. Before-last song, some random other guy popped up on stage; he did some vocals (without words). Funny, really. Hurra Torpedo was brilliant; they're basically a noise rock band that makes music with bass, guitar and kitchen equipment. Lots of percussion; covered Lady GaGa and that silly milkshake song I don't want to know. Hilarious, but slightly childish. Bits'n'Pieces was generic, boring poppy rock.
Evening
We skipped Hellbillies; Bad County was decent but not very interesting. Clutch was, well, FUCKING AMAZING. Not as heavy as Mondo Generator, perhaps, but more psychedelic. [Ingenting] was not really worth seeing; as was the headliner, Juliette Lewis. Apparently a famous actress, her music wasn't interesting at all. Turdus Musicus was okay; they played some kind of metalcore/post-hardcore. Pretty scene-y stuff, which I normally stay away from; but it was a kind relief from Lewis. The final act, Sivert Høyem, was pretty boring too. He played some songs from the band Madrugada, which were decent. We left early.

Overall, it was a great festival; however, the headlines were a little disappointing.

Signs of life...

2010-07-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

.. through the most appropriate style of music for the occasion; death metal!

After taking a good while off playing Pharaoh (a city building game set in ancient Egypt), watching various seasons and series of Stargate (all of Atlantis and over a third of SG-1) and generally being covered in Egyptian mythology, the best start is probably...

... No, not Nile, actually. Nice try though. In fact, I'll post about Aeternam, a band that had their debut this year (though various regions of the internet seem to believe a 2009 release also exists, RYM does not). It's called Disciples of the Unseen and is in a strange region somewhere between (old) Arch Enemy, mordern melodic death and Nile. Though their melodic death is solid, the clean vocals and the non-metal influences are the prime elements that make this album impressive. I'm actually doubting whether the non-metal elements are related to Egypt, but suffice it to say the middle-east seems about accurate. Of course, there are some bands from this region (1000 Funerals, for example -- but that's for another post), but this one is not among them; they're Canadian. Either way, you can hear some here (out of these two I recommend Angel Horned).

Disciples of the Unseen:

Next up is one of a pretty long list a friend of mine got me not too long ago; Autopsy's legendary album, Mental Funeral. Though this is probably blasphemy to death metal fans out there, I haven't heard it in the past five years I've listened to metal. Boy did I miss out. Doom-infused, raw death metal, something that has probably served as inspiration for Entombed. They've probably got some friends in Obituary, too. This definitely sparks interest for Autopsy's debut, Severed Survival.

Mental Funeral:

Severed Survival:

Here's some more stuff I'll be (re)trying in the near future. If I feel I have something to say, I will post about them.
Benediction - Organized Chaos
Brutality - Screams of Anguish

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Kraftwerk - Radio-Activity
A Life Once Lost - Hunter

2010-06-26T13:43:00.001-07:00

Hello. The following album is something you should try out if you enjoy psychedelic music, or when you want to see what southern Asia has to offer in terms of music.

A truly fascinating three pieces played live by Ustad Vilayat Khan. In particular the last two pieces are of interest, though more for the rhythm section (tabla, played by Zakir Hussain).

Loud goodies.

2010-06-11T14:38:00.000-07:00

Why hello there. This is a sort-of-tribute to all the awesomeness at the cosmic hearse blog. I haven't had time in a while, so I figured I'd post here some of the goodies I've saved up until now. Thank you, Aesop!

Check out this crust black metal goodness over at the cosmic hearse: Axeman - Arrive. I know it is probably intended, but it's a real shame this is on cassette and not on MP3 or CD. The production is pretty much non-existent. While it adds to the atmosphere, I'd like to hear this with decent production.

Liked that and need to be fed more punk and less black metal for a change? Grab some Japanese punk: 集団自殺 (syudan jisatsu) - Demon Priest. I think this one's a little slow-paced and maybe a bit too silly in terms of vocals, but it's still enjoyable. If you're digging the transition, you ought to go for GAI - Total Control, another fucking awesome japanese hardcore EP. Also, here is MOAR.

Speaking of Japan, while I was searching for something I stumbled on this Hanatarash EP:

Hanatarash is one of those bands that were on my mental check-these-guys-out list for quite a while and I'm glad I finally got to it. It isn't quite on par with Eye's work with Boredoms, but unlike my initial expectations, it isn't a wall of fucking noise everywhere. It has some really funny moments and some of the sound generation methods remind me of Tangent Precipitate (even though the influence probably goes the other way around). It also applies some breakcore-esque ideas in the background.

You want more gritty hardcore fucking punk, you say? I totally agree! Check out this wicked cover:

The album is as badass as the cover looks. DO WANT.

Master of Orion and other obsessions

2010-05-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

So I yet again took one of my all-time favorite games out: Master of Orion, a turn based space exploration game by MicroProse. A screenshot:

It runs perfectly in dosbox, though I haven't gotten the sound working yet-- but that's a linux and lazyness issue (read: it worked fine on windows last time I tried, but this game doesn't really need sound anyway). A quick google showed me you can actually pick this game up, together with Master of Orion 2, for a mere 6 dollars (.). Or you could go to your favorite abandonia website and grab it there.

More nostalgia today:
Entombed, the first (metal) band I ever saw live. In a forgotten few sectors on my harddrive, there it was: Wolverine Blues:

A pretty damn awesome piece of rollin' death metal. For all those people who love AC/DC and secretly want death metal; for all those metal fans who secretly enjoy rock, I present to you a fine, fine album.

Project Euler | Problem 6 (&7!)

2010-05-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

Problem 6 is one of those where functional programming just makes things WAY too easy. Look at this:

squares x = [y^2| y<-[1..x]]
answer = (sum ([1..100]))^2 - sum(squares 100)

If you know how list comprehension (the [result | var<-generator;condition] part) works, and you know that [x..y] is all the natural numbers between x and y, including x and y, you can understand the above.
List comprehension works like this:
The generator generates one value. Each occurrence of var is replaced by the value, the conditions, of any, are evaluated, and if all of them apply, result is evaluated and "returned". Since functional languages like these are lazy, evaluation of a list comprehension only occurs when a value from the list is actually needed. Thus, one can define all prime numbers as follows:

allPrimes = [y |y<-[1..];isPrime( y )]

And use it as a list containing all possible primes (assuming the isPrime function exists). Just be sure not to call reverse or something on an infinite list like this. If you try to find the xth prime, all you have to do is allPrimes!x and the list will be evaluated up to the xth result.

