Olydig- Swedish designer canvas

Olydig is Swedish and means disobedient. Yet, it is also refreshingly dandy (fairly cheap) Gothenburg based designer canvas accessories. Have a look.



Small shoulder/carrier bag. Price 350sek/32euro/240dkr. Perfect for a netbook such as an Asus Eee or an Acer aspire one. *STILL AVAILABLE.


Small shoulder/carrier bag. Price 350sek/32euro/240dkr. *SOLD OUT.


Cute wallet. Price 120sek/11euro/80dkr. *SOLD OUT.


Cute wallet. Price 120sek/11euro/80dkr. *STILL AVAILABLE.


Cellphone keychain/lanyard. Price 100sek/8euro/70dkr. *SOLD OUT.


Pencil case. Price 130sek/12.5euro/90dkr. *SOLD OUT.


Pencil case. Price 130sek/12.5euro/90dkr. *STILL AVAILABLE.

Check out tons more neat Olydig stuff over at www.olydig.se. Theres even a sale going on as we speak, so some of it might come even cheaper if you care for some leftovers.

Winter Took His Life

Photo by: Mattias Fredriksson

So christmas was over just like that..... oh well, its freakishly chilly outside (again), and i feel like recommending something warm and toasty for the cold. So... meet Gothenburg girl Susanna Brandin aka. Winter Took His Life. Once again, as in the almost endless Swedish cases of amazing in the shapes of such newer girl names- Lykke Li, El Perro Del Mar, Promise And The Monster, Britta Persson and beyond, one could wonder how there could be any room left for further greatness. But, fear not, Winter Took His Life found herself a quiet prosperous little picnic spot only a heartbeat away.

Her wonderful debut album- You know what it´s like to be alone and shut down, came out last year and can be found at Bless The Press. So if you (just like me), didnt get on the first one in time, there you go. It would be a shame not to follow up on this fantastic girl from the start.

WTHL's myspace can be found here.

Cowon S9 Striptease

So it seems.... The shimmering Cowon S9 makes it to shops and stores (pretty much globally) just before christmas. It is officially out in Germany, Uk, Sweden, Norway, France, U.S etc. 8gb goes for 180 euro and 16gb for approx 215 euro. 32gb? Unfortunantly not up for grabs untill next year. Anywaa, for specs along my initial S9 post, go here.

For those interested in some serious gadgetporn, here you go. The two very first Cowon S9 unboxings. First one by Engadget, second one by Boy Genius Report.


Visit the Engadget Cowon S9 unboxing gallery here.


Visit the Boy Genius Report Cowon S9 unboxing gallery here.

Or check out some neat amateur hands-on footage on youtube, click here.

Artist of the month - postponed

My "Something Monthly" posts - Artist of the month, was initially starting as of today. But it is with sad eyes i am to inform, that i am going to postpone its debut till the 15th of February, due to the fact i was rushed to the hospital late thursday night last week, with a somewhat scary lung infection. So now- 4 days, 27 intravenous blood samples and a couple of hours sleep later, i am finally online again. I will try to keep up with my ideal blogging spirit and get some stuff going. But dont expect the world of me just yet. thx.

As for artist of the month, it will be running every 15th, of each month. Starting 15th of February. Hopefully that will work out for all of us. Ta ta.

Paddington Distortion Combo

The ever so super fantastic swede- ex. Bear Quartet member Carl Olsson and his brilliant solo project Paddington Distortion Combo, just announced his new album, set for release February 23rd 2009. There is no mention of a definite album title, though the following four song titles will be present on the upcoming release- -White mans clap, La La, Birth Defect and Defätismus.

So, if youre generally silly to the bone concerning Paddington or just excited about uplifting lofi kiddy electro combined with 80's kitsch/trash and swedish sub-suburban indierock "one man style". You gotta a wonderful surprise coming up in 2009.

Also, here's a cuddly live clip from a PDC show this summer at Potatiskällaren (The Potato Basement) in Luleå (north Sweden).


The video is part of a 4 piece liveshow recording, that is to be found here.

Mintpass - Used as read

Last month i posted about the diverse (but amazing) Korean consumer electronics company- Mintpass and their super fabulous Mintpad mediatablet. As it seems, Mintpass has alot more neat design stuff cooking in the lab. So i figured i would let you have a look at this- A fascinating concept design entitled "Used As Read".


