Candi!

© Razor Candi, April 2007
Razor Candi, good looking, as usual!

There is Something Very Rotten in Denmark

Since 2006, when Iceland resumed its illegal whaling activities, it has claimed the killing is only for scientific purposes. The European Commission is dismisses this as a legitimate whaling activity with only Denmark supporting the Icelandic position.

Copenhagen announced in mid-May that it would invoke a rarely used measure, 'Declaration 25' an annex to the Maastricht Treaty. The declaration refers to member states that have territories outside the EU - as is the case with the Faeroe Islands and Greenland - and will allow Denmark not to be bound by the common position.

Mr. Samsing pointed out that the common position actually masks what is more of a mosaic of positions amongst EU member states. Viewing the animals, as with great apes, elephants and dolphins, to be more intelligent and socially complex than other mammals, "there are those member states that do not want any whales to be killed ever - no matter what," said the Danish diplomat.

"But then there are other member states who want to protect whale species from extinction, but once they are not endangered, the would have no problem with a resumption of the whale hunt," he added, "so long as it was done under strict conditions."

As a result, he said, the common position is agreed only for the purposes of this one IWC meeting, and no further.

"But of course, the commission will come up with something similar next year, and then we have to go through the whole rigmarole again."

What Mr. Samsing is saying here is that Denmark does not support the protection of the whales for any reason including if they are endangered.

For its part, the commission dismissed suggestions of imposing its will on anyone: “The common position was made by the highest body [in the EU], and was supported by most member states," said the commission's environment spokesperson, Barbara Helfferich.

Denmark is a major contributor to the destructive exploitation of the world’s oceans. Danish fishing fleets are amongst the most rapacious in the world and their plundering of the seas has not been dampened by the realization that there are serious ecological concerns about the ability of the oceans to survive this ceaseless plundering.

[…]

Source: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

On the deterioration of sound, mastering and music itself

We live in a world of technology - exponentially increasing breakthroughs in all things scientific. So fast that we can't even keep up with it. So why is it that the audio quality of music is degenerating? Music 'sounds' worse. We have stopped listening, we don't have time. We only have time to be smacked in the face by the loudest, most attention-grabbing blast of souped-up noise imaginable until ear fatigue sets in and the desire to 'change the record' takes over. Why are the adverts on TV twice the volume of the regular broadcasts?

Alan Wilder (Depeche Mode / Recoil) tells you

No, it’s not you – records do all sound the same these days. Desperate to get their music on the radio at all costs, record labels are employing a new and powerful software to artificially sweeten it, polish it, make it “louder”… and squeeze out the last drops of its individuality. Tom Whitwell reports on what’s wrong with the sound of music

Source:
Side-Line article, Alan Wilder - "Music For The Masses - I think not."
and
The Word article, Why records DO all sound the same By Tom Whitwell

Additional articles:

Loudness War - Wikipedia

Why Music Really Is Getting Louder - Adam Sherwin, Times Online

How CDs Are Remastering The Art Of Noise - Tim Anderson, Guardian Unlimited

Brickwall Limiting - J.J. Blair, EQ Magazine

The Big Squeeze: Mastering Engineers Debate Music's Loudness Wars - Sarah Jones, Mix Magazine

Everything Louder Than Everything Else - Have The Loudness Wars Reached Their Final Battle? - Joe Gross, Austin360.com

Why New Music Doesn't Sound As Good As It Did - Yahoo! Tech

The Loudness War - Mark Donahue, Performer Magazine

The Death Of Dynamic Range - Mike Richter

Imperfect Sound Forever - Nick Southall, Stylus Magazine

Declaring An End To The Loudness Wars - Barry Diament

Tearing Down The Wall Of Noise - Suhas Sreedhar (Multimedia)

Tearing Down The Wall Of Noise - Suhas Sreedhar (Text)

Radio Ready: The Truth - Bob Orban & Frank Foti, with introduction and comments by Bob Katz (from Katz's book "Mastering Audio: The Art And The Science.")

Official, Rock Music Is Too Loud - Thomas Whitaker, The Sun

What Happened To Dynamic Range? - Bob Speer

Pump Up The Volume - Rip Rowan, WIRED Magazine

Over The Limit - Rip Rowan, ProRec.com

Music Gets Louder - Adrian Larkin, BBC Radio

It's Confirmed: Music Is Really Getting Louder - Duncan Robertson, Daily Mail

Experts: Music Is Getting 'Too Loud' - Dave West, Digital Spy

Distorted, Loud Rock Music Is Making Listeners 'Sick' - Adam Sherwin, Independent News

Masters On Mastering - JJ Jenkins, Electronic Musician

Current Trends in Recording: Is Louder Better? - Dan Banquer, Audioholics Magazine

Loudness - Chicago Mastering Service

Whatever Happened To Dynamic Range On Compact Discs? - George Graham

Hot CD Disease - John Vestman

Music Into Noise: The Destructive Use Of Dynamic Range Compression - Wes Lindstrom

Loudness Race Discussed - Bob Katz

How To Make Better Recordings - Integrated Metering, Monitoring, and Leveling Practices - Bob Katz

Ron Murphy obituary

Ron Murphy — record cutter, mastering engineer and record producer at Sound Enterprises (formerly National Sound Corporation) in Detroit, MI — has passed away.

