Free & legal album of the day: @Apexmanor's RF: The Songs of Apex Manor and The Broken West #music #freemp3s

[new LHB post] Daily Downloads (The Alabama Shakes, Giant Giant Sand, and more) #music #freemp3s

On sale for $3.99 at Amazon MP3 today: @TheCivilWars' Barton Hollow album #music #deals

RT @shanghaiist: Listen: Take On Me by A-ha performed by young North Korean accordion players

“@EvanRamstad: Here's the story behind that video of the North Korea accordion troupe playing a-ha's "Take On Me" ”

Levon Helm at Summerstage in Central Park (more by Chris La Putt)

The Band's Levon Helm will step outside of his weekly Midnight Ramble for a show at Wellmont Theatre on February 10th with Peter Wolf. Tickets are currently on AMEX presale and go on regular sale Friday 11/18 at noon. The show, along with a pair of dates that he has lined up at Ulster Performing Arts Center in Kingston, NY (11/18 and 5/25) are his only non-Midnight Ramble dates announced thus far. Full tour schedule is below.

Meanwhile, the Midnight Ramble continues this weekend with special guest Hook Herrera and on 12/3 Helm will welcome Jimmy Vivino (of Conan's Basic Cable band) and Dawes. Tickets for that show, and all others are still available (either seated or Standing Room Only).

Dawes will also head down to NYC & NJ that same week. Both Maxwell's shows, which Robert Ellis is opening, are now sold out though. You can catch Robert Ellis though during a tour with John Doe that hits City Winery on December 4th. For the X man, it's one of many gigs that will be keeping him busy through New Year's Eve.

All Levon and Dawes and Robert Ellis and X dates and a video below...

Continue reading "Levon Helm, Dawes, Robert Ellis & John Doe shows (dates)" at BrooklynVegan.com

Earlier this month you got a chance to ask They Might Be Giants about DIY albums, nerd culture, and science songs. Below you'll find their responses. Thanks to the band for taking time to answer questions. I wish them another 30 years of making music and success!


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Subjective Reality Workshop this past weekend was very rewarding. I smile when I think back on all the amazing people who came together to explore SR as a group. After doing 6 Conscious Growth Workshops in a row, it was a special experience to deliver a new workshop this time.

This was the first time I’ve talked about subjective reality in depth with more than a few people. I really loved the energy of this particular group. With about half of the attendees being alumni from previous CGWs, it felt like a big family reunion.

We officially ended at 4pm on Sunday, but I didn’t leave the meeting room until about 6:30. Many people hung around afterwards to ask more questions, share stories, and to offer feedback and suggestions. A few people told me afterwards that they were sad to see it end and would have loved to go for 4-5 days instead of just 3 days. I can see how SRW could be extended into a longer workshop. At present there are no specific plans to do another one, but I’m open to it happening sometime in 2012.

Personal growth workshops can provide intense transformational experiences for those who attend them, including the facilitator. It typically takes me about a week to make sense of how each workshop impacted me, but I’m already seeing how SRW’s lessons are unfolding, so I wanted to share some about that. This shouldn’t be a surprise to those who attended the workshop, since I already discussed this with the group on Sunday.

For quite a while I’ve been thinking about exploring music in some fashion, such as learning to play an instrument. This isn’t something I’ve really explored before, so I have very little experience. When it comes to music, I don’t even know what I don’t know, nor do I have a clear sense of what I’d enjoy, so I’m not in a position to set a crisp goal or to define a particular desired result.

The more I ponder it, the more my reality keeps affirming that this is a path worthy of exploration. In lieu of contemplating it for a few more years, I’ve decided to commit to a 30-day trial of exploring and learning about music for 1-2 hours per day.

My musical knowledge is so limited that I wouldn’t even know how to map out what to do each day, so I’ll simply follow the guidance that shows up as I go along, whether it comes in the form of inspiration, a seemingly logical next step, or help from others who are musically inclined.

