Autumn Music

I knew it was officially fall this year when I changed out the group of CDs I bring to work with me for a new set. I usually do that when I reorganize my main CD collection (which is now numbering at around 360 official albums). Normally, though, I might leave a good portion of the previous set in my case, rather than swapping them all out. I guess it's just time for my leaves to change... or some other suitably purple phrase.

Not only did I simply change out my artists and albums, I switched genres completely. I went from the loud progressive rock music of late summer (like Rush, Frank Zappa, Dream Theater, and tool) to a more ethereal set of genres like post-rock, dreampop, shoegaze, and other things that make older people go "huh?"

The changing of the seasons has always influenced my choice of music. Or maybe the seasons influence my mood, which influence my music choices. I might feel a breeze and have a longing to hear a certain song, or I'll see the colour of a leaf, and think "the soundtrack to this leaf is this song."

So, here's a bit of an autumnal music swatch for you, as far as I see it - taken directly from my set of CDs that I brought to work with me today.

Radiohead - "In Rainbows"
This album is an autumnal album for me for a few reasons. It has a type of organic mesh between real instruments and electronics that is warm, but harsh. Many of the songs take a dreamy, ethereal tone which lends itself to the quality of light that one sees peeking through the branches of trees as the leaves change. Some songs might make you want to dance through piles of leaves while others are suited for walking in a stiff breeze, or sitting on a porch in the cooler air.

Here's a video for my favourite track from the album "House of Cards":



Air - "Talkie Walkie"
With a name like Air, you would naturally assume (and assume correctly) that the French duo produces music of a breezy, ephemeral, dreamlike quality. None of the tracks on the album are particularly uptempo, but many are certainly upbeat and lackadaisical. Likewise, many are melancholy. With more moving songs like 'Run' and whimsical tracks like 'Surfing on a Rocket' or the instrumental 'Alpha Beta Gaga" the group manages to capture the more enchanting qualities of autumn while underscoring its inherent link with death and loss in the end of summer and the coming of winter.

Here's one of my favourites from this album, "Cherry Blossom Girl":



M83 - "Saturdays = Youth"
Even the artwork on this album suggests autumn. The teens on the cover appear in a field sporting unusual attire like low-key halloween costumes, cast in tones of yellow, brown, green, and red. Likewise, many of the songs feature a halloween sort of theme without being overly campy. The album has a theme of youth and love, and the fascination with exploring death and its link with love - all of which are thematically linked with the season of autumn and halloween as well (and the equinox, I suppose). these themes pop up in songs like "Graveyard girl" and "Kim and Jessie".

Here's a video for "Kim and Jessie." It's not the official one, but it'll do:



Manitoba (Caribou) - "Up in Flames"
I forgot as I was typing out that bandname that the artist had to change it from Manitoba to Caribou a few years back due to some absolutely ridiculous litigation that I may discuss another time. Just like on the M83 album, the art on this album is full of fall colours. And similar to the Radiohead album, this album is a mess of organic sounds and electronic sounds fused together. The opening track "I've lived on  a dirt road all my life" conjures images of my own childhood living in a town full of dirt roads, bordered by trees of changing colours. I say a 'mess' of organic sounds, because, to many, that's what it would sound like. There's a base of simple melodies and layers of folky guitar, but suddenly, and without warning, comes a drum beat that just makes you want to move. For me, the whole album acts like a sort of dancing celebration of the end of summer and the beginning of fall, how summer's heat is up in flames leaving time for the evening to come, and with it the cool of fall in the morning.

Here's the track "Kid, you'll Move Mountains," for your listening pleasure:

Concept Album Series Part I:Electric Light Orchestra's "Time" (1981)

A lot of people dismiss Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) as disco tripe, or a Beatles rip-off band. 

Admittedly, Jeff Lynne’s fusion of orchestral music with progressive rock and pop music was, at times, quite obviously both. Other times, it was something more.

It can’t be denied that Mr. Lynne could write a great pop song, regardless of how schlocktastic the lyrics were, or how derivative his music sounded (of himself, or of others). By the 8os, ELO had run the gauntlet from orchestral and string-oriented music, to a more rock’n'roll sound, to blatant disco, culminating with 1979′s Discovery (Disco? Very!). 

1981′s Time, on the other hand was a whole new direction, with a clear leaning toward new wave music.

