June’s eMusic Downloads
Posted by raj | Filed under Music
June’s 90 tracks:
- The Very Best Of … by Blind Mr. Jones
Pretty proto-shoegaze stuff that sounds a bit like Ride and a bit like Slowdive. The latter is not much of a surprise given that Neil Halstead wrote some of their guitar parts. Really great, it’s too bad they disbanded so early in their career.
- Waves by Ride
A compilation of Ride’s BBC sessions, it’s almost exactly a career retrospective. Like their career, it starts off soaring and adventuresome, and ends a bit drably, but it’s a nice journey all the same. Their cover of Dead Can Dance’s Severance is amazing – faithful to the original and still infused with everything that is Ride.
- The Third Face by Malory
The third offering from Germany’s Malory finds them distancing themselves ever further from the Slowdive homage of Not Here, Not Now, getting more comfortable with their own musical identity. The shoegazer influence is still present, just no longer at the forefront. A real gem.
- Pink by Boris
I first heard of Boris when I found they were opening for Nine Inch Nails on their last tour. The epic adventure of that show – where I wound up missing their performance – was detailed earlier on this blog. I was happy to find that eMusic has their discography available, and retroactively disappointed that I missed seeing them perform. Pink is drone, and noise, and thunder, and all of it is bloody awesome. I’m going to have to download the rest of Boris’ discography.
- Seed to Sun by Boom Bip
I was introduced to Boom Bip by my friend James a couple of years ago when he advised me to listen to Blue Eyed In The Red Room. That album blew my mind, and I went out and bought Corymb. Seems I’ve been working my way backwards to this one, Boom Bip’s first. It’s every bit as good as the others – an incredible blend of hip hop and beautiful ambience, and compelling vocals. Highly recommended.
- Mahakali by Jarboe
Haven’t given this one a real listen yet – will fix this once I’ve done so. I’m a huge Jarboe fan, and she’s never let me down, so I’m expecting more great things.
- Peace by Aspera Ad Astra
Aspera Ad Astra are another of the neo-psychedelia bands like BJM and The Asteroid No. 4. Much like the first BJM album, this one has some pretty strong shoegazer leanings, but unlike the typical Kevin Shields outing, the vocals are in the forefront. Great stuff.
RIP PowerMac G5 Redux
Posted by raj | Filed under General
If you’d read the comments on the previous post, you’d have seen that Brent Cameron suggested I try the Apple Hardware Test that came with my G5. A capital idea, I thought, and wondered why I didn’t think of it myself. I fired up the G5 and it took 15 minutes booting and never did finish so in annoyance I rebooted it with Command-Option-O-F held down to invoke Open Firmware. That worked just fine, and I was able to eject the CD and reboot the machine successfully. I held down Option to invoke the startup disk chooser and booted the Hardware Test. And after a couple of minutes of booting the machine’s fans spun up to hurricane-speed. I looked up at the screen and the hardware test had crashed. I tried again and still the same thing. I’m kinda stumped at this point. I think I’ll just get a rig of external drives and populate them with the drives out of my G5, and then get a shiny new MacPro when I’ve got a bit more spare cash.
RIP PowerMac G5
Posted by raj | Filed under General
So it seems my much beloved PowerMac G5 is well and truly b0rked. It’d been behaving very badly for the past few months – from general flakiness like graphical corruption in the Time Machine interface, and the iTunes library getting corrupted every couple of days (requiring a restore from the Time Machine backup) through Safari and Mail crashing on launch all the way to kernel panics and random freezes. I’d kinda written this all off as symptoms of having done in-place upgrades from Panther to Tiger to Leopard, but after I returned from India, I found that the lockups were far more frequent than before. In fact, I could get LightRoom 2.0 to reliably lock the machine up just trying to browse the photos I’d brought back from India. In an attempt to narrow down the problem (the machine vs. the photos) I put LR2 on my MacBook and loaded the photos onto that machine … and no problem at all. Works a treat (and fast ; the G5 has nothing on the Core 2 Duo).