The trial is already underway in fact. I started on Monday, so this is Day 2. So far I’ve spent some time sharing this intention, I read a little about music theory online and discussed it with some people, and I bookmarked some resources that people shared with me. I installed a couple of keyboard simulator apps on my iPad, and I ran Garage Band for the first time (pre-installed on my MacBook Pro) to poke around with it. I installed a 1.2 GB file of loops for it when the program prompted me to do so.

This is a totally exploratory trial. I have no set agenda or end goal in mind. I simply want to learn more about music, both mentally and experientially. I’m not attached to any particular outcome here.

Some people asked what kind of instrument I might like to learn, but I can’t answer that with any certainty. If I had to choose, I’d say that I feel most drawn to learning to create some kind of compositions with computer software. I don’t feel drawn to learn the guitar, piano, or any specific physical instrument.

My favorite style of music is electronic, so the computer seems like a logical choice for exploring that. Depeche Mode is by far my favorite band of all time, and I probably listen to their music more than all other groups combined. Some other favorites include New Order, Erasure, Duran Duran, Anything Box, Sting, The Smiths, Enya, Pet Shop Boys, REM, and The Cure.

If I were going to learn how to compose something on my own, electronic would be my preference.

Other than being able to play a few simple songs on a keyboard like Mary Had a Little Lamb and some basic recorder lessons in grammar school 30 years ago, I haven’t learned how to play any instruments.

I’m left-handed, so I’m not sure if that makes it much different to learn to play a keyboard or piano than it would be for a right-hander.

Several musicians have already shared some advice and tips on where to begin, so I imagine I may spend a few days just exploring various resources people have suggested — reading articles, learning some music theory, trying out software, and messing around a bit. I’ll see how it goes.

I probably won’t blog about this day by day, but I’m happy to share some updates along the way if I think I have something interesting to share.

One reason I’m doing this is to explore another way to express myself creatively. Music seems like a good choice for that.

For now I’m committing to a 30-day trial for education and exploration, so I can learn a little something about music and invite new learning experiences into my life. I expect that this will be an interesting path to explore regardless of what, if anything, I might be able to learn and accomplish in only 30 days.

Read related articles:Learning Music – Day 9Learning Music – Day 11Learning Music – Day 12Weaknesses That Matter, Weaknesses That Don’tSuggestions for Future 30-Day TrialsGearing Up for CGW #6Start the New Year With a 30-Day Trial

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Bert Jansch @ The Bell House, December 2010 (more by Benjamin Lozovsky)
Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch, a founding member of the band Pentangle and a well-known guitarist in his own right, has died at the age of 67.

Jansch, who had cancer, passed away in the early hours of Wednesday morning at a hospice in Hampstead, north London.

Born in Glasgow in 1943, the musician recorded his first album in 1965 and his last, The Black Swan, in 2006.

Between 1967 and 1973 he was part of acoustic group Pentangle, best known for their 1970 hit single Light Flight.

John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Danny Thompson and Terry Cox were the other original members of the band, whose albums included Basket of Light and Solomon's Seal.

The group reformed in 2008 after receiving a lifetime achievement honour the previous year at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.

As a solo artist, Jansch received his own lifetime achievement accolade at the same event in 2001.

He last performed, with Pentangle, at the Royal Festival Hall on 1 August. [BBC]Bert last played NYC as part of a tour with Neil Young in April. He played Iridium Jazz in December not long after sharing a bill with Pegi Young and special guest Neil Young at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Rest In Peace Bert.

Continue reading "Bert Jansch, RIP" at BrooklynVegan.com

Emmy the Great
Gigs to go to this week
Tonight: indie folk outfit Peggy Sue (previously with the Pirates) are at the Lexington.
Tuesday: former Port O’Brien man Van Pierszalowski is back with his latest project Waters at Old Blue Last.
Wednesday: aggro-dreampop guitarist EMA is at Cargo. For a different degree of heavy rock, AWOLNATION are at XOYO.
Thursday: 80s-style synth pop band Wise Blood are at Shacklewell Arms. Little Scream has been bigged up by Guy Garvey and Lauren Laverne on 6music in the last week and you can judge for yourself tonight at the Brixton Windmill.
Friday: the country-inspired Laura Stevenson and the Cans are at the Windmill. If you’d prefer melodic hardcore, Dangerous! are at the Forum with Young Guns.
Saturday: singer-songwriter Emmy the Great is at Cecil Sharp House.
Sunday: Public Service Broadcasting – combining “a guitar, a banjo, a computer and a theremin with samples from old public information films” – headlines an afternoon of live music at the Old Queen’s Head Islington, from 3pm.