From Cliff Thomas on Discogs:

"Ron Murphy is probably one of the most instrumental figures in the history Detroit electronic music. All you have to do is take a good look in your record collection and look for the little NSC logo on the run-out groove on the inside of the record. Ron has shaped the sound of Detroit Techno more than just about anybody. There were allot of records back in the beginning that were brought in by people that knew next to nothing about production or mixing down properly and Ron has saved the sound of those records and many of them have went down in history as some of the finest examples of techno ever made.

Ron has been one of the biggest opponents of over-compression in the industry as people have rushed to bring techno music into the ridiculous loudness war that the rest of the record industry is engaged in currently. His mastering is both dynamic and warm and has been praised for it's definition in the low end. A kick drum on an NSC mastered record is a beautiful thing to behold. He's a real living legend in this industry yet he remains humble and is still one of the most interesting figures in this industry that i have ever talked to. A true classic character."

Ron died of a heart attack on 13th January 2008.

Sound Entreprises, "home" of Ron Murphy

Some other links:

An old but interesting article at MetroTimes

Infinite State Machine web-log

Aaron Carl remembers Ron Murphy

SoulfulDetroit Music remembers Ron Murphy

Suenomartino article about NSC

Ron Murphy Discography

A huge loss for the underground and the (nearly lost) Art of gramophone mastering.

R.I.P.

Mel gone to Heaven

Mel Cheren (Born January 21, 1933 in Everett, Massachusetts and raised in Revere - Died December 07, 2007)

Former Financial Backer of The Paradise Garage, C.E.O. of West End Records,
Trendsetter, Owner Colonial House Inn, Founder and President 24 Hours For Life Foundation, Philanthropist, Painter.

Mel Cheren began his career in the music business in 1959 at ABC-Paramount Records where he eventually became head of the label's production department.
When the company moved operations to Los Angeles in 1970, Cheren left to become head of production for Scepter Records where he forged new territory: forming an early record pool (David Mancuso, Vince Aletti and Steve D’Aquisto inititated the very first one) and the first to release instrumental mixes on 12" B-sides…

When Scepter closed in 1976, Mel co-founded West End Records and soon after signed Karen Young, whose single "Hot Shot" sold 800,000 copies making it one of the biggest selling 12" in history.

Though respected for his record label, Cheren was loved by many for making possible one of the world's most revered nightclubs, The Paradise Garage. He was the financial backer for the club which was owned and operated by his former partner, Michael Brody. Cheren's relationship with the club's influential DJ Larry Levan blossomed, resulting in some of the most memorable records to come out of the late 1970's and early 1980's.

Cheren was a very dedicated AIDS awareness activists in the US, in 1982 he became very actively involved with the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC). Cheren's philanthropic efforts remained an integral part of his life and in 1987 he formed 24 Hours For Life, a not-for-profit organization of media and music professionals which produced fundraising events for AIDS relief and education.

Summer 2000 saw the release of Cheren's autobiographycal book "Keep On Dancin' (My Life and The Paradise Garage)".
Cheren was also an accomplished painter. His art works has been featured on ten different album covers, five of these were nominated for Grammy Awards. All profits from his paintings goes to charity.


In Memoriam - Mel Cheren

"LIFEbeat mourns the passing of lifetime Board member and great friend Mel Cheren, who died December 7. Mel was a tireless activist in the fight against AIDS and a true visionary in the music industry. While Mel is no longer with us, his spirit lives on in the hearts of all who knew or were influenced by him."
Source: LifeBeat

"It is with much sadness that we announce the passing of a true legend Mel Cheren. A founder of West End Records, Mel ushered in the disco generation and was involved with the monumental Paradise Garage. He is both a role model and a truly nice guy who always wanted everyone to be part of the party.

I strongly recommend that everyone pick up a copy of Mel Cheren's book Keep on Dancin': My Life and the Paradise Garage - a truly magical recount of gay history and a wonderful introduction to DJ Culture (you can read where Junior Vasquez and the other first generation New York DJ's got their start)."
Source: DJ Ron Slomowicz About.com (Dance Music/Electronica section)

"Mel was warm, witty, and sweet. He loved music, truly supported artists, and never tired of looking for talented newcomers to promote. He revolutionized dance music, opened one of the greatest nightclubs in history, and used his energies and resources to help in the fight against AIDS for 25 years. When you go out tonight – and you should – blow a kiss to the disco ball and remember a wonderful man."
Source: Chip Duckett at WOW Report


For these out here still ignoring who Mel Cheren incarnated,
check the more detailed biography at West-End Records, one of, if not my favorite dance record label.