[edit]
Holy crap, I almost answered problem 7 without even reading the question. Given allPrimes from above and isPrime from problem 3, we can do:

allPrimes ! 10001

And we're given the prime we want.
[/edit]

By the way, this album is fucking badass:

The Cosmic Hearse, a blog I've followed for nearly a year now, posted this and I've been hooked ever since. Its sound is fairly repetitive, but Kool Keith is just really fucking solid and there are some great samples and beats here. One of the strongest rap albums out there, possibly.

Project Euler | Problem 5

2010-05-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it's about time for the next problem! The solution isn't hard to find with pen and paper if you realize that what is asked is the least common multiple of the numbers 1 to 20. Since 20 is quite a small number, we can easily find this through the prime decompositions of all these numbers. Here's how it works for 1 to 10 (which, as given, gives 2520 as a result):

2=2
3=3
4=2*2
5=5
6=2*3
7=7
8=2*2*2
9=3*3
10=2*5

Note that any multiple n needs to be dividable by each of the above. In other words, the multiple n needs to contain the prime decomposition of each of the above numbers. Next, observe that 2 occurs at most 3 times, 3 at most 2 times, and 5 and 7 both at most once in each prime decomposition. Thus, the number we're looking for is 2*2*2*3*3*5*7=5*7*8*9=2520.
Analogously;

11=11
12=2*2*3
13=13
14=2*7
15=3*5
16=2*2*2*2
17=17
18=2*3*3
19=19
20=2*2*5

So the number is 2520*2*11*13*17*19=232792560. Surprisingly big number, isn't it?

The question remains, is this the most efficient method? Probably not, since determining the prime decomposition in the way I did in a previous post less than p/2*(n/2) modular operations and (p-1) divisions, where p is the amount of (non-distinct) primes in the decomposition and n is the value to be decomposed. The actual amount of modular operations is the multiplication of (n/p_i/2) for p_i=1,p_1,p_2..p_y, where p_1..p_y are the primes in the decomposition of n. I'm pretty sure this can be optimized to p/2*sqrt( n) by changing the condition in the while loop from x/2 to sqrt( x). Sounds efficient? I'd say so. You really don't want to use this to reverse an RSA public key, though: we know that in the above, p=2, but also that n=2^(2048) or n=2^(3072), for a reasonably secure key. that still means we need sqrt(2^(2048)) operations with this naive method, which is insanely huge. Nevertheless, it might be fun to try this method, or preferably, the more efficient method called Number Field Sieve, which is mentioned here.
To be continued?

Project Euler | Problem 4

2010-05-23T02:48:00.000-07:00

This problem asks you to find the biggest 6-digit palindrome that is the product of two 3-digit numbers. I found this one quite boring, so I'll just put the code (in the functional language Amanda) I used to solve it here and not think about it too much.

condition x = (~.empty) [y | y <- [100..999] ; divides y x ; (x/y)<1000 ]
isPalindrome len val = (take len (itoa val))=((reverse.drop len) (itoa val))
pali6 = reverse [x| x <- [100000..999999]; isPalindrome 3 x]
answer = hd [x | x <- pali6 ; condition x]
divides y x = (x%y = 0)

Those familiar with haskell should probably be able to understand this. It takes about half a minute to evaluate, which is probably because I first calculate all the palindromes and then check them. Also, it should be possible to do the whole thing in one line, but it gets kinda hard to read that way.

Project Euler | Problem 3

2010-05-22T04:30:00.000-07:00

Ah, an interesting problem!
Problem 3 (clicky) asks you to find the largest prime factor of a pretty big number. Now, you could (like me) try to figure out how to do prime factorization efficiently. wikipedia has some really interesting articles on this subject (I might write a little bit about them later). However, compared to real prime decomposition problems (like in RSA), the primes are hard to find because the factors are close together and are really, really large, compared to the number in the problem.

So I decided to try the brute-force approach. First I tried to do it top-down, ie. count from the square root of x to 1 and return the first factor, find the factor of that and so on. There are two flaws in that approach: first, the decomposition of the biggest (possibly non-prime) factor does not always provide the biggest prime factor. Second, the difference between the square root and the biggest prime factor is pretty large (in this particular case, on the order of 1000 times bigger than the biggest prime factor).
In short, brute-force works better by counting from 1. Here's some python that does just that:

def find_factor(x):
 if (x%2==0):
  return 2
 i=3
 while i<(x/2):
  if (x%i==0):
   return i
  i+=2
 return x
def decompose(x):
 res = []
 while(x>=2):
  f = find_factor(x)
  res.append(f)
  x=x/f
 return res
print decompose(600851475143)

decompose finds the whole decomposition, while find_factor finds the smallest factor of a number, which is always a prime factor. This is easy to prove:
Assume x is the smallest factor of n, but x is not prime. That means x has some prime decomposition that contains p, p!=x. But that means p<x, and because x divides n, p divides n, and thus p is a smaller factor of n than x, which is a contradiction.
Finding this factor is pretty fast:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/codestuff$ memtime python test.py
[71, 839, 1471, 6857L]
Exit [0]
0.02 user, 0.00 system, 0.10 elapsed -- Max VSize = 1616KB, Max RSS = 56KB

However, if we try to find the decomposition of 600851475133, it takes a lot longer:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/codestuff$ memtime python test.py
[7, 13, 47, 140484329L]
Exit [0]
47.08 user, 0.26 system, 65.80 elapsed -- Max VSize = 7212KB, Max RSS = 3364KB

Moving on to the C code:

