I have to ask, what sort of music does the volume named "Finally, the Punk Rockers are Taking Acid" consist of?

Ha! I should have included an explanation for that one. :) It's a comp of our favorite Flaming Lips tracks. The title is lifted from an official compilation of their early recordings from 1983-1988.

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The Nighthawk
 

Today I took the next step in audiophilia and invested in a pair of AudioQuest's flagship headphones - 2015 CES Best of Innovation Winner - The NightHawk.

The grills are 3D-printed using a process called selective laser sintering, and its biometric design mimicks the latticework in a butterfly's wing. It's designed to diffuse sound and to help defeat resonances.

The cups have substantial internal bracing, and have their interior surfaces coated with an elastomeric coating.

The driver uses a high-excursion 50mm biocellulose diaphragm - far superior to the Mylar diaphragms most drivers use. Compliant rubber surrounds improve the drivers' pistonic behavior. The NightHawk driver's magnet is very strong, rated at 1.2 tesla.

The earcup suspension mount system uses ultra-high-grade silicone bands that let them articulate with a lot of freedom, but while still providing nice tension and control. These are VERY comfortable to wear.

With the shock-mount-type suspension, the circular yokes, the Liquid Wood earcups, and the rod-type headband, the NightHawk looks somehow concurrently modern and vintage - a perfect fit for yours truly!

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A Personal Aside
 

This space is usually reserved for my silly musico-cultural obsessions and it’s not often that I use this blog to speak of personal matters in my life. But as today was particularly affecting, I’m going to take that liberty.

My fiance is brilliant. She is a magnificent author and incredibly adept at the art of crafting, needlework, and the like. She has a great appreciation for my less-than-accessible musical interests, and we share a love of cult/fringe cinema and literature.

You know there’s a “but” coming.

But, my friends, she’s also as mad as a matter.

Like so many writers and artists I’ve known, her inspiration is drawn from incredible traumas and misery - rejection, social isolation, self-loading, and misfortune. It’s what makes the works of these artists so spectacular. But it comes at a price.

In the last few months, my fiance has lost not just one but both of her beloved grandmothers, which resuted in a severe and debilitating depression leaving her in a state of near catatonia.

And on top of that, the women at her workplace (an educational center for autistic children) conspired to have her wrongfully terminated with false accusations of child sexual abuse.

This devastated her further, as she loved nothing more than helping her dear children.

The winter has been an incredible challenge for us, both financially as well as emotionally. She’s spent entire weeks in bed, will not look for work, and is self-victimizing and self-destructive.

And today, after I searched for jobs for her, drafted cover letters, and applied to multiple positions, she sabotaged her opportunity by smashing her smartphone.

I’ve tried to encourage her to seek professional help (and perhaps medication) but she dismisses the effectiveness of psychotherapy just as quickly as she does opportunities for employment.

I am grateful that I can afford the home I’ve purchased for us without her contribution, but the situation is clearly not healthy.

I’ve purchased a $15 flip phone to receive calls from her potential employers, and will continue assisting her in the search for a new position. My hope is that once she’s back into a daily routine that she will start to recover from her terrible depression.

My humble apologies, readers, if the dramatization above far exceeds my allowance of your attention or interest. But it has done me well to sound off. As you know my social encounters are few and releasing my stress here in this virtual but theraputic environment certainly has its value.

I thank you.

The Arrival
 

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My AudioQuest NightHawks have arrived! Settling in for the test drive with a robust setlist of tunes to see what they can do!
Now Playing: "Homeless" from Graceland. Ladysmith Black Mambazo makes for a wonderful test of vocal music.

Coming up I've got:

- Bernard Parmegiani - De Natura Sonorum
- Morton Feldman - The Late Piano Works Vol. 3
- Jean-Claude Risset - Sud
- John Cage - Concert for Piano and Orchestra
- Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
- Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
- Radiohead - OK Computer
- Steely Dan - Aja (the epic Steve Hoffman remaster of UK MCA MCLD 19145)
- Pink Floyd - The Immersion Blu-Ray 24bit 96kHz FLAC of DSotM

and the album I've tested every new piece of gear with for 20 years -

Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman!

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Nice warm Friday night. Time to chill.
 

It's Friday night and the first day of proper warm weather- perfect for some quality atmospheric drum and bass.

NP: Kruder & Dorfmeister - The K&D Sessions

Library's review on RYM sums it up nicely:

One of the best of all time. The first step I took toward dubbier frontiers years ago. Still absolutely incredible. First disc is like six stars, there's a highlight about every 30 seconds; by disc two you're just lost in a wash of sizzling percussion and hazy bass floating around and it doesn't even matter. Two stoned m*therf****ers from Austria ripping up lounges worldwide. Recommended to everyone, everywhere, all of the time.