The Book: My Life and The Paradise Garage : Keep On Dancin'
The Motion Picture: The Godfather of Disco (2007)
A great interview with Mel Cheren
Dedication Is Your Message : Our Love Is The Answer, is another Interview for In Da Mix Worldwide.
Mel talk about West End Records at disco-disco.com

Other links with articles relating to Mel Cheren from
- The Disco Unusual Social Club
- West End Records Discography.
- About the Film The Godfather of Disco
- Mel talks frankly about his illness
- Obituary at Disco Delivery
- West End Records Obituary
…

*_°

Mel is gone in Heaven!
Leaving us Paradise,
already behind　…
but also the vibes,
supportive spirit,
some art,
some words
and of course the music,
all
Unforgettable.
Rest in peace, Mel.

Examples of how our lives have degraded since we've been in the EU

In the EU, (which means in Britain) government is above the law.
The EU's corpus juris now pervades right through our legal system. A policeman was let off by magistrates this year (2005) for driving his private car at 159 mph in Ludlow, Shrops. Under Corpus Juris the government are above the law and cannot be prosecuted The judge ruled correctly under EU law. 45,000 police officers got off speed cameras in this way in 2004, although their speeding killed 44 innocent people. (Daily Mail 27.12.05.)

EU "monitoring Officers" have the right to dismiss our Councillors.
The Local Government Act of 2000 empowered the head of the EU government in England, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster (ODPM) to appoint a monitoring officer to spy on every council. If an elected councillor disagrees with the EU or government line, the unelected "Standards Board for England" can suspend him for up to five years. An example is in Cambridgeshire, where the ODPM has threatened cllr Alex Riley with suspension if he attends any debate discussing the ODPM's plans to build a new town of 20,000 people called Nothstowe on his ward. The ODPM has the conflict of interest here; but its powers are becoming absolute.

We have lost the right to freedom
The EU arrest warrant (signed by the Queen on 18th November 2003) allows us to be arrested without charge and held indefinitely with no right to see a solicitor, make a phone call, or even a right to a trial. You can simply disappear.

Under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) 2005, we can now be arrested and held in the cells by any police officer for any petty offence, like dropping litter. Before it had to be an offense that carried a 5 year jail term. This also applies to all of the EU's 107,000 regulations. Do you know them all?

The Civil Contingences Act 2004 allows government to confiscate anything you possess permanently; you have no right to object. This includes your house. It also gives government the right to forceably move its population around to different locations; you can be left with no place to call your own and live like a refugee. The only check and balance here is a Minister just needs to utter the words "This is a national emergency." If a demonstration or strike government doesn't like is being organised, they can cut off all communications in a town - phones, mobiles, the internet, TV, and block all access to that town including closing roads and railways. It has all the powers and more of Hitler's Enabling Act of 1933.

We have lost the right to free speech
At the Labour Party conference the police held an 82 year old man, Walter Woolfgang, and denied him access to the conference under the EU's "anti terrorist" legislation because he had shouted the word "nonsense" at Jack Straw, who was speaking about Iraq. Terrified the true nature of the laws they have passed on behalf of the EU was escaping too early, the Labour Party stopped the police and begged the man to return to conference.

On October 25th 2005 Miss Maya Evans was arrested under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, for a lone protest at the Cenotaph by reading out the names of the 97 British soldiers killed in the Iraq war. She was arrested by no less than 14 police officers and found guilty at Bow Street Magistrates Court on the 8th December 2005.

Would you hand over our nation, to be ruled by a foreign power, with oppressive laws like these, ? That's what's happening.

We have lost the right to protest
These laws make protest very difficult; if we did hold a General Strike and blockade Westminster it would now require some bravery: the powers the EU has demanded from our government enable it to respond in a way similar to the Chinese government's in Tiaanamen Square should it so wish.

It is no coincidence that since 2004, all MP's offices in Westminster are guarded by police with machine guns, inside and out.

The Governments "terrorism" deception
All these new EU laws, including massive "anti terrorism" acts (recently 2000, 2001, 2005) were passed with the pretence they were only directed at terrorists, or in the case of Asbos, ruffians who terrorise the streets. In each case they are used far more often against ordinary law abiding people, particularly to suppress dissent. (91% of those detained under Terrorism Acts are innocent and have been improperly arrested. Most of the remainder are charged with offences that have nothing to do with terrorism, but cover up over zealous arrests).