The cover of Electric Light Orchestra's Time

Okay, the concept:

A man is hanging out with his girlfriend when some people from the future come and take him away to the to their time: the late 21st century (Wait, that’s this one!). Upon arriving there, he wanders around all sadly, missing his girl. Eventually, it is revealed that the future sucks, and that the future-beings wanted him to see how shitty life is going to be if he doesn’t change things back in 1981. So after some exciting space-opera antics, they send him back, because he’s not a “21st Century Man” and in the end, he holds on to his dreams (in french, even!) and the future-beings look on, telling him how lucky he is to have learned whatever lesson they taught him.

Okay, the plot's a bit weak - but you can fill in the holes with your imaginaaaation!

Now, the focus of the album isn’t so much on how the ravages of time lay waste to all  as it is on how embracing technology leads to a cold and inhuman future. I’m no Luddite,  and I suspect that neither was Jeff Lynne, considering that apart from his guitar and a small amount of string arrangement, the album is pretty much drum machines and synthesizers all over. So, you have to realize that the whole thing is just a story, which – if fleshed out to a much greater extent – could be pretty compelling (or could be the 1985 movie Back to the Future).

So, what makes this concept album great, despite my admitting that it’s a flawed album? Oh, I don’t know… Good tunes? Seriously, though, let’s get a little more in-depth, so I can flesh out what is not fleshed out, maybe.

The opener ‘Prologue’ sums up the whole thing pretty nicely. Basically, it says that if you could see what lies beyond the border of your waking mind (the future), then you’d be pretty happy that you can’t go there.  Unfortunately for the protagonist, the voice in the prologue (a vocoder; which was a pretty prominent continuity element on this and the previous two albums) belongs to the future-beings, and they have a message from another time: “the future sucks, but you’re coming back there with us, loser.”

Obviously, this would upset any normal person. The first real track on the album "Twilight" explains how upset this dude is.  It’s also pretty much the best song on the album, and the most reminiscent of the hallowed Out of the Blue era ELO (it has a similar keyboard-heavy, upbeat quality to that of "Turn to Stone").  The song describes the experience of having some people come down from the sky telling you lies and then taking you away to the future without so much as a ‘by-your-leave.’

So, he’s kind of peeved. What do they do to assuage his woes? They give him a sexy robot girlfriend in "Yours truly, 2095." He professes that he still loves his lady, and that until the day he can’t go without some sexy lovins, he’ll leave this robot chick alone.

Following that, we get two musical throwbacks with little relation to the story apart from an implicit “it sucks being out here in the future” message: "Ticket to the Moon" and "The Way Life's Meant to Be." However, the latter of the two is very catchy, features a not-bad impersonation of Roy Orbison, and has a bit of exposition involving a rhyme of ‘avenue’ with  the phrase ‘say or do’ (a feat!).

One of the standouts on the album in terms of music and progression of story is the song "Rain is Falling" which features a pretty powerful vocal from Mr. Lynne, and some nice imagery. Again, the song is extra-good because it  is reminiscent of the "concerto for a rainy day" (a suite of  songs on Out of the Blue, culminating in the classic "Mr. Blue Sky"‘). However, it surpasses many of the songs in that suite, in terms of greatness. 

The gist of the song is that the people in the future have never seen rain for some reason, and then it rains, causing everyone to freak out (which is not very important to the plot). However, there is mention of a brand new time transporter with which he might get home, but unfortunately, despite their best efforts, they can’t figure out how the hell to get him back, so he’s stuck in the rain.

To put it bluntly, "From the End of the World" is a disco mess. It’s not contributing anything, plot-wise, and the music is riding a dead horse all the way to disco town. 

However, the following track "The Lights Go Down" takes the amusing turn of seeing the protagonist reach the aforementioned point at which having sex with a robot seems desirable. Apart from the joy that comes with conjuring images of man-vs-robot coitus, it’s a pretty fun reggae-ish song with a catchy sing-along chorus (more in the style of UB40 than Bob Marley).

"Here is the News" hints vaguely that the protagonist’s desire to return to 1981 to see his girlfriend has led to his attempted escape from Satellite 2 (a location mentioned in an earlier track). The song has a driving beat and some sexy synthesizer use as well as some phoney (but realistic) news report audio pastiche all over it.

Another of my favourite tracks on the album is the pseudo-finale "21st Century Man" which is narrated by the future-beings again (sans vocoder), and explains that even with all the grand designs of the future, he’s not happy to have been taken out of his own time, so they’re sending him back, because he’s not a 21st century man. The chorus has an emotionally evocative progression which builds in intensity as the song progresses, and lyrically gets to the heart of the issue: Nobody likes to be taken away from the things they really love, no matter what the future may hold.