Click images for larger sizes. (opens in a new window). All images courtesy of Mintpass.co.kr.







Disturbing cables on the back, clashing with the cleanliness across. Classic and retro.


Brilliant, to say the least.


The whole concept stacked.

It really looks as though Mintpass is a company all about doing things right from the start. Wonderfully refreshng and ambitious, i must say.

Read more about "Used As Read" here

Melloboat 2009

What if you could travel the seas between Sweden and Finland for 24hours accompagnied by a bunch of questinable bands, a couple of interesting, justified by a few awesome. Would you? Well, let me include the fact, that Swedish math-metal-maniacs Meshuggah are among the awesome, along swedish indie wonder Promise And The Monster and Porcupine Tree founder/singer Steven Wilson's own project (accompagnied by wonderful Danish artist, photographer and filmmaker Lasse Hoile).

To be quite honest, i dont even care much about who else is playing the Melloboat aka. Siljaline Galaxy cruiser that night and day the 24-25th of april. Just the fact that one can brag about sailing the dark baltic sea with the 3 artists mentioned above, already have me itching my backpocket.

I doubt it will the most important music event of the year (as stated in small print on the bottom of the poster), but the fact that you can get to witness a neat thing like this for a measly 100 swedish kroner (10 euros), or even get a nice room with a view for 900 swedish kroner (85 euro) pr. person along with, seriously should make this worth your while.

Personally Meshuggah and Promise And The Monster are two of my favourite artists of this last year. So in my opinion, this boat holds a great deal. If youre not familiar with my 3 personally recommended reasons to join this event, heres a taste of what to expect.

Promise And The Monster's latest video- Night Out.


Meshuggah - Bleed.


Steven Wilson's album trailer (by Lasse Hoile).


Sure beats the hell out of sailing the safer seas of Denmark with Carpark North or Lis Sorensen (if you even know who that is)......Anyway, im there.

For more info on Melloboat and its cruises, artists, prices etc. Go here.

Cowon S9 - A closer look

Around 3 months ago Korean Cowon announced a somewhat handful of new devices, set for public arrival around the new year (before and after). One of these, is the extremely talked about- Cowon S9, also known as the Curve. Not only is it sweet sweet eyecandy out of the ordinary, it also plays every living audio and video format out there.


This just oozes beautiful build quality from top to bottom.

Just to sum up the specs before taking a closer look at the amazing design. The S9 revolves around a 500mhz dual core processor (yup, dual core), a razor sharp 3.3" iamoled touchscreen, (480 x 272 pixels, ), Flash storage capacities in 4, 8, 16 and 32gb, Bluetooth 2.0 support, DMB tv (probably asia only, since europe isnt prepped for that), Audio playback support for: MP3/2/1, WMA, FLAC, OGG, APE, WAV, Video playback support for: Xvid SP/ASP, Avi, Divx, WMV9 SP/MP at 30 frames pr. second, and best of all, it promises 40 hours of audio playback. It will be available in Korea from the 16th and prices announced so far range 150-220$ with 4-16gb. (No price on 32gb yet).

And here they are, the rest of the latest S9 press shots. Courtesy of Cowonglobal Korea.


Clean backside in gunmetal black.


It looks as though the S9 will be the first touchscreen player, to have nice tucked away controls, allowing you to function when not looking at the screen (fx.in your pocket.) play/pause in the middle, skip buttons on the right and volume on the left. Very slick details.


Looks to be the sleakest of Ui's Cowon has yet to launch.


Clean and neat UI, aesthetically in the middle of Samsung and Apple. Very promising stuff.

Cant wait for this one to surface.

Blip festival 2008 - Memories

Photo by Elektropionir @ flickr.

No it is not Swedish indiepop sensation I'm From Barcelona, but merely a pile of blip festival 2008 performers. Yesterday (Sunday) was the fourth and last day of Blip festival 2008. By now, around 40 artists (plus/minus) have performed, tons of dancemoves where executed, and a boatload of photos were snapped,..... Yeah, so in order to enhance the envy (and regrets) in all of us who couldnt go, here's some photographic highlights and shortcuts (links) from/to some of the people who took insightful pics from the festival.

Elektropionir took 78 nice pics (amongst them, the top group photo), Check his blip festival set here.