#include  //for printf
long long find_factor(long long x){
 if (x%2==0){
  return 2;
 }
 long long i=3; //we can start at 3, since 2 is the only even prime
 while (i<(x/2)){
  if((x%i)==0){
   return i;
  }
  //even factors are caught by the initial if
  i+=2;
 }
 return x;
}
int main(){
 long long target = 600851475143LL;
 long long f = 0L;
 int count = 0;
 printf("Decomposing: %lld\n",target);
 while (target>=2){
  f = find_factor(target);
  printf("Factor%d:%lld\n",count,f);
  target = (target/f);
  count+=1;
 }
 return 0;
}

This is, as expected, really fast:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/codestuff$ memtime ./a.out
 Decomposing: 600851475143
Factor0:71
Factor1:839
Factor2:1471
Factor3:6857
Exit [0]
0.00 user, 0.00 system, 0.10 elapsed -- Max VSize = 1616KB, Max RSS = 60KB

And the other number:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/codestuff$ memtime ./a.out
 Decomposing: 600851475133
Factor0:7
Factor1:13
Factor2:47
Factor3:140484329
Exit [0]
1.26 user, 0.01 system, 1.70 elapsed -- Max VSize = 1616KB, Max RSS = 356KB

So the C code is about 35 times faster than python.

I've also tried to do this in Amanda, but it doesn't support long longs (I think it uses the C type long int underwater).

Project Euler | Problem 2

2010-05-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here's something about PE, problem 2 (clicky). Again, the problem is not very hard, it's just a matter of toying with writing efficient code (which is a pretty new idea to me, usually I only do this for more complex algorithms, rarely during actual coding). So, it's C time! Also, there will be some python, since Fibonacci is a nice toy example for generators.
Usually, I check for evenness with %2. However, C allows you to do bitwise operators while actually making sense (I've been told this is more of a pain in Java, but I haven't tried it in that language myself). So you can do this:

#include <stdio.h> //for printf
int main(){
 long long sum  = 0;
 int curr = 2;
 int prev = 1;
 int tmp  = 0;
 unsigned long long limit = 4000000000;
 printf("Up to: %lld\n",limit);
 //loop through all fibonaci numbers, starting with 1 and 2
 while (curr < limit){
  if(!(curr&1)){ //if even, add curr
   sum+=curr;
  }
  tmp=curr;
  curr+=prev;
  prev=tmp;
 }
 printf("Result:%lld\n",sum);
 return 0;
}

Note the brackets, which are needed since ! takes precedence.
This is pretty fast:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/codestuff$ memtime ./a.out
4613732
Exit [0]
0.00 user, 0.00 system, 0.10 elapsed -- Max VSize = 1616KB, Max RSS = 56KB

Now, on to python. This shows why generators are cool: they're like functions, except they yield a value, instead of return, and when they yield, the context is saved and on the next call, they continue. More on generators: in the python docs and on wikipedia.

def fib(first, second):
 prev=first
 curr=second
 yield prev
 yield curr
 while True:
  tmp=curr
  curr+=prev
  prev=tmp
  yield (prev+curr)

STOP = 4000000

result = 0
for i in fib(1,2):
 if i%2==0:
  result+=i
 if i > STOP:
  break
print result

By the way, what wikipedia says about generator expressions ("Python has a syntax modelled on that of list comprehensions") makes sense if you're into functional programming (or mathematical set notation). So I figured I could do some Amanda here too, just for fun:

fib a b = a:(fib b (a+b))
f = fib 1 2

efib = [x | x<- f ; (x%2=0)]

res (x:y:xs) = x +y+ res xs, if y<4000000
             = x         , otherwise

main = res efib

Note that Amanda has lazy evaluation, ie. it only evaluates something when it needs that value. main= (...) simply executes the command when the code is loaded. fib is a function that generates all the fibonacci numbers, while efib is a function that picks out all the even ones with list comprehension. Fun fact: if we run efib by itself, it will generate an infinite list. If we interrupt the program and scroll back, we can see that: [2, 8, 34, 144, 610, 2584, 10946, 46368, 196418, 832040, 3524578, 14930352, 63245986, 267914296, 1134903170, 512559680, are all the even integers in the fibonacci series below whatever maximum amanda defines for numbers (beyond this, the number just wraps to negative).

Project Euler | Problem 1

2010-05-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm going to try and learn some more languages, and improve my knowledge of those I already know. I'm going to keep a log of the code I write on this blog. I'll try and write the solution in as many languages as possible. Plus, maybe the fact that everyone can read my ugly code means I'll try and write things in a nicer way. This post-series is mostly just personal; I don't expect people to read this.

Anyway, lets get started with Problem 1. Of course, the basic solution is simple: walk over the numbers between 0 and 1000, check whether 3 or 5 divides it, add them to the sum. I figured I could play with some efficiency, but it turned out (clicky) that there is simply an x86 operator that does the modular operation, so there's not a whole lot to speed up here. Here's what I did in C:

#include 
int main(){
 int i = 0;
 int sum=0;
 while (i<1000){
  if ((i%3==0) | (i%5==0)){
   sum+=i;
  }
  i++;
 }
 printf("%d\n",sum);
}

I'm kind of bothered by the fact that I need the include. But anyway, you can also do this without a division if you really want it. it's easiest to demonstrate with python:

rresult=0
for i in range(999,0,-3):
 result+=i

for i in range(995,0,-5):
 result+=i

for i in range(15,1000,15):
 result-=i
print result

Of course, these numbers are pretty boring. I tried to scale things up a bit, so I modified the C code to use longs for the sum and had both go up to 1 000 000. Using memtime (a little tool to record time and used memory for whatever you feed it), I recorded the time each took. As expected, python is way slower:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/codestuff$ memtime ./a.out 
233333166668
Exit [0]
0.01 user, 0.00 system, 0.10 elapsed -- Max VSize = 1616KB, Max RSS = 56KB
namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/codestuff$ memtime python test.py 
233333166668
Exit [0]
0.27 user, 0.00 system, 0.40 elapsed -- Max VSize = 12472KB, Max RSS = 8544KB

However, if I change the python code to match what the C code does, this happens:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/codestuff$ memtime python test.py 
233333166668
Exit [0]
0.74 user, 0.00 system, 0.80 elapsed -- Max VSize = 7212KB, Max RSS = 3312KB

Surprising? Perhaps at first, yes. But if you know a little bit about python, you'll know it has a lot of C in the background. Looks like even though the range() function takes a large amount of memory, it's way faster than manual computation.

