Need

You need to restart your computer.
(You fool).

Well, since we all know that Macs never crash it must be some need that the user has. The user probably thinks he needs to carry on working on his computer, but in fact he needs to restart his computer. Apple says so.

The television stations in the UK constantly repeat programmes about cars and car chases in order to cheer us all up from worrying about climate change caused in part by cars and car chases. One of them is a budget job that recycles old police video tapes of bad drivers and fleeing criminals. Employ a former newsreader to shout over the top and you have a programme. A recent one contained the following declaration.

“THE DRIVER NEEDS TO BE CAUGHT”.

Surely the driver needs to get away? The police need to catch him. No? Hmmm.

Perhaps it is too easy to ascribe needs to others when really it is our own desires and competencies that are the issue. Anyway, Cathy Gilliat needs to make another record. That’s what we reckon.

Synthesizer Hits

Well no wonder so many people are reluctant to try unusual music. For only £3 more than the cost of our CDs, you could buy a second-hand copy of Synthesizer Hits Featuring the Hits of Phil Collins.

We didn’t even know that such wonders existed.

Well, at least we brought you the news before Matrixsynth did. What a scoop.

EMP launches “Collectors’ Series”

Our friends at netlabel Earth Monkey Productions have just released their 50th MP3 album. Entitled 50:50, it’s a compilation of tracks by 4th Alternative, Clutter, Cousin Silas and 12 other projects.

EMP has also branched out into releasing CDRs: their “Collector’s Series” of limited edition 3″ CDRs starts with releases by Clutter vs Susan Matthews and Good Noise Bad Noise. Both CDRs cost £3 plus postage, and are available direct from EMP.

Pointed Pop

Although we at Earthrid occupy ourselves producing some quite outlandish music, that doesn’t mean we are averse to a good bit of pop music now again. “Pop”. It’s a quaint old term but one which is still useful for summing up pithy prosody packaged and preserved within the parameters of polished, programmatic populism.

“Pop” is succinct.

‘I Know Your Girlfriend Hates Me’.

MOV file via Antville

Kraftwerk still hiding

Believed to be in disguise.

Where’s Wolfgang?

Can you spot Kraftwerk hiding on this Web page (scroll down for photos)?

No, reading the photo caption, it was a case of mistaken identity… Here they are! Wrong again: they seem to have delegated work to the robots, so they are probably already on their way to the pub…

Are synthesisers “real” music instruments?

Yes. If flutes are musical instruments, so are most other things.

Penny whistles are OK though.

R.I.P: Bebe Barron, Tristram Cary

Bebe Barron died on 20th April, at the age of (most sources say) 82. With her then husband Louis, she created the still stunningly unique electronic soundtrack to the classic science fiction film Forbidden Planet. This news item from Variety is refreshingly to the point. Refer to the usual sources for a selection of facts and hype - but the Barrons were genuine pioneers in electronic music, and their legacy of work remains in a class of its own.

Not so widely reported is the fact that just a few days later, on the 24th April, Tristram Cary died, also at the age of 82. He created music using tape, electronics and scores for conventional acoustic instruments, and coincidentally we were enjoying his soundtrack to the original appearance of the Daleks in an episode of vintage Dr Who from 1963 just last week. This posting seems informative although it concerns itself particularly with Tristram Cary’s cartoon soundtracks. Other posts mention his role in the British synthesiser manufacturer EMS, whereas the BBC describes him as “the Murray Gold of his day”, predictably missing the salient points entirely. More helpfully the Music Thing site links to an old but relevant documentary called What the Future Sounded Like. Let’s watch it now. And then we should watch Forbidden Planet yet again, to remind ourselves of what the future used to look like too, back in the days when at least some of the time people looked forward to it!

R.I.P.

Information wants to be fixed

It would be nice if the leeches who run lyrics sites could spare some time from copying content from each other to run a spell-checker occasionally. And does Google need to index all of them, since they are practically mirrors of each other?

Maybe we are being unfair. Maybe songs do contain words such as “watchibg” and the people who work on lyrics sites are the only ones with hearing acute enough to realise, so naturally they all end up with identically strange accounts of lyrics. Surely they wouldn’t just copy other sites’ content in order to attract revenue from advertising? Surely not.

Perhaps they have the same kind of ear wax build-up, or arthritis of a very unusual kind that contorts fingers into mistyping in quite predictable ways.

We should not jump to conclusions and instead think the best of people. However, we will keep watchibg for clues.

The economics of “true fans”

The Technium gets ambient musician Robert Rich’s thoughts on “The Reality of Depending on True Fans”. He raises some interesting points.

The following is mentioned in passing:

Companies can use demographic models and track people’s search patterns to pander to their initial tastes and to strengthen those tastes, rather than broaden their horizons.

We are definitely more interested in new horizons and get puzzled by otherwise reviews (of our releases or anyone else’s) that say that a recording is perhaps “not for everyone” - as if anything other than air can be (that’s “air” with a small “a”, not “Air” the (French) band of course). Well, anyway, Robert Rich is a “big name” from where we’re standing but apparently even he won’t always get more than 30 people to turn out to his gigs. Bear that in mind the next time someone starts ranting that musicians should (sic) survive on T-shirt sales and playing live…
Another quote:

I feel in retrospect like I snuck in under the collapsing framework of independent distribution, at a time where small companies could cast a medium-sized fishing net, to catch the interest of listeners who would otherwise never have known they liked this type of music.

So, the Robert Riches of tomorrow should not give up the day job, since they will need it to support their musical activities.. but for those who can find the time outside work, there is unprecedented musical freedom since pandering to an audience is no longer a requirement. Of course, having basic consideration for some sort of audience (real or potential or hypothetical) is polite and a precaution against total self-indulgence. Well, read that article if you haven’t yet - it’s more interesting than this!