So I tried a clean install with a restore of the user data and applications from backup. No good. Still the same problems. Then I tried a clean install with just the user data restored. Again, no good. Finally a clean install. Guess what? Yeah, still no good.
I really need my computer, so I just shut the big bastard down and moved my daily computing to my MacBook. I love this little machine – it’s ever so fast, and thanks to the SSD, it’s ever so quiet. Still, I miss my 30” main screen and 24” secondary screen, so I decided to try and get the G5 up to shape today.
About a year ago, I bought 4G of RAM from Crucial and jacked it in alongside the 1G that came with the machine. At the time, it was a huge performance boost, but (perhaps faulty) memory seemed to think the stability issues arose with the installation of that memory. At the time, it wasn’t a big deal – the machine crashed once in a blue moon, but I didn’t remember it ever crashing before the extra RAM was installed. So I pulled it.
And the machine wouldn’t boot. At all.
So I pulled the original 1G and installed the 4G from Crucial.
And the machine wouldn’t boot.
So I replaced the original 1G and put the 4G from Crucial back in.
And the machine … booted? WTF?
But it was just as flaky as ever. Worse, when I looked at the system status, it said I have 4G installed. I double checked the memory and it’s all seated correctly. Either some of the memory is bad, or the memory slots are. Since this is a G5, the memory has to be installed in matched pairs – and the memory is slotted in as 512k/1G/1G in the primary and secondary banks. Since I’m seeing 4G installed, and the memory can’t be unbalanced, I can only conclude that the Apple-installed 1G is the culprit. But the machine won’t boot with the Crucial memory in the first slot, or without the Crucial memory installed. :/
I no longer know what to do, and I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that the machine isn’t usable any longer. My poor G5 served me well, but it’s time to move on.
The only thing is, a new MacPro is gonna run me another small fortune, and I don’t have one handy. At least not one that I’m willing to part with. The Mini isn’t up to snuff for what I want (it’s slower than my MacBook!), and the iMac is full of stuff I don’t need – I already have 2 giant screens. I wish Apple made a mid-range machine – a Mini that had the innards of an iMac, maybe in a small tower instead of the tiny brick, so it could have extra drives slotted in.
May’s EMusic Downloads
Posted by raj | Filed under Music
May’s 90 Tracks:
Hush by Asobi Seksu
Another fine release from New York’s Asobi Seksu. This one steps back from the shoegazer leanings of the previous releases in favour of sweeter, more pop-oriented songs. I’m sure this one is going to alienate fans who came just for the feedback and swirl of the previous albums, but I rather like it.- These Flowers of Ours by The Asteroid No. 4
- An Amazing Dream by The Asteroid No. 4
I first heard The Asteroid No. 4 on the Sounds from Psychedelphia” compilation – the song “Tricks of the Trade” stuck in my head seemingly forever after. Like The Brian Jonestown Massacre, these guys take a great formula and run with it – any fans of 1960s psychedelic rock will find this right up their alley. Recommended. - Man With The Movie Camera by Biosphere
Yet more haunting and creepy ambient soundtrack from the masterful Geir Jenssen. It’s hard to say how it’s different from other Biosphere albums – they’re so minimal that casual listeners would probably think it all sounds the same. It’s not the best of Jenssen’s album (that title is held by Microgravity – one of the most haunting and creepy ambient albums I’ve ever heard) but it’s really good. - Fallout by Front Line Assembly
A collection of remixes and outtakes from the excellent Artificial Soldier album, along with three new tracks. - Split by Jesu / Battle of Mice
Two tracks each by the incomparable Jesu, and Battle Of Mice. I don’t understand the logic of this split single – the two Jesu tracks are slow and introspective, and the two Battle of Mice tracks are screaming aggression. It’s a lot like putting two early Sigur Rós tracks on a single with two early Sonic Youth tracks. It’s all good, but the pairing is incoherent. That said, it’s well worth the download. - Lost Alone by Mind in a Box
Introspective synth-pop from video game music composer Stefan Poiss. Not bad, but a bit repetitive. - Sabresonic II by The Sabres of Paradise
Is there anything to be said about The Sabres of Paradise other than “They were brilliant?” I don’t think so. Get it. Get everything they did. It’s hard as hell to find on physical media, so EMusic is really the best way to get it now. - Linienbusse by Studio Pankow
I downloaded this in the mistaken belief that it was Italian electronic duo Pankow, last heard from in the 1990s. It sounds kind of like acid-jazz done with synthesizers. Not bad at all.