So that's it. Enough toying with code; go listen to this magnificent post-hardcore album:

There's a sample track (Vulgar Theories) for listening on the dischord website (take note: flash).

Python!

2010-05-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

So someone asked me a little while ago how to get some set of files to be sorted on creation date and then have a number in the filename to indicate the sorting. I figured it'd be easy with bash, but being the bash newbie I am, I switched to do some python. Using some quick googling, I wrote the code down there.
It does things pretty simple: it uses os.stat to query the ctime, puts it in a tuple together with the filename, adds it all to a list, sorts that list and then copies the files to their new names.

import os, glob, sys, shutil
from stat import ST_CTIME
path = '.'

lijstje = []
for f in glob.glob( os.path.join(path, '*') ):
 lijstje.append((os.stat(f)[ST_CTIME],f))

counter = 0
lijstje = sorted(lijstje)
for x in lijstje:
 date, name = x
 if counter <10:
  dest = "00%d%s"%(counter,name[2:])
 elif counter <100:
  dest = "0%d%s"%(counter,name[2:])
 else:
  dest = "%d%s"%(counter,name[2:])
 #print dest
 shutil.copy(name, dest)
 counter +=1

Here's what it does:


namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/test/subdir$ ls -Al
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 f
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 hello_thar
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 test
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:45 testfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco 444 2010-05-18 21:45 test.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 x

I like to see what happens, so I commented the print line in the code out. Here's what it outputs:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/test/subdir$ python test.py
000a
001x
002b
003f
004hello_thar
005test
006testfile
007test.py

And the resulting ls -Al:

namnatulco@namnatulco-desktop:~/test/subdir$ ls -Al
total 8
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:46 000a
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:46 001x
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:46 002b
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:46 003f
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:46 004hello_thar
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:46 005test
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:46 006testfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco 444 2010-05-18 21:46 007test.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 f
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 hello_thar
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 test
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:45 testfile
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco 444 2010-05-18 21:45 test.py
-rw-r--r-- 1 namnatulco namnatulco   0 2010-05-18 21:44 x

edit: yes, I know this is probably a lot easier in just plain bash, but I just like to play around in python. Besides, this'll probably work on windows :)

Détente - Recognize No Authority

2009-12-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

Thrash Metal.
Female Vocals.
In short: awesomeness.
Go hear the track 'Holy Wars':

Hell, go listen to the whole album

Death Metal Live

2009-12-14T04:59:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday (12 December), I finally went to another festival. It was about goddamn time. So now I'm sitting here with a minor neck-ache, telling you how much awesome bands I saw. Well, I'll just keep it short since I have a paper to get to. Here's the time schedule and all the bands that played:
16:45 - 17:15: Hackneyed
17:15 - 17:45: Escutcheon
17:35 - 18:15: Ulcerate
18:05 - 18:45: Dead Head
18:35 - 19:20: Krisiun
19:10 - 19:55: The Rotted
19:45 - 20:30: Grave
20:20 - 21:05: Disharmonic Orchestra
20:55 - 21:55: Tankard
21:45 - 22:45: Hail of Bullets
22:30 - 23:30: Nile
These were (obviously) on two different stages. I've seen most of Hackneyed, most of Ulcerate, all of Krisiun, a little bit of The Rotted, most of Grave, Disharmonic Orchestra and Tankard, a few songs of Hail of Bullets and all of Nile.
For starters, Hackneyed was a band of teenagers playing pretty straight-forward, slightly modern death metal. They were pretty good for such a young band, I just hope they get a little better. After some food, I went to see Ulcerate, which had just started. This was to be (for me, anyway) one of the best bands of the festival. They played what is best described as technical death metal. Technical as their playing might be, it didn't come off as technical wankery. There was a pretty wide variety of sounds here and I'm definitely going to check at least one of their two albums out. After a break, Krisiun from Brazil played. This three-piece played some pretty good death metal. That said, I really hated the sound of the bass guitar. The bass player (and vocalist) did get the crowd moving though.
After this, we saw a little bit of The Rotted, which was a kind of grindcore band from the UK. The front man here was a pretty funny dude. They put up quite a show. This did, however, get old pretty soon. We went to see Grave, which was quite a disappointment for me. Sure, the band played well, but I find that Grave lacks bits that really excite me. They've got all the basic death metal elements, but that's just about all.
Anyway, next up was Disharmonic Orchestra: the other big positive surprise for me. First thing that is notable about this band is that they don't look like average death metal folk. Then again, their style doesn't really conform to that either. They've got a lot of elements: grindcore, death metal, alternative metal and some funk influences too. Add to this a large variety of speed and a charismatic stage performance and you've got Disharmonic Orchestra. They played songs from most of their albums, including from their upcoming one, which is due (quote:) "maybe in 2010". I'm looking forward to hearing some of their albums.
Beyond this band was Tankard, thrashing beer-addicted metal from Germany. They had a pretty good show, just you'd expect a thrash metal band to play. They're the only thrash band I've seen (though I read Dead Head was thrash metal too, I didn't see them).
Last up was Nile. I can be really short about this: their performance was great. The only thing I really missed was that they didn't play Unas, probably my favorite track off In Their Darkened Shrines. That said, they picked songs off each album roughly equally (ie. it wasn't a show based on their new album, or with only new material, like sometimes tends to happen).

So there you have it. I'll probably update this later with pictures or something. The venue has a page where they put pictures for all their events, but there aren't any up there as of yet.

Swans, stoner metal and Wodensthrone

2009-12-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

And then there was yet another post!

First off, Swans - Filth:

Now what can we say about this? For starters, you can clearly hear these guys were involved in the no wave scene. The whole thing actually sounded a lot clearer than I expected it to be (I expected something like Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, though). It gives off a really good first impression, eitherway. I gave it a 4/5 for now.