Following that is a semi-superfluous track called "Hold on Tight" (which became a minor hit). One can imagine that it’s the sort of song where, if it were a musical, the entire cast would come out and be all “Yeah! even the dead people are here to sing the last happy song!” (see also: Les Misérables).  

As I mentioned, occasionally the lyrics switch to French for no apparent reason. Blondie pulled it off on "Sunday Girl," so, I guess I can’t complain. Anyhoo, picture, if you will, a dude in a time-machine singing this happy song about holding on tight to your dreams, so that when you’re taken to the future by a bunch of space-jerks, you don’t get depressed.

The closing track “Epilogue” is the sort of thing where one might imagine the future-beings using some fancy glass device apropos of  a Logan’s Run-esque sci-fi romp, looking regretfully upon the protagonist as he lives happily ever after. They warn that he should be so happy to get his wish… to go home after they abducted him, the jerks. And I guess somewhere in the middle he saved the future from sucking, maybe.

Now, I’d also like to mention two additional conceptually linked B-sides from the album “When Time Stood Still” and “Julie Don’t Live Here Anymore.” The former is another depressing ballad, describing a moment at which time has stood still, which is ultimately very sad because it’s a very lonely existence. 

The latter is on par with "Twilight" in terms of music. The content is interesting (and reminds one of the second half of Back to the Future II) in that the protagonist runs around trying to find his girlfriend’s house after having been transported through time, only to discover that she doesn’t live there, because… well, it’s the future, isn’t it? She moved away. As I said, it’s musically a great pop song, with bombastic descending piano lines and a catchy 60s pop revival style, tempered by 80s new wave. Both tracks would have been welcome additions to the album and were fortunately included in the 2001 remastered release.

So, now that I’ve wasted a pile of text on a track-by-track review and plot outline, I suppose that what makes this a great concept album is not so much a richness of plot (because half the songs are barely related) as it is a potential for richness of plot. That is, the plot is vague enough, but also interesting enough for me to think a more detailed one up with the power of my imagination (insert finger-wiggle here). 

Additionally, I refer to my initial statement: good tunes. 

The album is hook-tastic. It has good vocal performances, great melodies, and very well produced, as one might expect from Jeff Lynne (who also produced the Beatles’ Anthology's unfinished John Lennon singles “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love” ).

… So… That’s it. I like ELO’s Time. 

It ended up being the band’s last album that didn’t have to live in the collective shadows of Face the Music or Out of the Blue.  It could stand on its own, and it ended up being their last truly great album, and one of my all-time favourite albums at that.

… good tunes.

The Rab Townsend Video Experience Part II: The Guitar/Pantymess Connection

It's the guitar/panty-mess connection!

The Rab Townsend Explodo-Pantsuit: Episode Two from Rab Townsend on Vimeo.

In which Rab fails to keep his show within an hour long format by twenty minutes because the guitar solos therein were too epic to condense.

Other topics of conversation include unemployment beards, DDR failure, and the last Canadian God of Rock.

Song List:

1.  Jakalope – Feel It (3:53)

2. Radiohead – Just (3:53)

3. Steve Vai – Answers (2:41)

4. Tool – Lateralus (9:24)

5. Frank Zappa – Drowning Witch (12:13)

6. Rush – Freewill (5:24)

7. Primus – Bob’s Party Time Lounge (4:44)

8. Nine Inch Nails – Deep (3:36)

9. Moby – Face It (10:01)

The Rab Townsend Explodo-Pantsuit Video Experience!

So, I was unemployed for three months*. 

I decided to make some magical videos of this blog, because I couldn’t be bothered to write anything, because I’m a tool. I promise to write something soon… but don’t hold me to it, because I’m a useless bitch.

Anywho, these videos are basically a radio show. I filmed myself talking about stupid things, and then I’d play a song, and then return to the stupid topics, and so forth.

That comes to nearly 3 hours of entertainment, all together.

If you’re as unemployed as I was, that should take a chunk out of the monotony.

In this and the next two posts I'll be posting those videos for your entertainment, with a song list for you to follow along with.

So… EMBEDTH!

The Rab Townsend Explodo-Pantsuit: Episode One from Rab Townsend on Vimeo.

In which Rab Townsend fails to be eloquent while discussing his stupid hair, Kanye West, Anarchy, the 90s, Cherry Pepsi and the follies of intarweb videomagic.

