Skynet has downloaded its first single…
This 90-second song was composed by a Google algorithm: MP3
Read all about it here.
One small step for software…
One giant leap for robotkind?
Will software eventually be able to write prog epics??
Author: Time Lord
progarchy.com
Attack of the Giant Hogweed — Killing Your CD Collection!
Yikes! Watch out for this threat to your CD collection:
The fact that intense biodeterioration in CDs, destroying the information pits, has been caused by a common fungus (a species close to G. candidum) leads to speculation on the future of compact disks as a secure persistent storage medium for sound, image and computer files.
More proof of the superiority of vinyl?
Lobate Scarp: You Have It All @LobateScarp
Get in early on what promises to be another amazing Lobate Scarp album, and a true highlight of 2016!
Their teaser single “Beautiful Light” is magnificent and it will surely leave you wanting more. I myself have been listening to it a lot lately!
Come on, all good people! Find out more details from the Kickstarter video below.
The History of Rush — Part 1
Read all about the early years of Rush. A sample:
Alex Lifeson: It was at junior high, in that ‘getting to know you’ stage, that Geddy and I got heavily into music.
Geddy Lee: We wanted to be rebellious, to break away from our families, like all kids want to do. And we both had a really deep passion for music and wanting to play it. Almost every day we’d go to his parents’ place after school and we’d jam for two hours.
Alex Lifeson: For a long time we were in different bands, but we always jammed together. We loved to learn all those great Cream songs, play along to the record player, and play them better and better and better. It was really a lot of fun. It was just the two of us – no drummer. The good old days! We’d either play along with the record, or we would both plug into Ged’s amp and just play, him on bass, me on guitar. We were beginning to look at music more seriously and really trying to figure out what the musicians were playing, how the bands worked. And we loved to play. We just couldn’t get away from it.
Geddy Lee: The first time I ever got high was with Alex. He was just a terrific pothead, and a terrible influence on me. We went to the local public school grounds to smoke some pot. At that time I was playing in another band, and after I got high with Al, I went over to the guy in my band’s house for rehearsal. But I was a little too high to be very functional, and this guy was really mad at me. He was very straight and he was really upset with me. He was threatening to tell my mother that I was high. That was a bummer!
The Definitive Folklore @BigBigTrain
Download it in hi-resolution audio with the definitive track list:
I make the case for the definitive version in my review.
Also, be sure to read the virtual liner notes.
Virtual Liner Notes: @BigBigTrain
Progarchy.com has conveniently organized for you all the essential Big Big Train virtual liner notes:
- Folklore [my review: ★★★★★]
- English Electric — Part 2
- English Electric — Part 1
- The Underfall Yard
And The Merch Desk adds some comments about Folklore:
How to Listen to Jazz, by Ted Gioia
A taste of a great book review by Paul Beston:
Gioia is so confident that newcomers can appreciate jazz in part because he believes that objective benchmarks of evaluation exist, and that, in the case of jazz, we can listen for fundamental “building blocks” such as rhythm, dynamics, pitch and timbre, and phrasing. This view puts him at odds with more theoretical critics who claim that subjectivity is the only aesthetic standard. Nonsense, says Gioia: “Understanding jazz (or any other form of artistic expression) can never be reduced to personal whim or some flamboyant deconstructive manipulation of signifiers but always builds on a humble realization that these works impose their reality on us. . . . and in this manner can be distinguished from escapism or shallow entertainment, which instead aims to adapt to the audience, to give the public exactly what it wants. We can tell that we are encountering a real work of art by the degree to which it resists our subjectivity.” In this one passage, Gioia manages to push back against both highbrow and lowbrow wrongheadedness.
The Gatefold Vinyl Glory of Big Big Train: Folklore ★★★★★
In terms of perfectly integrated, fully coherent masterpieces, I thought BBT might have peaked with The Underfall Yard. The Far Skies and Wassail EPs, and the multiple versions of English Electric (with no definitive track order), all contained fantastic music, but evinced an unmistakable prog version of ADD, as BBT and their fans were fiendishly enabled by the latest technology to “build your own” concept album, with your own favorite track order: S, M, L, XL, XXL, Full Power, whatever.
But now with Folklore, we have a stunningly coherent concept album that has absolutely perfect flow. And here’s the best part: the perfect flow is found not on the CD version (because “London Plane” works best not coming after “Folklore” but after “Salisbury Giant”) but on the glorious vinyl gatefold edition that has the definitive order for the tracks.
Continue reading “The Gatefold Vinyl Glory of Big Big Train: Folklore ★★★★★”
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