Next off is some goodies stoner metal with some Sci-Fi sounds from the Netherlands, Toner Low's selftitled debut:

You should really just go listen to this. Their myspace has one song from this album, though for some reason the track titles are different from those on musicbrainz and RYM.

Finally, my most recent purchase, Wodensthrone - Loss:

Which is an atmospheric black metal band that got me really excited. The album itself is a pretty solid mixture of black metal and some folky parts. The intro track, Fyrgenstréam, is a real mood-setter. I should note right here that beyond this track, it's not exactly the most variated album of it's kind, but it is certainly well-played. Though not as fast, sections of the album appeal to me in the same way that Emperor's first two albums do. The drumming is solid, as are the vocalists. That's right; they've got several of them. It works pretty well. Most of it is your-average-black metal-screaming, but there are some clean, folky background vocals too. The only thing that bothers me is that it comes off as a lot of the same. Overall, a really grand, almost warm atmosphere. Also, there's a lot of replay power in this. I've been listening to this nearly on a daily basis, and I just can't get bored with it.

Speaking of atmospheric black metal, I still need to check WitTR, even if only for the enormous hype and the fact that they're on Southern Lord. If you've got any tips, please let me know :).

Industrial hardcore/power noise

2009-12-07T15:13:00.000-08:00

Subwoofer time!
Here's some stuff I've been listening to on this fine evening:

Liquid Blasted - Kremlincore:

Full stream on last.fm.
discogs page & you can buy it right here (2x12"). Hard, fast, good 4/5.

Terrorfakt - Cold Steel World:

After freshly ripping this from CD (I bought it together with Skinny Puppy's The Greater Wrong of the Right), I was kind of disappointed yet again. This album just looses it's punch if you get up with it every morning for a while. Anyway, you can find it on Amazon and iTunes or from the label. Discogs entry. 3/5.

After Terrorfakt, I grabbed something a little more gentle, in the form of Pneumatic Detach - [re·vis·cer·a]:

I'm pretty sure this is a remix album of the guy's previous album, 2005's [vis·cer·a]. Remixes are by Terrorfakt and thirteen other artists I've never heard of. I actually downloaded this a long time ago, after hearing some of Pneumatic Detach's own stuff on the last.fm radio. At the first listen, I remember being suprised by the more EBM sound, but right now it was simply quite enjoyable, though it could use a little more punch. Notably, the track Embers (remix by Censor) was a drum'n'bass track, which was a pleasant suprise. 3.5/5.

And after this, it is time for one of my first 'connections' to the power noise genre, xotox - (Die) Unruhe:

This shit is really hard. REALLY hard. Not in the sense of a difficult listen, just an incredibly hard bass. The biggest 'flaw' of this album is that it consists of two core tracks: Mechanische Unruhe (Mechanical Unrest) and Nasse Wände (according to google translate, Damp Walls) and remixes of them. Scattered inbetween these remixes, another 6 original tracks are around, which brings the album to a total of 15 tracks. Remixes are by a bunch of artists I've never heard of, though Jesus Complex sounds vaguely familiar. At just over an hour of hard, loud music, it's pretty hard to hold an album together. If one takes this into account, this is one damn fine album. But of course, I don't do that, but judge the album on it's experience. There's still an okay amount of variety here: the MH20 remix of Mechanische Unruhe (by Heimataerde) is probably one of the most EBM-like tracks, but there is also borderline noise stuff here like Pumpe/Düse and Paderborn, which paint a bleak picture of a late-night party in an industrial facility of inhumane proportions. Overall, 4/5.

Anyway, enough for today. I'll probably make a post somewhere tomorrow on my most recent purchase, Wodensthrone's awesome atmospheric black metal debut Loss. If you can't wait, metal-achives has some reviews for your reading pleasure. Also, I finally got around to fetching Swans' debut, Filth, which is one of those albums which I'm probably going to regret not checking out earlier.

< RAGE > On an unrelated note, /mu/ is being really godawfully slow recently. I suspect /b/ is to blame, since the 4chan status blog and our good friend downforeveryoneorjustme both say that img, dat and static.4chan.org are down. < /RAGE >

9dw/Boris - Golden Dance Classics

2009-12-07T15:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's been a long time, but I decided to write something again. I revamped my rating system on My RYM, so I figured this would be a good point on which to start and tell a little about what I listen to. I guess you could see this as a review, but that's an overstatement in my opinion. It's more jolting down my thoughts while or shortly after listening than anything else, and it happens quite often that I later don't agree with what I wrote anymore. I'll only publish these reviews on RYM if I consider them to be worthy.

CD cover.

12" cover.

It seems this split EP has generated a bit of controversy among Boris' fans.
Some people seem to feel that 9dw's two funk tracks, 'エイの宇宙遊泳 (Stingray)' and 'スパイス (Spice)' are a lot better than Boris' side of the split. For me, as for probably most people, 9dw is a band I haven't heard of before this split.They play pleasant, dancable and instrumental funky music on this split.
The Boris side, on the other hand, consists of two tracks that are kind of hard to put a label on.The first, トーキョーワンダーランド (Tokyo Wonder Land), can be seen as a continuation of what 9dw does on their side.If you try to imagine Boris doing a funk track, with some kind of noisy weirdness in the background and Takeshi's typical voice singing something gentle (?) in Japanese, you're probably on the right track.Continuing after this into the final track, あきらめの花 (Akirame Flower), Boris hops back to their trademark doom-like sound a little, but the funk can still be heard.

In conclusion: 9dw was a pleasant and funky suprise, Boris did something I personally didn't expect at all, but it caught on quite well for me. 4/5.

RYM entry
Discogs entry
Buy the 12"
Buy the CD
Source for the directly linked MP3's. Obviously, I have no control over those.

The Needle Drop

2009-08-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

Just a really quick post here: you guys (if anyone actually reads this blog- I doubt it, but whatever) should totally check out theneedledrop's youtube channel, which has some good and funny reviews on music. The guy also has a blog here and I've heard him mention he has a podcast too (but I have yet to check that out). Anyway, check it.