Warren Ellis showed me this earlier today and I can’t stop thinking about it and now you won’t be able to, either.

Um. You’re… welcome?

Post tags: Crackpot Visionary, Flora & Fauna, Music, Sci-fi, Silly-looking types, Television, Why

Dial-up modem sound slowed 700% by Darkfalky, using PaulStretch. Eerie, sinister, incredibly beautiful.

via Ariana Osborne

Also see:

How to Make a J. Biebz Song Bearable
The Music of Jupiter
Transcendent Sensory Walls of Sound
Drifting Away with Headphone Commute
Cthulhu Meditation: Listen on Dry Land!
A Room Forever

Post tags: Ambient, Cyberpunk, Geekdom, Horror, Memes, Music, Sci-fi, Technology

edumacator writes "The YouTube sensation OK Go has just released their latest video using HTML5. The video is pretty cool itself, but the interactive feature is great." It looks like the interactive stuff only works in Chrome.


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

tropical pop // indie folk

The sunny calypso pop of Jonquil is somewhat of surprise considering the band hails from the decidedly untropical Oxford, England. Geographical location aside, the four-piece’s effervescent indie pop is vibrant, uplifting, and completely infectious. If the horns, keyboards, tropical percussion and uptempo guitars weren’t enough, Hugo Manuel’s falsetto soars through each song with an anthemic flair. “Fighting Smiles” and “Get Up” from their One Hundred Suns EP are a must-have for your summer playlist.

Tropical pop with an English twist.
Jonquil – “Fighting Smiles”
Jonquil – “Get Up”
+ Purchase/Visit

Douglas C Merrill, who left his job as Google’s CIO to be EMI’s Chief Operating Officer of New Music and President of Digital Business has given a speech in which he claims that EMI’s own research confirmed that P2P music downloaders were the label’s best customers. Merrill, who was one of many tech executives to be recruited by EMI in recent years (one friend of mine left after a few months, visibly shaken, claiming that it was impossible to get the business to see reason), was keynoting the CA Expo in Sydney when he said that LimeWire users were the biggest iTunes customers, and that the record industry’s strategy of suing downloaders “is like trying to sell soap by throwing dirt on your customers.”

“For example, there’s a set of data that shows that file sharing is actually good for artists. Not bad for artists. So maybe we shouldn’t be stopping it all the time. I don’t know,” Merrill said.

“Obviously, there is piracy that is quite destructive but again I think the data shows that in some cases file sharing might be okay. What we need to do is understand when is it good, when it is not good…Suing fans doesn’t feel like a winning strategy,” he concluded.

Former Google CIO: LimeWire Pirates Were iTunes’ Best Customers

(Image: Dowload this song., a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from freeflyer09′s photostream)

[Video Link]

Guided By Voices at McCarren Park (more by Tamara Porras)

After resurrecting Guided By Voices last year, it seems that Robert Pollard is putting them back to bed, and soon.According to a statement by Guided by Voices frontman Robert Pollard earlier this week and later confirmed by management, the band's appearance at Hopscotch Music Festival with Drive-By Truckers and The Dodos on Friday, Sept. 9, will be the final appearance of the band's reunited "classic" line-up. [Hopscotch]I'm not sure anyone thought the reunion would last longer than November 2010 anyway, let alone extend to New Years Eve followed by another nine months of scattered shows. Nonetheless, it seems the September 9th show that is part of the Hopscotch Festival, will be their last (again).