Photo by Arambulo @ flickr.


Arambulo posted great pics of Meneo (top crowd) and Bitshifter (bottom crowd), along 14 other cool blip festival photos. Check his set here.


Rasterbox took a bunch of great photos, amongst them, this pic of the merch area.


X Plastic Neurospasta also took a bunch of photos aswell, check em here.


And to top it off, here's a few videoclips aswell.

Meneo (Spain), Friday night.


Cheap Dinosaurs (Usa), Friday night.


Sulumi (China), Saturday night.


All in all, it looked like the most awesome thing in the world, and agaainnn...... im sooo bummed out that i didnt have the possibility to go. Oh well, atleast i got to sit and surf, post and escape boredom at the same time. One thing is sure though, next time, i'll blog/snap the shit out of the real thing. I promise.

Blip fest relations chapter 5

The Sid 6581/8550 Recordings Archive is a massive hive hosting 343 Sid chip tunes, all up for completely free download. It is one simple site, one long list, no registration, just click to download. It is really that simple and glorius. A definite thing to check out if you have commodore music hunger.

More to the Atari side of chips/music, then head over to the Ym2149 recordings archive instead.... once again... same concept.... really simple, one long list, download whatever you feel like, no registration.

Furthermore in the spirit of dear father christmas/pixel baby jesus and courtesy of Doctor Octoroc, heres a cool 8-bit christmas compilation entitled 8-bit jesus. All free. Enjoy lo-tech sheenanigans in the shape of holiday monstrosities like- Ryu the Red Nosed Ninja, Silent Knight Man, Super Jingle Bros and more. Check that out Here.

Ohh yes.....

Blip fest relations chapter 4

The Crunchy Records Compilation 2008

Every year Crunchy Co. cough up a free compilation surprise. This year, hard copy CD's (of the 2008 edition) were distributed for free at Blipfest in New York, and other events for a limited time. Though it is also up for grabs by download, so if you feel like getting 27 free bittunes and bliptracks for your music library, click here.



Nine Chip Nails Album.

If youre more into Nine Inch Nails, and curious about how it would sound 8-bit style. Then you should head over to Robotrecords and get yourself a free album of 8-Bit Nine Inch Nails Covers, right here. Robotrecords also hosts 4 other awesome album downloads (just scroll down further on the robotrecords page).

More comin.....

Blip fest relations chapter 3

Micromusic is a global community of bitmusic creaters, listeners, engineers, promoters, labels.... well alot of things really. What was originally thought out as being a simple community website to get hold of low_tech_musik produced by low_tech_producerz for lovers of computer generated tunes via the worldwideweb was developed fast into a highly complex websound_community_system using the latest internet technology. Yup, today Micromusic is an almost 10 year old massive hyper active community with tons and tons of cool stuff underneath its neat pixel skin. News, Bitradio, gig calendars, shop, links, downloads, graphics..... You name it.

If you register (free) at Micromusic.net you can get access to over 700 free downloads. So if youre curious about chiptunes, bitpop, picopop, ciruitbending, nintendocore and beyond. This is your new playground.

More comin....

Blip fest relations chapter 2

More more bitmusic............. French Divag blips from Paris doing outrageously nice Gameboy stuff. (some of it released on 8bitpeoples). You can download an entire album of Gameboy Tunes here (18mb zip. file) and another bunch of Gameboy tracks here (30mb zip. file). (rightclick+save as). You can also visit the Divag site for more individual downloads, bit graphics, and even Atari style tracks.

Tokyo based prince of darkness- Gameboy-Bit-dubstep producer/artist Quarta 330 (whom played blipfest 2006), has a 30 minute liveset for free download over at Spannered.

8itpeoples crewmember and blipfest 2008 performer Timothy Lamb aka Trash 80, has a whole page filled with his free downloads right here. His 2 8bitpeoples releases can also be downloaded for free here (Hologram ep) and here (Icarus ep.)

more comin......

Blip fest relations chapter 1

As promised, while passively celebrating the 2008 blip festival in New York. Im posting some links, chatter and downloads for all you interested in or curious about the world of bitmusic.