Some great jazz

2009-08-27T16:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's the deal.
Over the course of the current week, I've been trying to listen to loads and loads of jazz (to rediscover the old and find the new, mainly). I'll recommend you some of my finest discoveries shortly, but first I should note this blog will be (even more) inactive starting next week (probably), since my classes are coming back. I don't honestly have that many hours, but I am really unsure how much time the projects will take. In either case, I hope to file at least one post every other week if possible.

Okay, on to some jazz discoveries. I've been recommended quite some albums in the bop style. I still have a little bit of a hard time describing the sound, but it's pretty upbeat, usually with sax on the front. The sax will likely be quite variated, backed by a tight bass and pretty fast drums (though not as fast as, say, Ornette Coleman's works). Anyway, here are some:

Make sure to check these out.
Also, if you want to hear the big band thing, try these:

One of my first and favorite jazz albums, which lead me to buy the band's album Bring It On (which features vocals and more variety, generally a much more poppier appoach). I'm also (probably) attending their show in my town soon. Also, check this one out:

This was recommended to me at the Music Advice Center last.fm group in response to my query about the intro-song to Cowboy Bebop (for you anime fans, you probably know it, but shame on you if you don't):

Which is, by the way, one of the best intro songs to an anime ever (Texhnolyze and Trigun also have great intro's in the psytrance and stonerish rock respectively).
Enjoy!

By the way, do check out The Needle Drop's youtube channel for hilarious and (imho) well done reviews (though I don't always agree, they're quite fun to watch).

Unknown Metal treats

2009-08-09T15:36:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

It's been a while since I posted. I think it's about time for a metal post. Here are two picks from the recent Unknown Metal posts. First off though, I'd like to point out that the new album that dredg put out in June is quite awesome. Do check it out if you haven't already. If you don't know dredg, then you should check this album out:

Here's the new album's cover:

Anyway, on to business.
First off, Akphaezya. This four-piece band from France plays music that is best described as being jazz piano combined with progressive metal and weird clean female vocals. People call this band as so many others 'avant-garde metal', but I don't think the term works to be honest. Anyway, if you like any of those, check them out. Here's the cover of the re-recorded version of their one and only album:

According to their myspace, which also has some tracks for streaming, they're working on a new album. There's also a buy link there for the above, or if you want to hear it, google can help you.
The Unknown Metal thread might have more information/opinions.
The album cover looks a lot more dark and obscure than it really is. I think non-metal fans will probably be able to enjoy this too (though if you're a jazz-purist, then perhaps not).

On to the next band: Aluk Todolo. This band, also from France, plays something that is probably best described as krautrock, but darker. It takes in quite a bit from noise and black metal, and it has a really metal feel about it. This is the cover of their latest album, Finsternis:

The Unknown Metal thread has more information and buy links. If you're just looking to hear it (or their other works), you can ask google.
I really wonder how this album ages, but right now I'm really digging it. If I buy it, it's probably going to be from Conspiracy Records since they're the cheapest method to buy in Europe that I've seen.

OUTRAGE!

2009-07-31T13:33:00.000-07:00

A RIAA lawyer said recently that:

He [Steven Metalitz] has now responded to a host of questions from the Copyright Office following up on live hearings held earlier this year, and in those comments, Metalitz (again) strongly opposes any exemption that would allow users to legally strip DRM from content if a store goes dark and takes down its authentication servers.

Hop over to ars technica for the full article. Tweakers.net (Dutch tech site) also published an article, as did Slashdot. Earlier this month, A RIAA Spokesman was reported saying DRM was dead, which was later corrected to:

Lamy's [the spokesman's] full, original comment, made in an e-mail sent to Radcliffe in response to a query for a story she was working on, read: "There is virtually no DRM on music anymore, at least on download services, including iTunes."

As reported by InformationWeek.

Time to keep an eye out on the RIAA Radar (thanks guys!) when buying your music.

hip hop

2009-07-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

Finally, time for a new post.

I ordered some hip hop goodies this weekend:

This one I haven't heard at all yet. Abandoned Language was so good this has to be worth it, though.

An album I've liked for some time, and this one was with a DVD for the same price! I wonder what's actually on it though. Not sure I got the right RYM link for this.

The last album I ordered. Not hip hop at all, but just posting it for the record. This album is fucking amazing and I recommend it to any fan of (hardcore) punk. It's basically where emo began. Go google it.

Also, I gave MF DOOM's projects another listen because I got so excited buying the above:

Madvillain is a project by MF DOOM (rapping) and Madlib (producer). They've got short tracks, with some rather unusal sounds and voice samples. But not nearly as much comic/villain notions and references as does the following album.

DangerDoom is a collaboration between Danger Mouse (who also did production in Gnarls Barkley) and MF DOOM. They've got a truckload of funny lyrics, with enjoyable beats.

Go and find those albums, too.

ゲルニカ - 新世紀への運河 (Guernica - Shinseiki e no Unga)

2009-07-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hello!

Just to let you guys know, I discovered something amazing today. This band is called Guernica and they're from Japan. They don't do the usual cheesy-j-pop sound, though. They do a kind of pop best described as art pop. It's a mixture of classical music, cabaret and various other music styles usually considered art, with a great pop-feel.
I suggest you just listen to this. You can find it on the Chainsaw Fellatio blog. If you enjoy lightly avant-garde or art music, or Japanese, this is probably your thing.

Virgin Black - Elegant... And Dying

2009-07-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Time for some really impressive gothic metal!

Virgin Black - Elegant... And Dying is one of the most impressive albums I've heard lately. On the first sight it seems rather lengthy, but it's guitar work is so subtile yet heavy that this is over before you know it. There is a pretty heavy style here, compared to most gothic metal (and symphonic metal, though the term doesn't really apply here) bands. The vocals are pretty good too, but the best part is the excellent production.
Go and have a listen.

album on wikipedia
Virgin Black on last.fm
Virgin Black on metal-archives

Free (and good!) music post

2009-07-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

I had my harddrive break down yesterday, so I couldn't make any posts I wanted to make. Instead, I'll post a good bunch of free music now. These are all bands I've known for a while and think you should totally hear.

We'll start off with the Russian post-hardcore band called .crrust.