Guided By Voices played their last (ever?) (ever as the classic lineup?) NYC show at McCarren Park as part of the Northside Festival in June. The band plays Pitchfork Festival this weekend. They also hit FYF Fest in LA before this is all over (they also have time to schedule another NYC show before September 9th. Hey, why not?).

All remaining dates, and some recently posted video from Philadelphia is below.

Continue reading "Guided by Voices ending the reunion soon" at BrooklynVegan.com

As part of the Guardian's summer of music, we are releasing a history of modern music. Download the jazz playlist here• Get the data• Download the world & folk playlist• Download the dance playlist• Download the indie playlist• Download the hip hop playlist• Download the rock playlist• Download the pop playlist

I found a way to scrobble (to last.fm) the music I listen to on Google Music, but it's double scrobbling each song.

A whistlestop tour through rock and pop history through the artwork of our Top 10 London album covers. Agree with our selection? What did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

1. The Beatles ‘Abbey Road’: Abbey Road, NW8.

Let’s be honest, as soon as you saw this post you thought of this album. It was nearly left off the list for fear of it being too obvious, but that would have been silly so let’s get it out the way first.

Anyone who loves music and lives in London has made / has plans to make / has been too-cool-for-school-and-deliberately-avoided-making a pilgrimage to the most famous road crossing in the world. Go there on any day of the week and you’ll see the traffic being held up as Beatles fans from around the world re-create the cover.

At the time of recording The Beatles were on the verge of splitting up after the death of Brian Epstein in 1967, triggering their downward spiral toward law suits and slanging matches in the press. They got together for what was pretty much acknowledged beforehand by all as their last album. They put aside their differences and pulled a blinder with the album which contains not one single bad tune (we’ll settle with fisticuffs anyone who says that the macabre ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ is a dud, even if Lennon referred to it as ‘More of Paul’s granny music’!)

Photographer Ian Macmillan was given ten minutes to climb a stepladder while a policeman stopped traffic and at approximately 11:30 am on 8 August 1969 music history was made.

Conspiracy theories that stated Paul McCartney was dead and replaced in the band by a look-a-like went into overdrive after the release as the number plate on the Volkswagen Beetle behind the band read LMW 28IF – 28 being McCartney’s age, had he still been alive.

Pub quiz fact: The sleeve was designed by Apple Records’ creative director Kosh and is the only original UK Beatles album sleeve to include neither their name or the album title.

2. David Bowie ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’: 23 Heddon Street, W1

This was the album that catapulted Bowie onto the bedroom walls of a million teenagers. It’s based loosely around a story involving an alien that, when explained, sounds a bit rubbish… so don’t pay any mind to the concept, just listen to how good the record still sounds nearly 40 years after its release.

Older readers will know the classic Top Of The Pops performance of ‘Starman’. Yes, Bowie may be wearing a onesie made from your Grandma’s duvet cover and sporting teeth sharp enough to bite through guitar strings, but give that performance a watch and you’ll see exactly why he was ‘the nazz with God given ass’ back in 1973. Others will know the song ‘Suffragette City’ from playing Rock Band. Film buffs will probably know this version of ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide’.

The cover was shot outside the K West on Heddon Street (just off Regent Street). The back cover was shot inside a telephone box on the same street.

Pub quiz fact: In 2002 Pulp released the single ‘Bad Cover Version’ featuring their guitarist Mark Webber as a child recreating the Ziggy Stardust cover shot.

3. The Clash ‘The Clash’: ‘Rehearsal Rehearsals’ Camden Market

In 1977 London was held together by a safety pin. The Frankenstein’s monster of punk had been jolted awake by the electricity coming off the albums of The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, MC5, Suicide, New York Dolls and The Ramones, who had released their debut album in 1976 and played a legendary show at The Roundhouse in July of the same year.

Suddenly bands such as Pink Floyd and Yes seemed completely out of date as kids realised they could get by with just three chords and attitude.