Song list:
1. Freezepop – Less Talk More Rokk (4:59)
2. ON – C’Mon Collapse (3:11)
3. One Ton – Supersexworld (4:04)
4. They Might Be Giants – Birdhouse In your Soul (3:19)
5. Chumbawamba – Amnesia (3:23)
6. Johnny Hollow – Superhero (3:11)
7. Her Space Holiday – My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend (4:31)
8. Republica – Drop Dead Gorgeous (4:31)
9. L7 – Pretend that We’re Dead (3:54)

*(Note that, historically, this was posted on June 1, 2009, but is now being reposted in three parts, retroactively dated with the original post-dates of the videos themselves).

"2112: The Musical!" ... Anybody? No? I hate you guys.

The cover of Rush's 1976 album 2112

So, during my long commute to work today, I had a thought. The thought was brought about by the fact that for the last two days, I’ve been listening to Rush’s 2112, A Farewell to Kings, and Hemispheres all in sequence on my ipod (It was free! I won it! I can’t just not use it! proceeds went to AIDS!).

Anywho, the thought was this: why hasn’t anyone tried to jump on the “let’s write a poorly scripted musical based on popular music by a band that everyone loves” bandwagon using the music of multi-platinum Canadian prog-rock power-trio Rush?

Well, I saw “We will Rock You,” the poorly scripted musical based on popular music by Queen about a year ago and was struck by how easily a musical can become a hit by coming up with a pointless plot in order to loosely string together popular songs.

I am inspired by the fact that Rush’s epic songs actually have a plot of their own, courtesy of Neil Pert’s lyrics. I realized that it wouldn’t be too hard to connect the 20 minute “2112″ with the approximately 30 minute “Cyngus X-1″ duology. that’s almost an hour of music right there. Throw in some dialogue, and a couple of other songs and you’ve got yourself a decent musical. So, here, for your pretend-enjoyment, is a mock-up plot synopsis of a hypothetical “2112: the Musical.”

Act I:

The not-so-distant future: Man is on the technological verge of intergalactic space-travel, but no life outside of earth has been discovered as yet. The black hole of Cygnus X-1 in the constellation of Cygnus is found to be sending X-rays through the galaxy. One of the scientists who discovers the rays becomes obsessed with the possibilities of a black hole emitting anything at all, and endeavours to travel to the black hole and investigate. When he gets within distance of the black hole, he is sucked inside, and compressed by the gravity of the vaccuum.

Back on earth, the technological advancement of certain countries has  lead to a space-race, spurring international warfare. As the death-toll rises, the world’s artists and visionaries attempt to destroy all advanced technology, fleeing into outerspace in hopes of finding their own private Xanadu (as prophesied by Coleridge?).

Thus ends act one, as the survivors on the planet earth are left without technology, barbarous and chaotic.

Act II:

The year is 2112, and the people of earth have taken what little technology they could salvage and recreated a civilization under the totalitarian rule of the priests of Syrinx, who have built temples everywhere, and eliminated all forms of expression but those they deem acceptable to their plan. One man working in an assembly line escapes his factory and takes refuge in a cave, where he discovers a guitar. Unaware of what it is, he teaches himself to play it, and discovering the power of emotion through music, he realizes that the people of earth (and the solar federation) are missing emotion from their lives. So, he presents his guitar to the Priests, thinking that they will welcome the uniting force of music, but they unexpectedly destroy it, and send him on his way. 

He returns to the cave, and in a dream meets an oracle, who shows him a vision of the past, in which an elder race lived happily after travelling to Xanadu, where they’ve continued to explore open-minded behaviours for generations. The oracle says that one day, they will return to destroy the temples of Syrinx. On awaking, the man is so depressed by the state of affairs, believing his dream to be an illusion, that he kills himself. However, as civil wars break out in the solar federation, the elder race returns from Xanadu, alerted by the sound of the guitar, and assumes control of the Solar federation.

The act ends with the outbreak of a war between the passionate elder race, or the Dionysians, and the logical, emotionless people of the Solar Federation, or the Apollineans.

Act III:

As the Apollineans and Dionysians fight, the spirit of the scientist from Act I is sent through the blackhole and through time, back to earth where the people are warring. Seeing the chaos, he cries out for them to stop, and they suddenly realize that they require balance to co-exist. They christen the spirit Cygnus, god of balance, and he teaches them that a balance of heart and mind will mold a new society that is closer to the heart…

The End.

Yep. It’d kick ass.

You get a full cast recording of “Closer to the Heart” as a finale. 

Tell me that wouldn’t kick ass. 

Yeah, it’d kick ass.

Now, who wants to help me ask the members of Rush to produce?

Where my Au20 gold discs at, fuggah?!

I've come to the conclusion (it was not hard to come to) that I am an audiophile.