Their album, You Came for the Everest, You'll Find Your Way Dead is up for free download on last.fm. The music is rather chaotic for post-hardcore, but I personally don't mind that (I've had a long love for grindcore).

Next up is the now-disbanded Hungarian band Gire. They play metal which I find hard to classify. It certainly has black metal influences, but it feels more like tharshy industrial metal. Make sure to check them out if you like rawer metal. here is their audio downloads page. The second demo, Energire, is amazing.

It has keyboards, but also has some of the rawest guitar sounds I've heard. I think they're pretty unique with this sound: I have yet to hear anything like it (feel free to let me know if you don't agree!).

Next up is something completely different: gay against you. It's glitchy, poppy, and hilarious chiptune stuff. Just go listen to it, their self-titled EP is right here.

And back to Russian hardcore we go: Follow the White Rabbit. Don't let the first track of their EP fool you: they play loud, chaotic mathcore. And they play it well.

Get it right here.

VACATION!

2009-07-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

Not that anyone cares, but after some hard final days of work, I've got my summer vacation.

To celebrate, I provided you with some deliciousness.

Fist in Fetus, a delicious melting pot of death metal, with progressive, symphonic and some grind sounds. I can tell you one thing: all 'symphonic' metal bands seem lame when compared to this. Just download this. It's free and awesome, what else do you want?
UM
album on RYM
correctly formatted download (provided in the UM thread)
Myspace
Mikseri (original download)

Krzysztof Komeda Quintet - Astigmatic

2009-07-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

Since it's North Sea Jazz festival time this weekend, I'll post some jazz.

First off, I found the following post on /mu/ today:

and for something a little older

Krzysztof Komeda - Astigmatic
>Avant-garde Jazz, Polish Jazz
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zm10gjzlim2
A true classic and really a must have for any comprehensive jazz collection

Bitrate: 320

And I must say, this is an amazing record. Way up there with Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. I can't tell you much more about it than this and what the post above says. Amazing in one word. Go listen to it.

Beyond this, I would also like to bring to your attention the slightly less avant-garde, but no less amazing music that Rashaan Roland Kirk:

Out of these two, Rip, Rig and Panic is my favorite. On the other hand, The Inflated Tear's cover is more awesome, showing what Kirk is known for: playing multiple saxophones at once.

Anyway, for all of you people who are in the Netherlands, hop over the radio 6 website and catch some of the shows on the North Sea Jazz festival this weekend! They've got an excellent and variated show with interviews, recordings, live samples and everything you want to know about NSJ.

Information:
Krzysztof Komeda on last.fm
Rahsaan Roland Kirk on last.fm
radio6/NSJ (in Dutch)
radio6 twitter

Cosmicdust - Snow Noise Assemblage

2009-07-08T14:53:00.001-07:00

Hey dudes,

/mu/ is still down. So I bring you some shoegaze, to cover for /mu/'s absence. Cosmicdust is a one-man shoegaze band from Japan. As seemingly all music from Japan that is not j-pop, this album has it's amount of noise. As My Bloody Valentine, it has the dreamy atmosphere combined with the delicious noisyness. However, where the noise of MBV becomes annoying to the later half of the album (AH FUCK MY EARS), this album balances it out with some quiet, near-ambient parts (Bird Cries is a pretty good example). On the other side, there is some delicious loudness (see Meditation), sometimes to the point of nearly being noise.

I would provide you with a link, but I can't find any. You can stream some of the tracks on the album page as well as on the myspace page. Good luck searching.

As a final, I'd like to mention LSD and the Search for God, which released a self-titled EP (last.fm) for streaming on last.fm (click to stream).

They're also shoegaze and quite a nice calm-down for after this album. See their Myspace page for more information. If you must download it, google can help you. The fourth hit is also one of the blogs that /mu/ has produced.

Listen, and enjoy!

Linkage:
last.fm music profile
last.fm user profile
/mu/ on last.fm
4chan status blog
blog of some of /mu/'s tripfags

The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet - Voodoo

2009-07-07T15:17:00.000-07:00

Hey folks, time for some jazz!

The (in)famous John Zorn (sax) plays with Wayne Horvitz (piano), Ray Drummond (bass) and Bobby Previte (drums) on an amazing bop album:

The album is an obvious tribute to Sonny Clark, a jazz pianist that died in 1962 after nine years of activity. I haven't heard the original recordings, so I can't tell you how this performance compares, but I can tell you Zorn is one amazing performer (and composer, but that aside).
Voodoo is a pretty adventurous album, at some point hinting to the avant-garde jazz that Zorn also plays (Voodoo being the most prominent example). Apart from these hints, the tracks are very gentle to the ears (in my opinion, anyway), but they do not avoid showing what each player is capable of. Apart from Zorn, the piano on this album is amazing. This is not that suprising, since Clark was a pianist himself, but the execution is truly magnificent. You can hear it for yourself by hopping over to this blog. I'd provide a beter source, but I don't have one.

Now, I am no jazz expert, but I think this is a wonderful introduction to the world of jazz and that if you enjoy this album, you should explore Ornette Coleman's works. Those are a few steps beyond this, but it's definitely worth checking out.

info:
AllMusicGuide review
Sonny Clark on last.fm
John Zorn on last.fm
Sonny Clark on wikipedia
The album on wikipedia
The Sonny Clark Memorial Quartet on last.fm

thanks to:
MAC at last.fm, for their wonderful forums and advice
Post about this album on MAC's Jazz Desk
beelzbubba for his excellent recommendations.

Prurient - Rose Pillar

2009-07-07T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

Time for some ear-raping noise:

Prurient is a pretty big guy in noise. I personally haven't heard that much of his works, but judging from the Cocaine Death compilation and this album, his sound resolves around a dark-ambient-like atmosphere, slowly building in to very low or very high tones that WILL make you want to turn things down. He also uses distorted, screamed vocals to create a despairing, terror-filled effect. Unlike harsh noise, which just blasts you away with full-range noise (see Merzbow's Pulse Demon for that, which isn't all that good), this plays more with variation.
Enough of me: go here and listen for yourself.