One of London’s most famous and influential bands of the time was The Clash whose debut album featured the band mimicking The Ramones’ debut album cover posing on the trolley ramp outside Rehearsal Rehearsals in Camden Market. The building is now home to the wonderful Proud Gallery and the trolley ramp (now steps) are still there for fans to re-create the cover.

Pub quiz fact: The back cover of the album features a photo of the 1976 riot in Notting Hill Carnival which inspired the track ‘White Riot’ on the album.

4. Pink Floyd ‘Animals’: Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station has to be one of the most iconic buildings in London. Everyone could sketch it within seconds; a rectangle with four tall white chimneys at each corner.

What’s remarkable about the building, aside from its majestic Art Deco design, is that it’s been out of commission since March of 1975, yet remains hugely famous (although it’s becoming infamous for the number of stalled redevelopment plans posited for its future.)

One of the main reasons people around the world know the Power Station is because of the Pink Floyd album cover for ‘Animals’. The album was loosely based on Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ so they chose to suspend a pig from one of the southern chimneys for the album artwork.

Pub quiz fact: Amusingly the pig broke free of its moorings and ended up floating into Heathrow Airport’s flightpath before eventually landing in Kent.

5. The Rolling Stones ‘Between The Buttons’: Primrose Hill

Primrose Hill has a wonderful panoramic view of London. It’s been used in so many photos and films we could do its very own Top Ten. We could also easily do a Top Fifty celebrities who live up there today.

It was here that The Rolling Stones shot the cover for their 1967 album ‘Between The Buttons’. The photo’s blurred edges mirrored the band’s move from their rhythm and blues beginnings into a more arty direction, influenced by the insane amount of great albums released in 1966; ‘Revolver’ by The Beatles, Bob Dylan’s’ Blonde On Blonde’, Frank Zappa’s ‘Freak Out!’ with his Mothers of Invention, Donovan’s ‘Sunshine Superman’, ‘The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators’ and The Beach Boy’s ‘Pet Sounds’ – music was growing up and growing its hair.

‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’, with ‘Ruby Tuesday’ on the b-side, was released as a single at the same time as the album, both of which have become standards of their live sets.

The band dabbled even further into psychedelia that year with the release of ‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’ after which followed their amazing run of ‘Beggars Banquet’, ‘Let It Bleed’, ‘Sticky Fingers’ and ‘Exile On Main Street’.

Pub quiz fact: At the time of release singles weren’t generally included on an album. The version of ‘Between The Buttons’ that you find in the shops now includes the single ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ and ‘Ruby Tuesday’ and has a slightly different tracklisting and running order to the original version.

6. Syd Barrett ‘The Madcap Laughs’: Wetherby Mansions, Earls Court Square

“I know a mouse, and he hasn’t got a house, I don’t know why I call him Gerald.” So goes one of the lyrics to the Pink Floyd track ‘Bike’ from their debut album ‘The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’. Anyone who listens to that album knows that Syd Barrett had his radio tuned with a different aerial to the rest of us. But then he goes on to sing the sweetest refrain, ‘You’re the kind of girl who fits in with my world, I’ll give you anything, everything if you want things’.

Sadly his aerial got bent and twisted out of shape thanks to a vast quantity of psychedelic drugs. His mind went haywire and he left / got kicked out of Pink Floyd.

Barrett went onto record two solo albums, ‘The Madcap Laughs’ and ‘Barrett’. Both are extremely brutal recordings; the sound of a man wrestling with a very fragile and delicate state of mind. But they’re also honest and beautiful songs. Both albums were released in 1970 after which he became a recluse. His short recording career – spanning just three years – gave us songs that influenced people such as David Bowie, REM and Graham Coxon not to mention a style and look that has been copied ever since by musicians such as Serge from Kasabian and Robert Smith from The Cure.

Pub quiz fact: The iconic photo on the cover of ‘The Madcap Returns’ was taken by Mick Rock who also gave us the covers to Lou Reed’s ‘Transformer’ and The Stooges’ ‘Raw power’ and Queen’s ‘Queen II’ and ‘Sheer Heart Attack’.