Quoth wikipedia: "An audiophile, from Latin audire "to hear" and Greek philos 'loving,' can be generally defined as a person dedicated to achieving high fidelity in the recording and playback of music."

To be clear (for clarity is prized), I have a greater appreciation for music that sounds as close to the original source material as possible.

Human ears are a highly sensitive stereo system.

Quoth some random university's website:"A reasonably standard definition of audible sound is that it is a pressure wave with frequency between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz and with an intensity above the standard threshold of hearing."

I'm not sure whether that refers to the perceived loudness, or the actual frequency at which the waves wobble (the difference being that higher frequency wobbling means a more "treble" oriented sound, while a lower frequency wobbling means a more "bass" oriented sound... Pretty much anyone who listens to music with more than a passing interest knows this stuff).

The important thing to take from what I'm saying is that an audio recording which has higher or lower frequencies cut out or misrepresented, will sound less like it did when it was actually being played by instruments. This kind of thing can be detected because anything that would normally fall within a certain range of frequencies, normally detectable to the human ear which is heard in a recording with misrepresented frequencies is going to sound thinner, tinnier, muffled, or muddy (these are words that smart people actually use to describe sound).

Now, an audiophile, being concerned with hi-fi recordings is going to want to hear a recording that can represent the entire range of frequencies that were originally being produced by say, a four piece band. This doesn't sound like it should be that hard. If you're like me, you listen to CDs and mp3s all the time thinking "this is pretty darn great." If you're also like me, though, you can certainly tell when someone's sent you a shitty-quality mp3, with a subpar bitrate (128 is considered normal... but is it?), and a lower frequency than your device or file was meant to be heard at.

Here's the problem: CDs as we know them are not normally capable of representing the full range of frequencies, and a vile thing known as "compression" has caused many a recording's range of frequencies to be "compressed" by shaving off the higher and lower frequencies (which admittedly, does not usually result in unsatisfactory listening) with two purposes: to fit audio onto a CD, and to decrease dynamic range to avoid clipping.

Why compress?

Quoth wikipedia (again): "The trade-off of slightly reduced audio quality is clearly outweighed for most practical audio applications where users cannot perceive any difference and space requirements are substantially reduced. For example, on one CD, one can fit an hour of high fidelity music, less than 2 hours of music compressed losslessly, or 7 hours of music compressed in MP3 format."

For the sake of useful redundancy: The standard CD can hold only 800MB (at best). This means that in some cases, a lossless recording of an album won't fit. This doesn't apply to the usual pop-album, which contains between thirty and fifty minutes of material (a rip-off considering the potential 80 minutes of writeable surface). Other albums, though, that take full advantage of the CD space, require compression*. However, the result is something unnatural. The result does not actually sound the way the recording sounded before it was recorded.

Over the years, mastering engineers and producers have figured out how to use compression to reasonable effect without causing noticeable losses to quality, through the use of computer algorithms which encode a lossless recording (typically a .wav format) into a coded lossy format like mp3, or even a lower quality wav.

Now, there's a whole other kind of compression which causes even more trouble. I mentioned that compression is used to modify the frequencies of a sound. Frequently, in remasters of releases that were originally vynil releases, loudness is an issue. We have grown accustomed to a certain level of loudness, which is much louder than what was common during the age of vynil. The process of digitally compressing say, a drum track allows for the drums to seem louder, without having an amplitude that would cause clipping. Clipping is what happens when audio becomes so loud as to be distorted. Compression avoids clipping, but at the cost of dynamic range - which means that the difference in volume between the sounds in a recording is smaller. The result of using too much compression for this purpose is that the brain has more trouble distinguishing between sounds, and some frequencies end up being lost in the mix - so you don't hear everything that was recorded.

So, for audiophiles (who tend not to enjoy pop albums anyway), we encounter problems when we listen to modern CDs that have compression (and for some, all CDs), and when we listen to CDs that were mastered before engineers had quite figured out how to do it best.

The solution? vynil.