Info:
last.fm
Hospital Productions
Wikipedia
Thanks to:
Spreading Neurotoxins

Kehlvin - The Mountain Daylight Time

2009-07-07T03:08:00.000-07:00

Time for yet another metal (well, metal related) post!

This time, Kehlvin is the name. Kehlvin is a Swiss band that consists of five members. They formed in 1999 as Loaf A. They have released one album (this one), one EP (Holy Cancer) and a split with a band called Rorcal.
Anyway, lets move on to the album:

On this album, they play a mixture of post-hardcore, sludgy goodness and a strong atmosphere. Before we get in to yet another debate about what (atmospheric) sludge/sludge metal is: I use it in the sense of hardcore fused with doom metal. I use it for this band, along with similar-sounding bands like Neurosis and Mouth of the Architect (and if you like those, you should definitely check this one out too). If you think I'm wrong, feel free to enlighten me.
The album has few flaws, but no real high-point, either. It's (atmospheric) sludge done well, that's for sure. Another big plus is that the whole thing is that you can stream most of it from last.fm here. Unfortunately, they inherited one trait that is rather annoying: a lengthy silence in the last track. Apart from that, the album isn't really memorable (which could be good or bad- that depends on you).

To conclude, check these guys out if you enjoy Neurosis, Mouth of the Architect and that sort of thing. Before I forget, here you can get the album.

If you liked this, you'll probably like the Dutch band Izah too, which has a free EP on their site. The now-disbanded band Transmission0 might also be relevant to your interests. This link will stream their album Memory of a Dream in your last.fm player.

Info:
MySpace
Last.fm
Official site (rather dead)
The album on RYM

Thanks to:
GoodNoisyCore, the blog that published this stuff too (see here).

Aladdin - Void Last Line

2009-07-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

There must be more!

It's psytrance time: aladdin is the name. He's a dude from Sweden playing some full-on tunes with the usual popular culture references (South Park, Family Guy...) and some tasty beats. He shares his name with the popular disney movie and a dude called Aphrodite (drum'n'bass) has used it as an alias.
Here's a youtube version of the first track (sound only):

Psyplanet.org, one of the blogs I have loosely followed over the years, has the whole album posted as a single MP3. You can get it here (they've got it on rapidShare and depositFiles).
The tool mp3DirectCut can be used to quickly split the MP3 in to seperate tracks, if you feel the need.
Some other excellent tracks on this album are: U Know This, Hard Coffe (Live Mix), The Way Of The Fly. The final track, 1994 (feat. Brainfreeze-Bonus Track), is much more like regular trance than the rest, but still sounds great. Who knows, maybe there will be a post coming up on this brainfreeze guy soon.

Little Brother

2009-07-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick recommendation on something you have to read.
Little Brother is a freely available ebook by writer Cory Doctorow. Now, I'll try to keep this short because I don't know anything about books, but this is awesome. It's about a little nerdy kid who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time during a massive terrorist attack in San Francisco. After he is released from his terrorism prison, his city has turned in to a police state.
If you care about any of the following:

Privacy

Paranoia

Hacking

Sci-fi about the near future

Nerdy stuff

Then get reading. Like I said, I don't know anything about books (I don't read apart from college books and stuff on the internet), but I read this 'out in one breath' as the Dutch saying goes. It also gives some alpha-friendly information about Bayesian Math, DNS and some cryptography. If you're not a tech-person, don't worry: the explaination is really good and avoids technial details. All you need to know is that most things described in this book are real or near-future (5-10 years?) technology.

Distorted in Eclipse - He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes...

2009-07-06T15:13:00.000-07:00

Time for another post.

For this one, we'll dive in to some pretty harsh black metal. The one-man-band Distorted in Eclipse, a side project of the guitarist and vocalist for some other band called Mengele Blue Eyes, released a track or two and an album on a free-to-download site called mikseri. It contains noisy, distorted black metal. Think merzbow doing remixes of Blut Aus Nord, The Axis of Perdition, that sort of thing. Some people use the term 'ambient black metal' for the previous two bands, but this is more noisy.

Anyway, someone collected the tracks (only the album), properly tagged them and stuffed them in to a single rar file for your convenience. If you're the guy that made this (then you rock! But that's not the point here) and you don't want that, just contact me and I'll delete the link. I can't do anything about the file itself, though.

There is one minor recording bug in the third track (around 9:00), but apart from that this album does what it aims to, flawlessly. If noise and black metal are among your favorite genres, you'll LOVE this.

info:
Last.fm
Unknown Metal
official download page

Thanks to:
verenvuoto: the user that posted the band.
Unknown Metal: the forum that helped me find this.

Pagan Altar - Volume 1

2009-07-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

Hello (again), folks.

I sweeped away whatever was here before (half a dozen links to last.fm streams and downloads), decided to start over. I intend to write a little more interesting now. Here's the idea:
I do what most blogs do, ie. pointing you where to download something. However, what annoys me about most of those is that very few of them actually provide anything about the band. I intend to do this different. Please note, I will never provide direct download links (call me a selfish bastard, but at least you people will see how exact google queries can be).

My first post is about the band Pagan Altar, a band founded in the late 70's from England. They're one of the bands that moved from NWOBHM to doom metal. They self-released most of their early works, but their first album got re-released in 1998, with the title 'Volume 1':

This is the album I discovered today through last.fm's Unknown Metal group (the group labels any band with under 5000 listeners on last.fm as 'unknown', just to have some kind of measure). The album has music somewhere around Black Sabbath and Candlemass. I actually prefer this album over Candlemass' Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, though both have the same downside of boring vocals. However, this album features more elements of heavy metal, which definitely makes this one better. And it has the short-but-awesome track 'Acoustics'. If you like the previously mentioned artists, you should definitely check out. You can find a download link right here (first link works at the time of writing).

More information:
Official Site
Unknown Metal post
RateYourMusic
last.fm
Encyclopaedia Metallum

Thanks to:
ApZwanenberg: last.fm user who posted this in the Unknown Metal forums.
Unknown Metal: for being the platform that helps me find good metal.