First- Im gonna kick you off with a link to virginia based Receptors and some free albums/tracks put up for free download via Last.fm. Receptors have previously played Blipfest in 2006, but also showcased at festivals like Iceland Airwaves and SWSX in Texas. Receptors is mainly run and directed by artist/producer Jeremy Kolosine, whom amongst many projects also is one of the guilty brains of the more commercially aimed bitmusic release - "8-Bit Operators - an 8-bit Tribute to Kraftwerk" released by Astralwerks/Emi.

Secondly- Heres a link to the Receptors + Weblabel ops releases that are for free download. Amongst those, Pharmacom doing bitversions of all the classics like beethoven, bach and haydn.

Third- i wanted you to have the chance to listen to a neat interview with Jeremy Kolosine, him talking about bitmusic/chiptunes including his involvement as executive producer on the 8 bit operators release - An 8bit tribute to Kraftwerk. Listen to that over at Npr by cliking here.

More comin, later.

Suffocate For Fuck Sake

Not only does swedish Suffocate For Fuck Sake, have a scary badass name. Together with their almost 9 month old debut album title "Blazing Fires and Helicopters on the Front Page of the Newspaper. There's a War Going On and I'm Marching In Heavy Boots" they definently set one of this years most interesting standards for not being subtle. Sffs is indeed a strong unknown piece of sweden, that i definently would recommend to fans of anything from Sigur Ros, Cult Of Luna, Mono and even more cinematic things like fellow Swede "collage musician" Hans Appelqvist. Want something sweet in your ears without leaving out the roaring blasts and the painful screams? Sffs is the place to look all of the above.

Go check out some of their fantastic tracks on myspace, or take a chance and jump straight into the purchase and get yourself an epic surprise out of the ordinary. Its available for only 9Euro at Bisaufsmesser.com.

The Iphone's evil twin

Chinese company - Meizu, usually known for making cheap/ugly (but quality built) ipod looking mp3players. Have finally finished and launched samples of what has been a painful 2 year struggle, of yet another somewhat familiar looking device. Yes, the Meizu M8, the "iphone clone".... the evil twin.... have finally found its way out of the production line and into the open arms of reviewers and fondlers everywhere.

Meizu's goal was clear from the start: To sincerely live up to the quality of the iphone, while still surpassing it on the specifications. Frightening about this, is that after almost going out of business, it looks as if they actually pulled something good off.

So what is really so interesting about this that i wanna go post about it? Well, multiple reasons actually. Two of them being intellectual properties (rights to designs/thoughts etc.) and format support. Does apple really hold the right to squares with rounded corners? Does everything have to be closed up in a box of itunes in order for you to play with it? Well.... Apparently not.

Again i find parts of the basic iphone concepts intrigueing, though i have some general dislikings for it. Some of them very solveable, but proven difficult for many phone manufacturers. One being that, i cannot see what i would use a video playing device for, when companies like apple does not deliver video downloads/purchases in Scandinavia and along it, offer no alternative. Conversion sucks, it is time consuming and dumb. Second is the actual codec supports for audio/video. Why should i settle for measly couple of codecs (apple and mp3)? Third: battery. Battery time is freaking vital when you have a phone that wants to double as your media tablet. So an internal battery that only last a bit over a day, such as in the iphone, is just not acceptable in my opinion. Wrapping those failures in a nasty 90's chrome front, just makes me wanna run for the hills.

So, why shouldnt a Meizu M8 be a fair choice above all the other companies like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Lg and Htc? All of them companies that dont wanna look towards the consumer, because theyre too busy to put out 60 identical devices a year.

The specifications of the Meizu M8 speak for them self. It will be cheaper, not locked to a carrier, it is smaller than the iphone (with the looks of an ipod touch), it has a 480x720 resolution which is double than most phones/mediaplayers (iphone included), it has a better camera at 3.2 megapixels (iphone at 2.0 mp), it has a removable battery, the new Opera browser and last but least, a massive list of codec supports. Audio being- mp3, wma, ogg, flac, ape, aac, and wav. Video doing- Wmv, Avi, Divx, Xvid, Mpeg and even Flv. That is to me all in all, freakishly impressive. Best of all, it comes in colors all black or all white, simple and clean (no chrome).

Heres a closer at what were dealing with.

The M8 browsing with Opera. Notice how responsive the screen is. Am actually quite impressed by this.


Playing music. Notice the swipe functions between play and visualizer. Wonder if one could add extensive cover art for individual albums?.