7. Blur ‘Parklife’: Walthamstow dog track

The mid-90s. Brit-pop. Cool Britannia. Everyone was either a geezer or a ladette or putting on a mock-northern accent. And Labour hadn’t got round to letting us down.

All a bit embarrassing in hindsight but there was plenty of great music produced during the period. Blur stepped up their game with the dark, but melodic ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish‘ with its Kinks’ inspired tales, but it was ‘Parklife‘ that sealed the deal by capturing the mood of the nation.

‘Girls & Boys’ and the Phil Daniels’ voiced ‘Parklife’ were everywhere. It’s still impossible to read the words, ‘You should cut down on your pork life, mate, get some exercise’ without putting on his accent.

The artwork for the album was taken at Walthamstow dog track. Sadly the track closed down in 2008 and its future is still uncertain.

‘Going to the dogs’ was once a popular past time in London and at one point there were 33 different tracks to choose from. In recent years the hare chasing has slowed right down with only three remaining in Romford, Wimbledon and Crayford.

Pub quiz fact: East 17 filmed the music video for their single ‘House Of Love’ outside the stadium in 1992. And yes, that’s the one that was recently reappropriated for a Royal Wedding cash-in ad.

8. Oasis ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?’: Berwick Street

Oasis were, of course, the other giant of the Brit Pop years. Their debut album became the fastest selling British debut of all[…]

bazzalunatic writes "It turns out great white sharks can be lured underwater to cages by playing hits from AC/DC — specifically 'Shook me all night long'. Matt Waller, a shark diving tour operator in Australia, has found this curious fact. But it's not just any song, as the sharks weren't attracted by other tunes. Matt suspects the sharks are attracted to the low frequencies found in AC/DC's music. One wonders if they'll be turned off by Celine Dion music — a new type of shark repellent perhaps?"


Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nearly two years ago, I
finished migrating ten thousand songs’ worth of CDs into bits;
but the racks-full of disks have continued to occupy
living-room space. So we bought some sleeves and storage boxes at Staples and
have started the process, on an occasional evening, of packing them away.

When might they be unpacked?

Never.

By my children after I’m demented, muttering “Why on earth
did Dad keep this around?!”

By a music aficionado late in the twenty-second century, hands
shaking with glee; exclaiming “Arvo Pärt!”, “Boney M!”, and “Edgar Winter!”

By a low-paid legal-firm functionary, working to value my estate
because litigation has broken out...

...or because nobody’s left to notice my departure and there’s a
public trustee trying to recover value.

By a neo-Goth obsessive who keeps only the Cale, Cave, and Cure
tracks. That’s John Cale.

By a guitar-noise obsessive who keeps only the
Southern Lord tracks and
Neil Young’s
Arc.

By an original-instruments obsessive, cackling over the
Savall and
Norrington,
crushing the
Stokowski transcriptions derisively underfoot.

By a collector with unimpeachable musical tastes, who finds nothing of interest.

By someone, a few decades later, working with the lights
of a hand-wired hand-programmed obsolete-digital-carrier-data-extractor
blinking softly at the back of the table.

By the wrinkled hands of a kindly-faced but sort of burnt-out volunteer
at a junk shop in a bad part of town run by a religious charity, selling
things for dimes to provide much-needed hot meals for junkies welcoming a
warm seat out of February’s lashing
horizontal rain.

By a recycling-center worker in a stained grey coverall, separating the hard plastic disks from
the soft plastic sleeves and sorting them into battered metal bins.

By an intelligent non-human starfarer, picking through remains on a
planet despoiled of natural resources but thickly populated with the ruins of
strip malls.

Never. That’s most likely, really. I could offer a dozen stories with
that ending but they’d be almost all sad.

My movie agent, Justin Manask, also represents Weird Al Yankovic. I grew up with Allan Sherman albums and MAD Magazine flexidiscs, so when I first heard Weird Al, I knew I'd found my kind of guy. Justin wrote to me last night: "You're going to love this. Lady Gaga denied Weird Al the right to release his parody of BORN THIS WAY, only the second time in his career that he's been denied [ed: the other refusal came from Prince]. But he recorded the track at her request as a part of the approval process... the first time any artists has made that request. She summarily passed without comment. So instead of selling a couple hundred thousand or a million copies... he gave PERFORM THIS WAY away for free to his 2 million followers on Twitter."