The gramaphone or phonograph record is the solution. Somehow, through the miracle of analogue recordingsound wave is etched into the vynil disc. We see this in the form of the groove, which we put the needle into. If we could zoom in super-close, we'd see a wiggly sound wave (they look like this!). The groove, though tiny, can represent the full dynamic range of frequencies in the actual sound to the recording. So, why don't we always listen to vynil? After all, the capacity of vynil is actually limited to the amount of space on the disc. The spiral can only go around so many times before you run out of room. How much room does a record have? About 45 minutes in total. How many minutes is the average pop-album? About 45 minutes. the quality of the original recording is maintained. Here's how: when records are pressed, the actual

Well, vynil is fragile. It can warp, deteriorate and scratch. Worst of all, if anything manages to make the tiniest dent in the groove, then the sound wave at that point is permanently affected by whatever has happened to it. A piece of dust can get in the groove, and you get a pop or a click. Any thing that the needle of your record touches will be picked up by the amplifier. Any abnormal bend in the sound wave is going to be heard, and there's nothing you can do to fix it. Not to mention the fact that flipping the damn thing over is a bit of a chore...

That said, I think we need a bit of an example to show how vynil is/can be superior. In the early days of the CD, audio compression was a new and complicated thing. For one thing, computers were ASS. We're talking early/mid 80s, here. Tech-savvy artists were trying to convert their standard vynil releases to the new and exciting CD medium, which was smaller, didn't scratch as easily (no clicks or pops!) and you didn't even have to flip it over.

One such artist was Frank Zappa. Zappa fans (who are almost exclusively audiophiles for some reason), know that there were several albums that ended up getting mixed very badly for the CD reissue of their vynil favourites. Specifically, Shiek Yerbouti, Tinseltown Rebellion, and You Are What You Is. The masters for these albums were revisited and compressed for the CD releases. The result was horrible. The worst offender was You Are What You Is, which had so many problems that a guitar solo ended up being cut out, there were random volume spikes, and other issues that could cause average listeners headaches.

Later on, the album was re-remastered using the original master tapes, and everything was fine again... but in the end, the real audiophiles all went back and searched out the vinyl.

Unfortunately, audiophiles (and shitty DJs and hipsters) seem to be the only people keeping the vynil industry alive. Very few artists release their albums on vynil these days (more on this later). What alternative is there to vynil for those of us who don't want to send our valuable energy off into the entropic void by flipping the record over?

Solution: Lossless audio codecs.

Like I said before, there are lossless digital formats, like PCM (.wav). For computer users, if they have the capabilities, it is possible to rip lossless recordings from CDs (if those CDs are lossless themselves, otherwise, you're just encoding a lossy file without any further loss). Furthermore, if you don't mind having cables all over your floor, you can run a vynil turntable through your line-in (basically an all-purpose input) port in the back of your soundcard. Using audio programs, you can record the entire album in a lossless format.

But, what do we do about compressed CDs when vynil isn't available? Well, there's a bit of a movement going on that could be of some help.

With the dawn of the digital release, music artists are able to distribute the high-quality media files directly to you. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has partially pioneered this method of album release, letting his listeners download 320kbps mp3s (that's better than CDs), FLAC (almost lossless, but not quite), and wav (all lossless).

Not to mention the fact that SACDs, DVD-A, and Blu Rays have the kind of space you'd need to not only present the highest quality stereo version (which is the normal way to hear things with your ears), but also in surround sound! Yes, surround sound! the ridiculously unnecessary audio experience that lets you hear the music from anywhere between 3 and in some cases 10 (but usually 5.1) different locations. If you've got it set up right, it's supposed to sound like you're there with the band. I'm a fan of surround, but the lengths to which I will go to hear the band as if I was there are limited.

Anyway, with the increasing capacity of portable music devices, and the fact that you CAN burn lossless audio to CDs, even if the commercial CD release wasn't released in a lossless format, it seems that there will be (and are) audiophiles wandering around listening to hi-fi recordings on mp3 players.

However, in my view, vynil will always be the best choice.

*this is worded a bit incorrectly. It's not the case that 80 minutes of music is available to be written, but based on standard wav encoding and filesizes, 80 minutes is the standard for a lossless PCM format.

Album Review: Ashes Divide – “Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright”

Ashes Divide - Keep Telling Myself It's Alright

Billy Howerdel began as a guitar tech for tool, which led to his association with Maynard James Keenan, and the formation of A Perfect Circle, a supergroup with music composed by Howerdel, and lyrics and vocals by Keenan. 

 Together, they produced two albums, and one (somewhat mediocre) cover-album of anti-war songs, released to coincide with the 2004 election. With the immanent release of tool’s 10,000 Days MJK had to return to his original band, leaving Billy with the time to write new music for his own solo project called ASHES dIVIDE.

Fans of A Perfect Circle will find more common ground between Ashes Divide’s Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright and APC’s first album Mer de Noms than with their later material. For those who like their alt-metal harder than it is progressive, this will be a positive attribute.