Keyboard and typing.


So to sum up. I really do stay impressed and hope to see this fair little bastard up for grabs very soon. Ofcourse it needs to withstand a boatload more trials before ending up in true consumer hands. But, overall, it states pretty clear- Its not a piece of junk. Today, that in itself is some sign of quality.


PS: Heres a translated i depth review of the M8 with loads of details and pictures from it168.com.

Snöras

Take a mountain (no particular mountain). A real nice, tall, skyscraping piece of heavy set stone, with roots tied deep into the core of our planet. Picture the sharp top of it, along the rotation of earth, tearing a big evil rift in the sky, forcing the universe outside to bleed in galactic proportions of flaming cold snow. Bathe it in the memories of your favourite war, backlit by a neat sunset... and there you go. A somewhat more just meaning of the word avalanche applied to its norwegian equivalent in the shape of a band called Snöras.

Snöras is indeed a beautiful and highly recommendable Norwegian hybrid of great moments in both vibrant hardcore and melancholy mathrock. Their second album Plague Waters came out late september (start october) to very wellearned reviews both in commercial and underground press. The album is released by Fysisk Format and is out on both cd and vinyl. Prelisten songs and find links for purchases (itunes/physical record) here.




Snöras - Lucid River. Download (rightclick+save as).

First David Bowie, now Springsteen?

Photo by Joa La Rock

Swedish indie postrock sensation Jeniferever, is undoubtably a fascinating and honorable nordic encounter in more than several ways. Ever since their lovely ep Iris, the magnificent album Choose A Bright Morning, and latest the Nangijala ep, a soaring well saturated post-pop sensation have stretched its cuddly arms around the lengths of time and impressed almost every attentive owl standing by. Though stranger phenomena are constantly lurking by the coasts of Jeniferever. Last year the band pulled a daring champ of an Ashes To Ashes (David Bowie) cover out of the hat, and now.......... believe it or not a cover of One Step Up (1987) by Bruce Springsteen. I am intrigued by their curious choices/doings and sit here pondering... really.... what the screech is going on. None the less. The One Step Up track is a feature for an upcoming Springsteen tribute album called "Play Some Pool, Skip Some School, Act Real Cool" released by Where It's At Is Where You Are, prepped for release some time early 2009.

Go visit the still ever lovely Jeniferever at myspace for their albums, songs and above mentioned coversongs.

Something monthly

Every month the 15th, starting the 15th of December. Im gonna post an artist of the month. Reasons and/or excuses for will vary occasion to occasion, though only truely independent artists will be elegable.

Every artist/Band of the month post will include: An interview/profile story, A batch of unique digital downloads (B-sides, bootlegs, unreleased material, etc.) and last but not least- 2x10 buttons (fan designed) will be up for grabs to the 10 first commenters each month. Buttons will include free postage.

So stick around for some promising nominees and free stuff.

Melodium - Cerebro Spin

A brief moment of recommendation- Magic music for winter. Melodium aka 28 year old Laurent Girard, late october released his 10th album "Cerebro Spin" on Audiodregs (Lullatone, O.Lamm etc.) A very wonderous and strange little album for people who love tricky fireplaces, melty snowmen, forests, evil toys, lemon icecream, scratching their ears, black tulips, kiwis and odd couples (not the tv show). Cerebro Spin is a record that with an almost outer planetary sound, engulf the art of dividing listeners as they dive into what could have been a silent film score about unevil nightmares and the dangers of day dreaming. Imagine a boy playing piano, inside a burning logcabin sitting on a pillar far away out on the ocean, accompagnied by serenading seagulls and robot whales.

Yes, lot of quirky distant keywords apply and salute Melodium on his 10th album birthday. Thankfully, thats just how he rolls. You can listen to a couple of songs from Cerebro Spin over here or here.

Blip festival NYC 2008

Grafitti Monsters (US). Photo by Richard Gin.

Originally i didnt feel like writing about this years Blip festival, mostly because of the fact that its just around the corner, and i cannot go. Have no time, have no money, and no chance in hell of convincing my boss that those days in New York across the planet from little ol' Denmark would be the perfect location for a company christmas get together. Ehhh.... Well, so me writing about it now, is pure therapy. I have to get it out my system someway, somehow. (And if possible i need someone to live it out for me and report back).