Looking back the past three months, it reads like I’m one of those guys that just likes everything, because I keep giving everything positive reviews. Thing is, between eMusic’s previews, allmusic and the other review sites on the internet, it’s pretty rare that I’m downloading anything that’s unlikely to appeal to me. So I’m not so much reviewing albums as I am attempting to describe why I like them.
New eMusic Downloads
Posted by raj | Filed under Music
Here’s how I spent April’s 90 tracks at eMusic:
- Halou by Halou
Beautiful vocals and shimmering melodies, I just can’t get enough of Halou. This latest albumfeatures guest appearances from ex-Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie, and cellist extraordinaire Zoe Keating. Amazingly good.
- Exile Paradise by In Strict Confidence
EBM for those who are sick of the same old EBM. Major keys, pretty female vocals, and good lyrics (!).
- Blitz by KMFDM
KMFDM never changes – they’ve been recycling the same material since Angst, and I think that’s exactly why I keep getting their stuff. They know what their fans like, and they don’t fix a formula that isn’t broken. If you liked the last 8 or 9 studio albums, you’ll probably like this one too, and if you didn’t, well, this one ain’t gonna change your mind.
- Devils In My Details by OhGr
The third album from Skinny Puppy frontman Nivek Ogre and producer Mark Walk. None of OhGr’s albums have been “Skinny Puppy light”, but this is perhaps the darkest one yet. It’s different enough from Skinny Puppy that some fans may feel alienated (though that was true of both WELT and SunnyPsyOp too), but it’s an excellent album that shows Ogre isn’t content to rest on his laurels. Dig it.
- Kaskade by Project Pitchfork
Project Pitchfork has never strayed far from strong beats, cold synth arrangements, and nearly tuneless vocals, and this album doesn’t really change that, but the albums do all sound different – Kaskade is an evolution of that classic Project Pitchfork sound, and draws influences from several genres of music – industrial, prog rock, pop, even baroque. Not my favourite Project Pitchfork album, but it’s a great listen.
- Lust for Blood by Velvet Acid Christ
Once, a long long time ago, I listened to VAC all day long, and was left feeling totally and utterly paranoid – something about VAC’s compositions is so sinister and creepy that even if you can’t make out the lyrics (and I can’t) the songs have a profound effect. Lust for Blood is just as paranoia-inducing as my favourite VAC album, Church of Acid. Brilliant.
And in other news, I picked up both of Zoe Keating’s One Cello x 16 albums. Zoe Keating uses a single cello and a foot-pedal controlled computer to create huge, lush, layered epic orchestral pieces of music. She’s also worked with some really amazing acts like Rasputina, Halou, and Amanda Palmer. Highly recommended.