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Delightful Inspiration
 

I always get hyper-productive around 1:30 in the morning on the weekends. After filing away the week's LPs I thought my audio workstation could use a fresh new look, so I put together a custom theme.

This was inspired by a graphic from psybient artist, Carbon Based Lifeforms' official website.

The Gnome Shell theme is a modified version of the minimalist Gray Revenge 1.7 theme by alecive on deviantart.

The Chrome theme is Slinky Elegant by slinky.me.

And the wallpaper is by Russian artist, Alexander Karpenko, who publishes under the name AiK-art on deviantart.

Here is CBLF's splash screen image which inspired the project:

http://i.imgur.com/A1RDdRC.png

And here is the desktop environment after tweaking:

http://i.imgur.com/IzHRRJa.png

Self-Confessed Materialism
 

Listening to a marathon of psybient and drone classics. Most were originally mastered for compact disc, and vinyl doesn't characteristically lend itself to sparse, minimal works. FLAC is functionally superior with its 0 noise floor, replicability, endless playback without decay of quality, and compact size.

But damn it, it isn't nearly as satisfying as spending a fortune on a trophy-like object of rarity and artistically symbolic self-identification!

‪#‎firstworldproblems‬

At the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that no digital library will ever be as cool as this...

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At It Again - New Works from Brian Eno and Underworld's Karl Hyde
 

Friday saw the debut of Brian Eno's latest album - The Ship following the release of ts epic 21-minute self-titled single.



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The Ship accompanied by an official postcard from Eno • Hyde

Like so many of Eno's albums, this record serves more to inspire thoughtful consideration and reflection than it does casual enjoyment. Unlike Discreet Music or Airports, this is not sonic wallpaper or furniture music, though it resonates a similar ethereal sonic essence. The Ship has a somber and harrowing quality, serving as a dire reflection on the Titanic disaster and the horrors of WWI. But the record maintains a meditative and cerebral tone rewarding to any listener who'll give the album their full attention.

The double LP includes more of Eno's art prints. The works are semblant of the visualizations from his 77 Million Paintings generative software. Not particularly inspiring, they function better conceptually rather than visually.

Also this week, Eno's recent collaborator Karl Hyde released a short art film of an installation he produced for Underworld's latest album, Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future. I found the fervent and tactile quality of Hyde's work more engaging than the static nature of Eno's prints.

Hyde's Tokyo Street Poem features Soundscape by Underworld's other half, Rick Smith and was exhibited at Parco, Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan in March 2016 as part of the Tomato 25th Anniversary Exhibition.



Underworld also recently premiered a choreographed dance film for the album's track, "If Rah", but once again, I believe the concept was better executed by other artists in years prior.



Amelia: A Film by Edouard Lock With La La La Human Steps (2002) features David Lang's cover of "I'm Waiting For My Man" with choreographed dancers Mistaya Hemmingway and Jason Shipley-Holmes. The film is striking and visually captivating.



Sigur Ros produced an equally effective film piece for their valtari film experiment - a collection of 16 short films made for the valtari album. The 2012 film features Ekki múkk, Valtari, Rembihnútur and Varúð. It is a passionate and emotive work.



If you missed my feature on Underworld's latest album, check it out! And I'll be back next Saturday with my latest culturally-inspired creative and research projects.

Stay tuned!

From Subsonic to Ultrasonic - Do More With Your Media!
 

Friday evening was a night like any other, but as it happened this particular evening inspired a change to better my circumstances and proved to be most rewarding.

I was relaxing, reading a fascinating book on copyright reform, and enjoying my latest musical acquisitions via my Subsonic media server. But as each track concluded and the next began, I repeatedly found myself irked by a 2-second mark of silence which persistently seized my attention and vanished my cozy, zen-like musical trance.

Subsonic is a brilliant and magnificent application, but gapless playback is not among its features. And this periodic interruption was just bothersome enough to inspire me to take pause and find a better solution. Within a few minutes’ time, I discovered that Ultrasonic - an independently developed Subsonic client, offered continuous playback as well as genre browsing and other features not available from the official Subsonic app.

After testing the application that evening I was so delighted with the result that I set myself to the task of creating a video feature to showcase Ultrasonic and hopefully empower other users like myself to do more with their media. Google Play reports that only ~1000 users have downloaded the app, but as you'll see from the feature below, it's perhaps the best under-the-radar media client out there.

Check it out!