The ensuing hoo-hah seems to have swayed Ms Gaga, who has authorised the inclusion of PERFORM THIS WAY on Weird Al's album.

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Perform This Way

[video link]
Sam Beam, aka Iron and Wine, plays his gorgeous cover of my favorite New Order song, "Love Vigilantes." The studio version is available on his 2009 album, Around the Well.

At the risk of sounding like a goober, I’m going to talk today about something I don’t totally understand: mixtape culture. I’m sure those of you in the know will poke fun at me, but for those that don’t, we’ve got nerds like me trying to make sense of it all.

The mixtape has long-since evolved past the process of throwing some tracks together for a friend. Mixtapes can be complete underground albums- featuring original music, new lyrics, or even completely different tracks. There isn’t really a single way to define a mixtape so I’ll just say it’s like the music you already know and love, just different.

Enter DatPiff, one of the largest mixtape communities online. I’ve been using the website for some time now but a few weeks ago was stoked to discover a full-blown Android app available in the market.

The app offers complete access to the DatPiff mixtape library via both streaming audio and full album downloads. The mixtapes available vary wildly in style- they’ve got brand new mixes from artists currently on the radio and they’ve got albums from years back by someone you’ve never heard of. There are mashup mixes, cramming two different artists into a single album. There are screwed and chopped mixes, altering the original audio to create new sounds. If you’re looking for something different to listen to, you’ll find it on DatPiff.

With a solid connection, the streaming audio sounds great and has worked almost perfectly in all tests. DatPiff also gives you the option of downloading MP3s straight to the SD card for playback during times with little or no data connection.

The app has an interesting persistent player interface, always keeping the currently playing album in a tab near the bottom of the screen. The UI could be a bit cleaner, but the functionality is nice. You can jump from mix to mix while maintaining play control of the original selection. Currently playing tracks are also listed in the notification bar for easy access while in other apps all together.

Some features in the DatPiff app require user registration, but overall it was a pretty painless process. Being a registered user allows you to add mixtapes to your favorites (for later listening with the app or website) and gives you five album downloads per day. It’s not exactly unlimited, but if you’re on the hunt for more than five albums per day you might want to look elsewhere for a subscription service. Without an account you can still stream all the music you want, you’ll just get some extra goodies if you take the few minutes to register.

On top of the music, DatPiff has a bunch of videos and news, neither of which I’ve investigated too far. I’ve mainly come for the music and this thing delivers big time. It quickly earned a spot on my homescreen and has steadily been contributing awesome tracks to my permanent library.

DatPiff Mobile
Idle Media Inc

MARKET
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Related content:

Winamp beta for Android released, is awesome

[Video Link] Fiddleback says: "John Elwood, a maker of fine stringed instruments from rural Washington state, crafts small, fretless banjos from cheese cans. In this video, John plays kid's classic "Shortnin' Bread" on his canjo, about the size of a ukelele."

John Elwood plays "Shortnin' Bread" on a canjo

(Submitterated by Fiddleback)

That's right. Joy Division's "Transmission" as performed by Playmobil toys in stop motion. It's right in all the wrong ways. [Video Link]

New York cultural periodical the Village Voice has named @discographies, an anonymous Twitter account that publishes 140-character reviews of the life work of musicians and bands, as its music critic of the year.

Twitter spokesperson Matt Graves called it a "milestone"; whether he's serious or not, ("dead serious," he later said) @discographies certainly carries a certain seriousness throughout today's interview in the Village Voice. "Twitter," the account holder says, "may be the first mass communications system that also functions as a meritocracy: it actively promotes good ideas and good content, regardless of where they come from."