KTMiA (as I shall now refer to it) is strong first solo effort, which is to be expected from the composer behind such classics as the APC tunes “Judith” and “Weak and Powerless.” It is clear that Howerdel’s composition and arrangement are the backbone of all of his musical efforts.

That said, having grown accustomed to MJK’s powerful voice, it is somewhat jarring to be confronted with Howerdel’s somewhat more mainstream style of singing. His dynamics are less apparent, and he leans toward the more awkward tones of popular punk-rock, on what may seem a few too many occasions. This shouldn't be a problem for newcomers, or for those who are willing to take the time to grow into Howerdel’s new musical voice.

Standout Tracks: Defamed, Enemies, The Stone

The album’s opener “Stripped Away” drags a little. Its pace is powerful but slow, and in that sense, it does not immediately grab one's attention. It isn’t until the bridge that the energy of the song is truly conveyed to the extent that it ought to be. The heavy guitars drop out, and Howerdel’s voice wavers with the strength of his vocal performance, recalling Freddie Mercury, in a faint sort of way. Unfortunately, this demonstration of ability is only a brief respite from what is an otherwise drab song.

“Denial Waits” begins in a plaintive lyrical moan by Howerdel, over a quick beat by super-drummer Josh Freese. Before long, the emotional rawness we should have been hearing in the previous track appears somewhat abruptly, but welcome nevertheless amid a powerful blast of music.

“Too Late” is another heavy slow-mover, but its melancholy verses don’t feel draggy like they did in “Stripped Away.” Musically, it's an appropriate mish-mash of the styles found on APC's first two albums. However, in this song, we see a first example of where Howerdel’s composition exceeds his vocal prowess to a detrimental effect. After a typically good Howerdel guitar solo, a great musical bridge emerges, but it's dragged down by poor lyricism and  just as poor singing by Howerdel

“Forever Can Be” is another melancholy slow-mover (there appear to be a lot of these). Its chorus is given some grounding by a piano melody that matches the melancholy tone. As if to make up for the icky bridge in “Too Late” the lyrics of the chorus are more interesting: “Forever can be something to believe in. This was one of those times.” It suggests disappointment, and failure, despite optimism. Interspersed throughout is an intriguing little guitar melody which has east-asian hints, or perhaps medieval elements, which add some flavour to the first real ear-catching track on the album.

“Defamed” almost sounds like a rock cover of The Postal Service. The chord progression is light and minor, but hopeful. The lyrics are a little silly considering the weight of the previous songs’ content. Despite this, the song is cohesive, and catchy. Its upbeat tempo and strong drum-work by Freese make it danceable and contribute to what is ostensibly a great rock song.

When the allmusicguide refers to “Enemies” as overeager, one can see why, given its introductory guitar riffs. However, heavy punk drums and the return of that style of emotion-laden power-vocals mean that “Enemies” is going to be a fast-paced ass-kicker of a song. The key-change in the latter half of the song is particularly engaging.

“A Wish” seems noodly at first, with a simple piano melody and sporadic drums, which build into a cohesive roll. Billy’s close-mic’d vocals are low and wispy. The lyrics are simple and personal, without collapsing too far into purple prose. The groove maintained by the drums, and the piano melody hold the song together for its short duration.

“Ritual” takes a similar approach, vocally, to “A Wish.” A mysterious set of counter-melodies gives this one a little more to chew on for listeners. Without much difference between this and the previous song, musically, it maintains the melancholy mood with some more good music.

At last, the single “The Stone” follows, with a somewhat clichéd intro that bursts into yet more clichéd, but faster riffs (cool dissonance notwithstanding). Freese’s driving beat helps build anticipation of the chorus, which is a dramatic burst of swelling guitars that borrow (if only subconsciously) from film scores. Unfortunately, after hearing the chorus, the following verses make one impatient at having to wade through them before the chorus returns. Despite that, the chorus of "The Stone" carries the song (and perhaps even the the whole album) by it’s sheer might. Yes, might.

“The Prey” feels more electronic than any other track on the album, borrowing some of its melodic style from the mainstream. An interesting feature of the track is a slightly detuned, high-pitched guitar line which plays intriguing little melodic riffs over top of the rhythm tracks and vocals. It works as a strong counter-point to Billy’s vocals. The mood of the song is more of joyous than any of the other tracks.

The final track “Sword” has a dissonant piano melody as its intro, with a subtle cello (which grows to become less subtle) just underneath. The cello switches to the top of the mix, sounding vaguely offkey over the piano’s dissonant tones. The intro gives way to a driving, throbbing bassline which recalls the Tapeworm toss-away “Passive” that was released on APC’s cover-album eMotive. The entire song takes this approach, and hits hard, throbbing and driving until it all drops away about five minutes in revealing a gentle vocal line over top of the same introductory piano melody, which sounds more beautiful the second time around.