Blip festival is doing its 3rd annual run this december, 4 days straight, from the 4th to the 7th of december. It is undeniably the biggest bit-music event in our time, so far. Nearly 40 international musicians and visual artists occupying the sweet low-res cutting edge under the organization of Manhattan art organization THE TANK and legendary NYC artist collective 8BITPEOPLES.

To set the record straight, were talking hundreds of wonderful "geeks" and messed up indviduals performing, playing, modyfying and caressing/beating the living shit out of Nintendos, Gameboys, Amigas, Commodores (gaming consoles in general) or even homemade circuitry (and software), for the sake of creating ugly/cuddly bit tunes and art. Kinda gotta clue, but not quite sure what to think about that? Well, check this cheeky little promo from the documentary "BLIP FESTIVAL: REFORMAT THE PLANET" (Promo featuring Nullsleep. One of my favourite bit-peeps).



Got some money stashed away? Gotta rich pappy? Got the balls to rob a bank or.... Could you really just go? Then you really should. Atleast if you fancy bit-rock, nintendocore, New York and beyond.

I myself still havent come to reconcile with the fact that im not even closely enabled to go, but i will try to make the best of it. So, when Blip festival kicks off. I will to. Every day from the 4th to the 7th of december, i will gather up and post the best of the free Blip-related bit-music downloads my webhotel can muster. Hopefully we will all enjoy it.

In the meanwhile, please go and check out all the fantastic artists and activities blessing this years Blip festival. Furthermore, heres a group of audio excerpts, from festival related artists.

Hayden - New video/European tour cancelled

Good news: Canadian Hayden just released a new video for "Barely friends" from his latest album "In Field & Town", which came out earlier this year. Classical Hayden, lovely song, beautiful video. Bad news: Haydens much anticipated 2 week European tour, which was supposed to kick off 25th off November in London together with Giant Sand, is for reasons unknown, completely cancelled. I guess we will have to settle for the nice video for now then.

A Simple guide to free music

Myspace, Purevolume, Facebook applications, ilike, Last.fm, Skreemer, Songza, Hypem....yup, theres is no end to what time, fancy name, slogan or site you have to deal with in order for you to approach free legal attention worthy music downloads. At myspace one can spend days on following links amongst bands and friends, maybe finding good music yes, but interesting quality downloads? Rarely. The same goes for the rest of them.

An important thing to remember about most social network sites (whether they be music related or not), is that theyre driven by advertising and personal interests in commercial purposes (even from most bands point of view). So it is no wonder why these sites slowly evolve into hopeless digital deserts, highly infested with german emobands, crappy/unfriendly music players and dead end lofi downloads.

But, if youre keen on more, being simple (or just plain fox clever). Take the road less travelled. Think open source and embrace creative commons!. All you need, is to visit the open source audio department at archive.org, along knowing partially what you wanna look for. That, and some simple reading/searching skills. Let me show you what some concentrated 35 minutes of snoopin' around can do for you.

Seven New Songs of Mount Eerie (2004) - recorded for the July 2004 tour of Australia by Mount Eerie. They were recorded "Nowhere" in Anacortes, Washington in the months of May and June 2004. The release was in an edition of 196 CDRs and sold out on tour. Somehow people in North America found out about it and thought they really wanted it because of the low quantity. Now it is available forever for free. Besides this there are 11 other free Mount Eerie releases on archive, unique liveshows, private recordings, you name it.

FreeQuency - In Germany (and in german) Mr. Christian Grasse is doing his own podcasts, documentaing his search for neat new music, may it be indie, eletronic, punk, lofi or experimental. He regularly posts full podcasts under the name of FreeQuency. Though along that, posts individual tracks for download aswell. Tons of good stuff like Ghostape (CH), Cantaloup (DE), Resynthesize (US), Tone (DK) and heeps more cool unknown artists from all over the world.

Headphones Required - Headphones required is a weekly bilingual podcast from Montreal about independent quality music (post rock, indie rock, microsound, electro or pop). Filled to the brim with brilliant music ranging from unknown artists to stuff like Below the Sea (CA), Of Montreal (CA), Tortoise (US), The Brunettes (NZ), Akitakaya Tohyama & Kenji Ninuma, Fly Pan Am (CAN) and much more. Though the sets of podcasts are 128kbps encoded and dont include individual track downloads, it is still very much worth digging into.