Sponsor

The account and the interview are filled with the requisite surplus of snark, but something meaningful is happening here. Social networks are opening the world of international publishing to almost anyone, almost anywhere. It's an end-run around the old world of privilege, power and access. (Consumer technology and leisure not withstanding.)

Says the interviewee:
"Skeptics might think that the brevity of 140 characters would foster a kind of surface-y and impersonal interaction, but I think it does exactly the opposite: it forces you to communicate in a way that's more signal than noise. Those are two really powerful functions--spreading ideas and connecting people--embedded in one convenient place. And I think we're just beginning to discover what the combination of those things might yield. I'm not a starry-eyed futurist, really; I'm just someone using technology to find newer, better ways of expressing my ancient disdain for Alanis Morissette...."

On the album and discography in the era of the single song sold online:

"Since we're now at a point where it costs virtually nothing to acquire and store someone's life work the one truly valuable commodity that still surrounds music consumption is the expenditure of time necessary to hear all the stuff you've downloaded.

If our hypothetical 15 year old has just BitTorrented Neil Young's entire corpus of work onto her computer, she'll probably be a lot happier if the first album she plays isn't Old Ways, but who's going to tell her that? That's where I see @Discographies as having real utility above and beyond whatever entertainment value it may possess. If I can steer just one person away from This Note's For You and towards Tonight's The Night, it will all have been worthwhile."

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New York cultural periodical the Village Voice has named @discographies, an anonymous Twitter account that publishes 140-character reviews of the life work of musicians and bands, as its music critic of the year.

Twitter spokesperson Matt Graves called it a "milestone"; whether he's serious or not, ("dead serious," he later said) @discographies certainly carries a certain seriousness throughout today's interview in the Village Voice. "Twitter," the account holder says, "may be the first mass communications system that also functions as a meritocracy: it actively promotes good ideas and good content, regardless of where they come from."

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The account and the interview are filled with the requisite surplus of snark, but something meaningful is happening here. Social networks are opening the world of international publishing to almost anyone, almost anywhere. It's an end-run around the old world of privilege, power and access. (Consumer technology and leisure not withstanding.)

Says the interviewee:
"Skeptics might think that the brevity of 140 characters would foster a kind of surface-y and impersonal interaction, but I think it does exactly the opposite: it forces you to communicate in a way that's more signal than noise. Those are two really powerful functions--spreading ideas and connecting people--embedded in one convenient place. And I think we're just beginning to discover what the combination of those things might yield. I'm not a starry-eyed futurist, really; I'm just someone using technology to find newer, better ways of expressing my ancient disdain for Alanis Morissette...."

On the album and discography in the era of the single song sold online:

"Since we're now at a point where it costs virtually nothing to acquire and store someone's life work the one truly valuable commodity that still surrounds music consumption is the expenditure of time necessary to hear all the stuff you've downloaded.

If our hypothetical 15 year old has just BitTorrented Neil Young's entire corpus of work onto her computer, she'll probably be a lot happier if the first album she plays isn't Old Ways, but who's going to tell her that? That's where I see @Discographies as having real utility above and beyond whatever entertainment value it may possess. If I can steer just one person away from This Note's For You and towards Tonight's The Night, it will all have been worthwhile."

Discuss

Want a Wi-Fi radio that can play just about any audio source and you can control from your smartphone? Video blogger Tinkernut details how to make one. More »

OK, Computer: File sharing, the music industry, and why we need the Pirate Party - good references for this area #music

Just heard an Elvis Perkins song on @woxy. Reminds me of a good interview with him that I heard on @NPR last week:

FWIW, it happens to be an ATG-based site.

RT @eachnotesecure: Neko Case fans should be all over this one...

Lala's manual upload page

"The director Jim Jarmusch once told me, "Fast, Cheap, and Good... pick two. If it's fast and cheap, it won't be good. If it's cheap and good, it won't be fast. If it's fast and good, it won't be cheap." Fast, cheap and good... pick two words to live by."

This site screams for a redesign. It's very cluttered and way too busy.

A way to integrate my Roku SoundBridge with last.fm