We have lost the right to life
Under EU law the "Shoot to kill" policy did not need democratic authorisation. Just two senior police officers authorised the police to kill British people. A democratic vote by Parliament was not required, but even that would not have legalised the killing under British common law. A recent victim was an innocent Brazilian, Jean de Menezes, shot dead in Stockwell underground station, even though he was being held down by police officers at the time of the execution. The police used dum-dum bullets, outlawed under the Geneva Convention because they blow a man to pieces inside.

The police can no longer be convicted for killing innocent people - Philip Prout shot at Lewannick in East Cornwall is just one of 30 people shot dead by police since 1992 when corpus juris crept in. At least one was shot in the back; most were no threat to anyone. Not once since 1992 has a policeman been convicted of any crime for these murders.

Have you noticed this growing police state?
In addition to many more laws than those above, add the 107,000 regulations, and whole bureaucracies such as VOSA building up networks of cameras and databases to record our movements and criminalise us when we can't comply. Persecution is no longer confined to motorists; under EU Corpus Juris our courts have become extensions of government power instead of independent arbiters of justice.

Westminster had passed sufficient of the EU's oppressive laws (the "harmonisation" in the Treaties) by the end of 2004 that we have been living in what is legally a police state since then. But at the moment, its only one per cent enforced. After the Queen signs the sixth Treaty, the EU has the absolute power to enforce 100% of its regulations and laws.

Source: www.eutruth.org.uk

Dumbing Down: Or The Banalisation of Culture

Does it matter and why?

The concept “dumbing down” can point to a variety of different things. It can, for example, mean programming to avoid any intellectual challenge to one's audience (a classical music radio station that plays individual movements, or no contemporary music, no or little vocal music, etc.). It is a term that is also commonly used used to criticise attempts to reach a wider audience through some kind of presentation gimmicks (laser light shows to accompany classical music, crossover pop/classical shows such as the Three tenors, Andrea Bocelli, etc.) The concept always involves a claim about the simplification of culture, education, and thought, a decline in creativity and innovation, a failure to establish appropriate artistic, cultural, and intellectual standards, or even to uphold the legitimacy of the idea of a standard, and the trivialisation of cultural, artistic, and academic products.

In fact, the evidence for “dumbing down” is everywhere: newspapers that once ran foreign news now feature celebrity gossip, pictures of scantily dressed young ladies, and football; television has replaced high-quality drama with gardening, cookery, and other “lifestyle” programmes; bonkbusters have taken over the publishing world and pop cd’s and internet connections have taken over the libraries. In the dumbed-down world of reality TV and asinine soaps, the masses live in a perpetual present occupied by celebrity culture, fashion, a TV culture of diminished quality and range, an idealisation of mediocrity, and pop videos and brands. Speed and immediacy are the great imperatives, meaning that complex ideas are reduced to sound bites, high culture is represented by The Three Tenors and J K Rowling, people spend their spare time reading text messages instead of Dostoevsky, and listening to rap bands rather than Bartok and Stravinsky.

Commentators have expressed concern about the media's potential for diminishing the quality of our culture for many years. For example, Regis Debray's Teachers, Writers, Celebrities: The Intellectuals of Modern France (1981), is a powerful polemic against the 'media cycle', which, from 1968 onwards, has reduced intellectual thought to bite-sized morsels of fast food. Hannah Arendt in her influential essay 'The Crisis in Culture', published in 1961, was particularly concerned that a market-driven media would lead to the displacement of culture by the dictates of entertainment. The media has increasingly neglected it’s responsibility to provide people with what they need to know in order to better not only their own lives, but society as a whole, in favour of blowing up out of all proportion the trivial, the voyeuristic, and the sensational. Giving people what they want is not necessarily a good idea when they choose to turn away from knowledge and issues that are important and that actually have a major impact on our lives and instead retreat into fantasy and make-believe.

Social critics have deplored Dumbing Down processes and have excoriated the objectives of education oriented toward encouraging egalitarianism in place of excellence, self-esteem in place of real achievement, or pandering in place of discriminating. Such critiques hark back to Plato's, Cicero's, and Horace's criticisms of democracy or Juvenal's comments about "bread and circuses". They recall Toqueville's critique of egalitarianism, Nietzsche's contempt for the popular adulation of Wagner, Le Bon's cautions on the psychology of the crowd, Goethe's criticisms of public taste, Matthew Arnold's call for "the best that has been thought and known in the world," or T. S. Eliot's defence of "the tradition". Similar views have informed Veblen's attack on conspicuous consumption, as well as the analysis by the Frankfurt School of Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and Benjamin about mass-produced culture. Comparable aversion to the sensationalising, commercialising, and falsifying role of the carnivalesque as analysed by Bakhtin and epitomised by P. T. Barnum have influenced Ortega Y Gasset's book on The Revolt of the Masses; Greenberg's derogation of "kitsch"; and Macdonald's objections to "Masscult" and "Midcult." Recognition of the newly emerging "Culture of Consumption" and of the roles played by marketing, the mass media, and advertising in shaping the required consumption-oriented consciousness have prompted Boorstin's, DeBord's, Lasch's, Smith's, Postman's, and Ewen's analysis on the ascendancy of the image (surface, spectacle, style, surrogate) over reality (substance, content, depth, grounding) in our media today.