By The End Of Tonight - A Houston mathrock quartet, uploaded some good quality live recordings from one of their liveshows At The Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco (2005). Viva Computer - a Tasmanian (yes down under) indieband uploaded 3 releases, their debut album "Viva Computer" included. Austrian Liger - and his archive pressence with "The infra-ordinary" album lead me further to the Beat Is Murder netlabel, with tons of more great albums to download freely. Cassettes - An anonymous soloartist, have a homemade noisy bedroom rock album entitled "Everything Is Chemicals" made entirely with Garageband and a three-string detuned guitar, that Black Reble Motorcycle Club, Sonic Youth and Pixies fans wont necessarily dislike..... Mogwai have maybe over 50 bootlegs floatin around.... Mono have a handful aswell......

Well , what im trying to say here. Why settle for the crowded, questionable and obvious, exclusively every day, when you can get all of this (and more) wrapped neatly in a minty breath of fresh air, "legally" along with.

Happy hunting.

PS: And may i remind you that Archive.org aint a dumb place to find uncopyrighted (or copyright expired) movies, commercials and animation either. (all the way from the beginning of the 1900's.:)

Ghostly Swim

Some time ago, cartoon channel Adult Swim teamed up with Ghostly international and put up a neat little free album download named Ghotsly Swim. It holds 19 various artists, all of a more or less electronical character, ranging from such nice names as Milosh, The Reflecting Skin, School of Seven Bells, Tycho and many others.

It is still available (free ofcourse), and it would be a darn shame if you didnt get the chance to get this home with you. Heres some previews.



Go visit the Adult Swim site and get your Ghostly Swim. Click here.

The Mintpad

The Mintpad. A promising little Korean pocket monster for those who appreciate the fine arts of drawing, blogging, taking pictures (and blogging), listening music, watching videos, making post-its (and blogging them). Yup, and i havent even beging to mention the different social features like personal calendar, chat and what not.

The Mintpad is a creation by Korean Mintpass, a newcomer on the market founded and run by fugitives of Irivers innovation department, lead by concept excentric Duk-Jun Yang, a former Ceo of Korean Reigncom/Iriver. Mintpass whom with the Mintpad now have good physical proof that they have no intention of being a company not doing things right from the beginning.



To sum up the full potential of the cuddly Mintpad. Well, besides its miniature form factor - the crossbreed size of a creditcard and post-it, it has a good quality 1.3 Megapixel integrated camera (descent for blogging and fun), Wi-fi (802.11 b/g), integrated speaker and microphone, a full 2.9" touch screen (for both fingers and pens), 4gb internal memory (backed up by a microSd slot, supporting up to 8gb cards), removable battery, built in accelerometer and a 3,5 mm standard headphonejack. Codec supports and tricks for music include Mp3, Wma, Ogg, Ape and Flac (which is damn impressive) along a customizable equalizer and intelligent playlist features. Videowise it does Avi (pressumably Divx/Xvid), Wmv and Mpeg (which is equally impressive).

Features include Etch'a'sketch like gesture support for both drawing and blogging. So that when you fx take a picture, wrote some text, made a note or a drawing. Just give the Mintpad a little shake and it goes straight to your blog (or other web destination). Yes, weve seen the shake gestures before, but to be honest, it actually makes alot of sense when you have the internet involved. Check it out.

Draw/write and take pictures. Shake it and blog it!.


Writing/drawing, speedy and natural.


Another really neat and exclusive feature (if you notice on the videos) is that when you make a drawing or a note, it actually blends in a paper texture (optional) so that it looks like a real drawing/post-it instead of straight up generic graphics. That combined with the fact that the Mintpad posseses a very capable tabletminded atypically responsive touchscreen (and nice user interface), makes it all pretty pitchable to the public and worth the fact that this could go and become an actual intelligent little trendsetting device.

So all in all, if youre a whore for simple clean cut design in a tiny package, you love blogging (and lofi photgraphy), you need a home for your handdrawn post-it style critters and doodles. Last but not least, wouldnt mind carrying your music/video along with all of that. Hell, your train has almost arrived. All you gotta do is, Hold your breath for a while and let Mintpass do their thing. They wont let this one miss out on a good old European fondle.