Bottom line: This album will require some uncomfortable adjustments for fans of A Perfect Circle, but if given a chance, it will show itself to be the same great song-writing that we have come to expect from Billy Howerdel, despite the lack of MJK’s strong lyrics and vocals. It’s a solid album, with the last eight of its eleven tracks being quite strong (having three mediocre tracks open the album seems to be a tactical error). Still, with one transitional album under his belt, perhaps Mr. Howerdel's future efforts will be more confident vocally and musically.

Album Review: Architecture in Helsinki – “Fingers Crossed”

Fingers Crossed by Architecture in Helsinki

Here’s the first of (probably many) reviews I plan on writing, based on my extensive CD collection. I wanted to pick something I wasn’t especially attached to, but something I liked. Architecture in Helsinki’s Fingers Crossed is just that. It’s an enjoyable listen with a few stand out tracks, but nothing to write home to mom over.

I remember I first heard of this band through Amazon’s “You might also like…” pages. I downloaded 3 tracks, just to see what they were like. The songs were, “Imaginary Ordinary,” “Like a Call,” and “Do the Whirlwind.” Two of those songs are on “Fingers Crossed,” and I immediately liked them because they had a childlike playfulness hidden behind their instrumentation and their vocals that was very compelling. (I've since learned that this style is referred to as "twee pop" in some circles).

The first song on the album is an instrumental called “One Heavy February” and as soon as it begins, you can tell you’re going to be in for some short, carefree pieces of music with a sweetness that you can’t help but love. That's just what you get with the entrance of the female vocals on the following track “Souvenirs” coming in with some childlike “lalala” action before segueing into some poetic lyrics that speak nostalgia.

The knuckle-drag of “Scissor Paper Rock” and “To and Fro” are a bit of a let down, after such an upbeat beginning, but the fun returns with the prophetic “Spring 2008″ which works as a good preparation for the bubble and pop of the album’s stand-out track “Owls Go,” a fast-paced, but innocent song, whose verses are peppered with alternating shouts and whispers of “Owls Go!” And with a charmingly deceptive chorus sung by the female vocalist “Finding a replacement with a heart sedated, I’ll forget you/Attic in the basement with a knife serrated, I’ll protect you.” Who knows what it means? It’s oddly sweet.

“Kindling” is another up-beat, building tune, whose tendency for the epic is surprising, considering it’s less than two minutes long. Its horns are powerful. Following “Kindling,” the album seems to wind down, with the slower paced “It’s almost a trap” and “Like a Call,” leading into the beautiful and simple duet “Where you’ve been hiding.”

“City Calm Down” seems like a lullaby, and works as a counterpoint to “Owls Go,” reprising some its musical motifs, and asking us to calm down, before it gains momentum and takes on a symphonic quality, building to a climax that drops off at the end.

The final track “Vanishing” is a favourite of mine, with the simple lyric “Is this a fling? It’s [been] seven days and you’re already vanishing.” It begins in a similar fashion to the album opener, with a bouncy, somewhat optimistic sounding instrumental theme before easing out into a slow, contemplative movement. The question asked in the lyrics forebodes a broken heart, but the music is laced with hope and optimism, as though the question were asked with fingers crossed...

It's a lion!

So, this is an experiment.

I had been working on a music/whatever blog over at Wordpress, and eventually, I kinda gave up on it.

Then, I had this new idea for a blog. A blog that would explain my personal philosophy after building on it for years in University. After working on that for a while, I realized that it's fun, and commenting on other blogs is fun, and most importantly - most people I care about are using blogspot, not wordpress.

So, for your entertainment, I'm moving the wordpress blog over here, and hopefully updating it a little more often than I used to.

Here is a much improved version of the first post I made back on May 1st, 2008:

Well, I have a blog. That would be exciting, if I knew anyone would read it.

Imagine, if you will (you must!), the kind of blog that talks about things that don’t necessarily interest you, but in a terribly interesting way. 

While you're imagining that, go ahead and read this blog.

It's gonna be chock-full(ish) of articles about my opinions on the music industry today, the woes of being an amateur photographer, top-ten lists, and movie/album reviews, and dumb videos. Hopefully by the time you realize that you the kind of blog I mentioned up there doesn't really exist, you'll have figured out that this is the kind of blog that actually does interest you in a non terrible sort of way.