It is beyond dispute that there has been a profound change in our cultural and historical reference points in the past thirty or forty years, and this has accelerated in more recent years. In part, this represents the triumph of the Americanisation of culture: film and music more than the other art forms show the dominance of American influences and attitudes and these are part of the new dominance of popular culture that have increasingly defined the only, and delimited, cultural horizons of the young, the horizons of an increasingly culturally uneducated and challenged youth. The Americanisation of culture has increasingly extended beyond these limits of age and also country to become an influence that has displaced and destroyed other alternative cultural influences. What we see today in our cultural landscape is a uniform consumerist whole that has been partly manufactured by the mass media and business interests and also by the privileging of monetary and capitalist structures and influences, but that importantly arises logically and inevitably from the wholesale dismantling of previously existent social and cultural inhibitions and prohibitions on the expression of narcissistic, individualistic, and selfish desires. The replacement of high art and authentic folk culture by tasteless industrialised artefacts produced on a mass scale in order to satisfy the lowest common denominator has occurred. Mass culture, in important ways, represents the cultural equivalent of the politics of mob rule, of democracy run amok. Consumerism and commercialism are merely one aspect of more general social forces that serve to generate and perpetuate the cultural matrix that I attempt to describe below.

Postmodernism's intellectual assumptions have also infected educational philosophy and technique producing an educational dumbing down. Ideas such as that truth is a matter of opinion, there is no real world outside of language and hence no facts independent of our descriptions of them, render postmodernist assumptions entirely inappropriate as a teaching tool in an era of information excess and complexity. When it comes to the facts about events, there is truth and there is falsehood and we need to be able to distinguish between the two. It appears that there is a contemporary confusion that a justifiable desire to avoid imposing one point of view on others requires a wholesale rejection of the idea of truth and an unwillingness to take up a position. Nor are students well enough acquainted with their own cultural traditions for teachers to justify dumbing down the school curriculum by treating all forms of communication (literature, films, E-mails and even conversations) as texts equally worthy of their attention so that King Lear is the pedagogical equivalent of King Kong.

To take one aspect of these changes: our mass entertainment culture has been best at spreading materialistic egalitarianism but in so doing it has undermined old values and authority, and it has led to a homogenisation and degradation of knowledge and cultural literacy. All too often, 'I blame the media' has served as an all-purpose explanation for disintegrative trends in culture and society. This is not entirely my view, however, since I see the mass media as part cause and part reflection of the demise of Western cultural standards.

At the very least, knowledge gives the power to say no and the ability to give reasons for the rejection. The new cultural amnesiac is marooned on an island where only the ephemeral and evanescent matters and there are no signposts to a wider world. On this island discriminatory powers fail and it is then possible for charlatans and the manipulators of common taste to gain power and influence. The act of thought must be severely restricted by limited access to knowledge, a narrow vocabulary, and limited perspectives on the world. "Discrimination", every anti-elitist tells us, is a bad thing, subversive, and elitist. But the whole point of an education used to be to teach discrimination, to get students to discriminate between good art and bad, good writing and bad, sound science and bad. The dictionary, in fact, defines appreciation, first, as "judgment, evaluation . . . critical estimate"; second, as "sensitive awareness . . . recognition of aesthetic values"; and, only third, as "an expression of admiration, approval, or gratitude. The new populist tendency to aim education at the lowest common denominator; to teach misplaced egalitarianism in the service of unmerited self-esteem; or to encourage attitudes toward aesthetic appreciation that, by failing to discriminate, grant equal but undeserved artistic stature to all works of art and entertainment, fails the student and society in general. However, we live in a cultural climate that is against standards and against judgment so that the worst insult you can offer someone is to suggest that he or she is judgmental.

The bogus, the derivative, and the flashy and gaudy now catch the attention of the mass, who, sans sense, are captive to a superficiality of response based on degraded attentional abilities and the need for familiarity and sameness. A nationalised, homogenised culture has been created in the past few generations, moving from a partially commercialised popular culture and evolving into a more fully commodified mass culture, and leading to the creation of a current generation whose minds are more empty than open. The sources of this full-fledged mass culture emerged after the Second World War and have led to the concentration of mass-culture power in ever larger global media conglomerates.