If you wanna see more of the Mintpad, please check out these pages on the Mintpass website. Mintpad design and press photos, The concept and features and How to use. All pages are unfortunantly in Korean, but theres loads of good product shots and details to be excited about.

The David Bazan dvd

To be completely honest, even if you dont know who the hell David Bazan is. This is the indie xmas present of the year : The 13$ David Bazan - Alone At The Microphone dvd. But why is that? Well.... There are so many reasons (some describable, som not). His 4 one mand band Pedro The Lion albums, his solo work as David Bazan, his Headphones band (with members from Starflyer59 and Fleetfoxes), he played with Damien Jurado, he played the drums on the first Unwed Sailor Ep.... and well.... Yeah, well, lets not make this rocket science. Watch this and tell me why you dont wanna know more about this man and his music.

Live outside Berkeley Campus, November 7th.
More clips from the Berkeley campus gig last week can be found here.

Youtube dvd promo.


The David Bazan dvd is internationally available at undertowstore.

Sky Diary Edits and...

Sky Diary Edits is a spectacular almost a year old compilation released by Italian netlabel Zymogen - a unique and dedicated netlabel that wont reallly cost you anything to either check out or consume (mostly because they house 21 free album downloads). Zymogen generously carries noteworthy artists like American Off The Sky (Jason Corder), Irish Jimmy Behan, American Ten And Tracer, Russian Songraphie, Italian Con_Cetta and others. My favourites being Songraphie, Off The Sky and Jimmy Behan.

Here's a few Zymogen tracks for you to listen to. Theres 3 tracks from the Sky Diary Edits compialtion and 1 each from Jimmy Behan, Sonographie and Off The Sky. Beneath the player you can download the Sky Diary Edits compilation, the latest Jimmy Behan album and the new Off The Sky Ep. Just rightclick + save as. All files are 192kbps mp3 with full album art.




Sky Diary Edits - Various Artists (2007) - Download (75,3 MB)
Jimy Behan - In The Sudden Distance (2008) - Download (61,9 MB)
Off The Sky - Dwelling Spells (2008) - Download (49,5 MB)

The acoustic 31 knots?

Photo by Kasper Troels @ www.comeondieyoung.dk

A little month ago i witnessed, what i still think is one of the best shows ive attented this year. San Francisco 3 piece - 31 Knots, kicked my ass to high heavens that late saturday night. Not only is 31 knots a fantastically excentric and technically potent liveband, they also radiate a such rare theatrical, almost hyper bohemian atmosphere, that makes it impossible for the audience to predict in which direction the band tends to stretch its energies (both mentally and musical). Those energies and qualitities combined, to me, celebrate so many great things, that i cannot anything but recommend you try and pick up a 31 Knots show first chance you get.

That being said. French Le Cargo, has an amazing youtube channel, on which many unique and intimate live videos with wonderful atypical not so household names can be discovered. Amongst them, great artists like Matt Elliott (UK), Broadcast 2000 (UK), Promise And The Monster (SE)(one of my favourites), Efterklang (DK), Zombie Zombie (FR), The Concretes (SE) and even hundreds more (im serious, hundreds).

And untill today, now also 31 Knots acoustic. Didnt see that one coming. None the less, extremely entertaining stuff.

A beautiful reminder

Back in 2002, Johnathan Ford of instrumental band Unwed Sailor got together with friends in Tulsa bands Ester Drang and Lasso. In 48 hours they recorded a bunch of songs for what today, still remains a rather anonymous project - Circle Of Birds. The result was a beautiful little ep mixed by Johnathan Ford and former Unwed Sailor drummer David Bazan (also known as the artist behind Pedro The Lion). An ep which today is still widely digitally available here and there

One of the ep's tracks - Old Ironside, is today still one of the most fantastically sad and beautiful tracks i have ever layed ears on. I am still amazed years after, that no big hollywood movie dreamers never even bothered to atleast attempt steal this for the sake of their visions. But on the other hand, to me thats what makes this track so pretty. It just sits there on the Unwed Sailor website (free to download), for everyone to enjoy, contempt with the fact that people who have never heard about either of the tracks many contributors, are fine without its subtle glory.

Well.... Since i am not really poking the coals of new fires here, why dont you give the track a listen and then decide if you wanna go here and download it? (you might get more than you bargained for).