eMusic Downloads
Posted by raj | Filed under Music
I’ve been meaning to start this for a while now, and now’s as good a time as any. Every month I’ll post how I spent my eMusic downloads, and if I have time brief reviews of each download. So, without further ado:
- “Avatar” by Angels and Agony
Dancey synthpop/EBM from the Netherlands. Recommended for fans of Wolfsheim, Apoptygma Berserk, VNV Nation etc. - Hate” by The Delgados
Sweet indie pop from Scotland. Sadly, The Delgados have disbanded, but this album is a true gem. The lead track, “The Light Before We Land” is beautiful, and was used as the opening theme for the Gunslinger Girl anime series. - “Aviator” by Funker Vogt
Agressive dance industrial from Germany. - “Mira” by Mira
- “apart” by Mira
- “There I Go Daydreamer” by Mira
Three albums of pretty shoegazer stuff. Lots of layered guitars and ethereal vocals. - “Immolate Yourself” by Telefon Tel Aviv
Perhaps the last album from Telefon Tel Aviv – tragically, band member Charles Cooper passed away just before the album was released. The first couple of TTA albums were interesting if not exactly gripping listens, but this album takes influence from M83 and that makes all the difference – a wonderful listen. If it is, indeed, the last we’ll hear from TTA, they’re ending on a very high note. - “Noctolucent” by Transmission
Transmission features Youth and Paul Ferguson of Killing Joke – this one’s just an EP, but the two full-length albums (“Beyond Light” and “Sublimity”) are pretty good too. Ignore the other stuff – eMusic has mixed the albums from two different bands called Transmission.
Well, that’s a wrap.
Posted by raj | Filed under General
As of this afternoon, Toronto independent game developer SilverBirch Studios is no more. Two and a half years ago, my company, Electron Jump Games entered into a buyout agreement with SilverBirch. All seemed well ‘til this past September when the proverbial crap hit the fan. Rapid overexpansion (read: buying companies without any money to pay for them) finally bit us in the ass. We’ve spent every day since in agonizing limbo, not knowing if we’d survive. A last minute buyout collapsed today and the studio’s creditor finally pulled the plug. I’ve got mixed feelings about this – it was really nice knowing I has a steady paycheck, but the past three months of Hell really took a toll on all of us, so it’s a relief to know. On the up side, SilverBirch defaulted on its commitment to Electron Jump, so all our tech is still ours, and many of the people involved are interested in trying to keep the staff of the studio together. Anyone interested in investing in a skilled and experienced team?
Media Library
Posted by raj | Filed under Games, Movies, Music
I went out on Boxing Day to take advantage of the excess inventory fire-sale prices and realized that I no longer knew all of the movies I owned, so I wound up not buying stuff in case I already had it and realized I’d acquired enough media that it was impossible to keep it all in my head. So I bought Delicious Library 2, because it will scan UPC symbols using the built-in webcam on my MacBook and download all the important info about what I’ve just scanned – covers, metadata, even current value. I’ve been slowly but surely cataloguing my media, starting with movies and games. I’ve managed to get all of my PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360 and PS3 games catalogued, as well as all my Blu-Ray discs and most of my DVDs. A really neat feature of DL2 is the ability to publish the collection to the web – you can see my in-progress catalogue at the library link in the sidebar. If you’ve got a Mac, I highly recommend Delicious Library 2 – it’s fast and easy and has a million useful features.
I still have to add my PS1, Saturn, Dreamcast, GBA, PSP and NDS games, and the rest of my DVDs. And then the monumental task of my CDs and books. Even with DL2, it’s a daunting task.
Happy New Year!
Posted by raj | Filed under General
That’s it. Just “Happy New Year!”.
Accolades!
Posted by raj | Filed under Games
So 2008 has turned out to be, in at least one way, an amazing year – n+ for Nintendo DS is one of IGN’s top 10 DS games of the year, and n+ for Sony PSP is nominated at Gamespot for best PSP game of 2008. And both of them are up for four other Gamespot awards – best platform game, best co-op multiplayer, best downloadable content, and best implementation of user-generated content. IGN gave both SKUs the Game of the Month award for August, and I was thrilled, but August was a slow month for games, so it was easy to stand out. Getting nods amidst games like Mirror’s Edge, Prince of Persia, Little Big Planet, Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core and God of War: Chains of Olympus is a tremendous honour.
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