There are no great figures in this contemporary world: where are the Beethoven’s, the Tolstoy’s, the Freud’s? Instead, there is froth and frantic ferment all around, a tidal wave of vapidity. Despite the benefits promised by high technology and mass education and communications, there seems to be a distinct lack of real creativity. Instead, we see only a lacklustre globalised homogeneity, and cultural standardisation across the world.

Source: Dumbing Down topic from nomuzak.co.uk

Secret Confessions and Torture

Mohammed Sheikh Khalid has now, voluntarily and of his own free will, admitted he masterminded every significant event from the Norman Invasion through the bubonic plague, fall of Constantinople, and Great Fire of London, to the Battle of Little Big Horn, assassination of JFK and the Oklahoma bombing.

Or he might as well have. The extraordinarily comprehensive list of terrorist outrages for which he claims responsibility would be beyond the capacity of any but the most brilliant and inspired mortal; Khalid, I fear, is a more run of the mill thug.

But in truth, we have absolutely no idea what, if anything, he has confessed at all. The BBC brazenly reported all of yesterday that while Khalid did allege he had been tortured during his four years of secret detention by the CIA in various locations around the globe, he is now freely confessing under no duress and does not retract any of his confession.

Who says? The proceedings being held in Guantanamo Bay, and which the BBC report so uncritically, are held behind barbed wire, machine guns, gun emplacements, reinforced steel and concrete and combination locks, before an exclusively military panel. Khalid does not even have a lawyer present. For all we know, his confession could be an entire fabrication.

Source: Craig Murray

News from Comatonse and more… (japanese/english)

皆様、毎度です☆
三つの新しいビニール・リリースが出来ました…
時間があったら、コマトンズのオンラインショップを見てくださいね。

また、Public Record から新しい無料ダウンロードが出来ます

Three new vinyl releases from Comatonse Recordings, including Terre's ambient deep house remixes of Scanner & Pete Lockett!
Please visit the Comatonse online shop for further info here.

Also, Public Record has released new and impressive releases, all available for free download.

Parallax Beat Bros. (Pete Lockett & Scanner): Exhalation EP
C.014 | 12-inch vinyl | Cisco Distribution
アンビエント、エクスペリメンタル作品をTerre ThaemlitzがRMX!
DJ Sprinkles (a.k.a. Terre Thaemlitz) produces a mix of Deep House and Ambient House remixes of tracks by the Parallax Beat Brothers (a.k.a. Scanner & Pete Lockett).

K-S.H.E vs. Juzu a.k.a. MOOCHY: Morning Grow (Melancholy Grow Remixes)
C.015 | 12-inch vinyl | Cisco Distribution
juzu a.k.a. moochyが昨年リリースしたアルバム「momentos」収録の 「morning grow」をterre thaemlitz (a.k.a. k-s.h.e) がリミックスしたのが こちらの作品。
K-S.H.E does it again with a gorgeously lush record guaranteed to bring train-spotters to your turntables asking what the hell you're playing.

Terre Thaemlitz presents... You? Again? 3
12-inch vinyl | Kompakt Distribution (Europe)
ミュールエレクトロニック のレーベルから、３ 番目と最後の「you? again?」シリーズのビニール。（来週か再来週に来ま す！）
The third and final installation of the "You? Again?" vinyl series on Mule Electronic

On analogue decay and digital bittiness

posted by Simon on Blissout:

Wire contributor Sam Davies makes an interesting point:

"I think there's a case to be argued that, increasingly, the spectral or disembodied isn't only to be located in the thematic (names of songs, tracks, albums), but the very way music is experienced. If you look at the all-conquering iPod, it can only function because of compression: whether AAC or MP3, frequencies deemed 'inaudible' by psychoacoustics are left out. Certain sounds are factored out, because it is believed the human brain doesn't really notice them when certain other sound-events are happening, or because they're beyond the range of human hearing, etc. Personally I think I can recognise compression: it does funny things to the human voice, and also acoustic guitars and cymbals. But the point is, people are definitely listening to 'less' of the original recording than before, to a 'disembodied' version. And the iPod is now the only way that many people engage with music - witness those home docking systems, which mean the iPod (and massive compression) is what they listen to whether at home or on the move.

"Admittedly all this does beg the question whether ALL recorded music, vinyl/CD/cassette, partakes of the spectral condition (and I think it does), but 1) I think it's the first time the general drive for higher fidelity has run backwards, towards a greater 'ghostliness', and 2) I think it's hilarious that after years of sales discourse on 'sound quality' and the hi-tech, arguing that CDs are essential and demand-driven, people/consumers have become so obsessed with dematerializing their music collections. The 80s Holy Grail of sound quality has quietly absented itself from the debate."

to which I chimed:

"Actually when i first heard ipods (and also mp3s through my computer) my standard riff-of-curmudgeonly-complaint was "there's something missing in the body of the sound", which is totally akin to your point. this kind of omnipresent spectralisation of sound maybe relates to the syndrome i've been gesturing at with the term "anechronesis"--that sensation you get off cultural artefact neither of this time nor of an earlier period, but somehow stranded in limbo. An undead quality. Sort of spectral but nothing like the "ghostly un-body" that me and David Stubbs used to talk about in re. My Bloody Valentine/AR Kane/Sonic Youth (which might have been our pre-reading-D&G pre-echo of body-without-organs, come to think of it).
MBV in particular used to talk about trying to achieve "the not really there sound," a quality they identified with music that had been recorded over and over, a tape of a tape of a tape. Or that you get in classic-era dub or psychedelia that was recorded on four-track and therefore relied on dumping of tracks onto tracks, "bouncing down" i think is the term they use, resulting in degradation of the sound, the numinous wispiness of that Perry-produced Congos album, say. These kinds of effects really do feel "ethereal" whereas the kind of thinning out of sound that you refer to, the ubiquitous and insidious reduction in the thickness of experience, I would relate that not to Deleuze & Guattari but to Virilio's writings on speed. Mp3s et al, that is the right texture of sonix for a culture based around acceleration, skimming, overload... an age where we're flitting about and processing insane amounts of data and therefore experiencing things in a brittle, flighty, inconstant way, as opposed to immersive listening, aural contemplation, protracted rapture."

to which Sam offered further concurring and elaborating remarks, viz:

"In really out-there dub you feel like there is some presiding spirit moving through the ruins of the original rhythm/arrangement (I've made it sound overly Gothic, but you get the point). Whereas the MP3 effect isn't one of uncanny possession but rather a draining of body and presence: a vampiric sucking dry (even more Gothic, but still . . .)

"Maybe it has something to do with the (trusty old) analogue-digital opposition? With analogue sources (MBV/AP/Lee Perry) you're aware on some level that these sounds are being overlaid on (or erased from) the physical tape. So sounds taped over old sounds can have palimpsest-like effects (Sonic Youth recorded Experimental Jet Set over the Sister master tapes, and I'm assured that on a good pair of earphones you can hear Sister in the silences). Or, transferred from one reel to another, mixdowns through old analogue desks etc), the sound gathers dust and loses definition, acquires that sepia patina . . . Whereas digital still feels like a sense-data stored on a virtual spreadsheet, endlessly re-writable, safely sterilized from the messiness of reification into the real, flawed world. Perhaps the brain is able to register (subliminally) the different signatures of analogue decay and digital bittiness, and we then overlay our own cultural associations. So analogue is acquiring the spookiness of Victorian photography, and digital media are still too fresh and new to have this revenant quality. (But then there's plenty of anxiety about computers having minds of their own, ghosts in the machine, AI . . .)"

"I'm thinking out loud now, so better sign off & decide whether I actually agree with myself."

Hey man, no worries: the motto of this blog is "not fully baked".

Source: Blissout

Former Soviet Dissident Warns For EU Dictatorship

In a very interesting interview, 63-year old former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky expose confidential documents (from secret Soviet files which he was allowed to read in 1992) confirming the existence of a plan to turn the European Union into a socialist organization. He tells us also why the sooner the EU collapses, the better.
I cannot agree more…

Interview extract:
"It is no accident that the European Parliament, for example, reminds me of the Supreme Soviet. It looks like the Supreme Soviet because it was designed like it. Similary, when you look at the European Commission it looks like the Politburo. I mean it does so exactly, except for the fact that the Commission now has 25 members and the Politburo usually had 13 or 15 members. Apart from that they are exactly the same, unaccountable to anyone, not directly elected by anyone at all. When you look into all this bizarre activity of the European Union with its 80,000 pages of regulations it looks like Gosplan. We used to have an organisation which was planning everything in the economy, to the last nut and bolt, five years in advance. Exactly the same thing is happening in the EU. When you look at the type of EU corruption, it is exactly the Soviet type of corruption, going from top to bottom rather than going from bottom to top.

If you go through all the structures and features of this emerging European monster you will notice that it more and more resembles the Soviet Union. Of course, it is a milder version of the Soviet Union. Please, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it has a Gulag. It has no KGB – not yet – but I am very carefully watching such structures as Europol for example. That really worries me a lot because this organisation will probably have powers bigger than those of the KGB. They will have diplomatic immunity. Can you imagine a KGB with diplomatic immunity? They will have to police us on 32 kinds of crimes – two of which are particularly worrying, one is called racism, another is called xenophobia. No criminal court on earth defines anything like this as a crime [this is not entirely true, as Belgium already does so – pb]. So it is a new crime, and we have already been warned. Someone from the British government told us that those who object to uncontrolled immigration from the Third World will be regarded as racist and those who oppose further European integration will be regarded as xenophobes. I think Patricia Hewitt said this publicly.

Hence, we have now been warned. Meanwhile they are introducing more and more ideology. The Soviet Union used to be a state run by ideology. Today’s ideology of the European Union is social-democratic, statist, and a big part of it is also political correctness. I watch very carefully how political correctness spreads and becomes an oppressive ideology, not to mention the fact that they forbid smoking almost everywhere now. Look at this persecution of people like the Swedish pastor who was persecuted for several months because he said that the Bible does not approve homosexuality. France passed the same law of hate speech concerning gays. Britain is passing hate speech laws concerning race relations and now religious speech, and so on and so forth. What you observe, taken into perspective, is a systematic introduction of ideology which could later be enforced with oppressive measures. Apparently that is the whole purpose of Europol. Otherwise why do we need it? To me Europol looks very suspicious. I watch very carefully who is persecuted for what and what is happening, because that is one field in which I am an expert. I know how Gulags spring up."
Full Article and Interview (a must read)

Source: The Brussels Journal

Solid Goldstone

A Memorial Bacchanal in Remembrance of Adam Goldstone †
Tuesday, Nov 14 8PM - 2AM
Suggested Donation $10
18 Little W 12Th St (Between Ninth Ave and Washington St.) - NYC.
Cielo Club
Advance Tickets Available at Giant Step Store

Why Patrice Lumumba, first Prime Minister of the Congo was Assassinated

Dear Dr. Waldron,

All my life I was affected by the tragic end of Mr. Lumumba. My father could not explain why this very intelligent and lovely man who was the incarnation of our socio-political dreams and hopes was killed with the blessing of the USA president of the time, UN general secretary and the local leaders of the time,

My question is why Lumumba was so hated? Why nobody could hear him and understand him objectively? Why king Baudouin who was so intelligent and religious could not take time to discuss with Lumumba to know him better and understand his vision for his home country? From South Africa to Algeria, Egypt to Ivory Coast, I heard similar stories of the best men who were killed to satisfy the international community.


Dear Rev. Doctor,


I don't think anyone in America had anything personal against Lumumba. They did listen to him and they understood very well what he had to say, and that is why Western economic interests killed him.

Lumumba was killed by the European and American mining and banking interests because Lumumba was the only person who could hold the Congo together after Independence, and those economic interests wanted to break the Congo apart for their own profit. In order to justify killing Lumumba, they had to create the propaganda lie that he was a Communist. The assassination of Lumumba also suited the Russians who could not control Lumumba alive, but after his death could wrap their man Gizenga in his mantle.

Lumumba was doomed. If the West hadn't killed him, Russia would have, and Lumumba's Congolese political rivals were equally determined to get rid of him so they could carve out their own little kingdoms within the Congo. This was not just Tshombe in Katanga, but do not forget that Kasa-Vuba originally called himself King Kasa in his election campaign, in which he promised to make his own ethnic group an independent entity.


In the months before Independence, most of the Belgians in the Congo knew perfectly well that the Belgian Government, for the sake of the profits of Union Miniere de Haut Katanga and its other economic interests, was already engineering the conditions in which the Congo could not survive as a unified country. The Royal Family of Belgium were major stockholders in Union Miniere de Haut Katanga, and King Baudouin of the Belgians was just as profit motivated as the notorious King Leopold II was when he set up that company to exploit the mineral riches of the Congo.

Ordinary born-Congolese Whites and those among the provincial administrators who were caring and honest, were outraged by what the government in Belgium was doing, not just to the African Congolese, but to the White Congolese. You can read more about this in the Luluabourg excerpt from my book THE SECRET IN THE HEART OF DARKNESS; The Sabotaged Independence of the Belgian Congo, which is on this Web site

There is a saying in English, that to understand something you "Follow the Money". Therefore, don't look for answers to what happened to the Congo in political ethics, or animosities, or misunderstandings of what Lumumba was saying and wanted to do. Look for the answers in who was planning to profit. The people who were behind the chaos and the murder of Lumumba then looted the Congo of all its resources both through taking them directly and through loans to Mabutu at crippling interest rates to have European companies the lenders designated build (or in many cases not actually build) unneeded huge projects while letting the basic infrastructure crumble, impoverishing the country and depriving the people of the necessities of life to service the debts.


The people of the Congo need peace, good government, and a viable infrastructure, and I do not know how any of these can be attained in the present conditions of corruption, chaos, war and poverty.

A BOOK I RECOMMEND TO SERIOUS SCHOLARS:
THE CONGO CABLES THE COLD WAR IN AFRICA--FROM EISENHOWER TO KENNEDY
Author: KALB, MADELEINE G
MACMILLAN, 1982,

These are the actual cables back and forth between Washington, the Congo and the UN.

Source: D'Lynn Waldron