The Listening Machine is an automated system that generates a continuous piece of music based on the activity of 500 Twitter users around the United Kingdom. Their conversations, thoughts and feelings are translated into musical patterns in real time, which you can tune in to at any point through any web-connected device.

The Microsoft Sound wav file

Some links about Brian Eno's Microsoft Sound, including an MP3 download.

The thing from the agency said, "We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,'' this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said "and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.''

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.

Whether your project is a film score, TV commercial, b2b corporate video, wedding film, dance piece, music for a photo portfolio, or anything in between, if you have a film in mind, I'd like to help.

via Clint

A number of important people and musicians talk about what sound means to them

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This Star Slinger track might as well be a Top 40 chart monster, it hits harder than a punch to the neck and has more soul than most of the pop songs out there right now.

I hear that Darkstar might be heading over to Warp Records, I can really appreciate a song like Dear Heartbeat, its raising the bar for bedroom producers, reminds me of a more simplified JDSY song or something tolerable from Her Space Holiday.

Moths seems to be starting off on the right foot by following the footsteps of Four Tet, Gold Panda, Seams, etc. Thanks NAVIS for the tip. Maybe he’ll sign to Moodgadget if he sees this post?

The label BPitch Control has offered some of the best 4/4 records in the past 10 years that blur the line of Club ready / Headphone music with artists like Ellen Allien, Telefon Tel Aviv, Paul Kalkbrenner and many more. With Chaim on their roster they add more of that beautiful techno to their sound kind of like one of favorites Modeselektor’s I Love You:

Anyone know who did the image above? would love to give some credit.

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This Gatekeeper song touches on a sound that i’ve loved since I was little. Believe me this isn’t a bad thing but combine dreamy(probably not the best word) scene music from the TV show Airwolf with Paul Hertzog’s soundtrack(specific songs) for Bloodsport and your talking about my favorite childhood music that was coming out of the television. I mean I could also describe all same-y and compare it to Moroder or some of the better synthy Italo but that has been covered before.

When I want dub thats more on the electronic tip I know I can rely on Deadbeat, he’s been doing it for awhile now, I wish he didn’t veer off into minimal techno but this track Deep Structure always reminds me of what I fell in love with in Detroit Techno, let it ride out, I love it when Techno isn’t soo in your face but locks into a great long groove.

You know if i’m posting on Foxes In Fiction that means something is being given away for FREE. That generous and kind Canadian is at it again with a free 2 tracker, think bubbles with a stutter floating in circles inside a silo somewhere in Winnipeg.

The beach music will never die, it might be hip and then hated but you can’t deny a home for beautiful music like this Beach Fossils, if you see their new record pick it up and I swear you’ll find out that one summer night it will hit the spot just don’t force it.

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Radiohead’s new album King of Limbs dropped on Friday, prompting much love from the Twittersphere. Maybe too much. The British band hits a kind of sweet spot for the educated set: progressive contemporary music that’s equally accessible whether you’re into old-school prog/classic rock, 90s alternative, or 00s house. Still, some of the exchanges seemed a little, um, exuberant:

Still, I think music fans and cultural observers need to grapple with this a little: Radiohead’s first album, Pablo Honey, came out 18 years ago. Here’s another way to think about it: when that album came out, I was 13; now I’m 31. And from at least The Bends to the present, they’ve commanded the attention of the musical press and the rock audience as one of the top ten — or higher — bands at any given moment. You might have loved Radiohead, you might have been bored by them, you might have wished they’d gone back to an earlier style you liked better, but you always had to pay attention to them, and know where you stood. For 18 years. That’s an astonishing achievement.

Here are some comparisons. The Rolling Stones have obviously outdone everyone in the rock longevity department; even if they were sometimes a punchline, they’ve made solid music and have always been insanely profitable. But really, if you take the stretch from 1964’s The Rolling Stones to 1981’s Tattoo You — which is actually mostly a B-sides album of leftovers from 1978’s Some Girls — that’s only 17 years. If you just do their first album through Some Girls, it’s only 14 years. And that’s when the Stones basically stop evolving as a band and stop being a crucial signpost for popular music.

Very few other rock bands last that long. The Beatles didn’t. Talking Heads didn’t. The Pixies and The Velvet Underground obviously didn’t. The Who only had 13 years between their first album and Keith Moon’s overdose. When Bruce Springsteen had a hit with “Streets of Philadelphia” eighteen years after Born To Run, it was an amazing comeback. R.E.M. had about 20 years of fairly consistent attention between “Radio Free Europe” and Reveal, but that’s an unknown underground band on one end and a kind of boring washed-up band on the other with a peak in the middle.

The Flaming Lips are still pushing it. U2’s been going for about 30 years, although they’ve lost a lot of cred along the way that Radiohead hasn’t. Bob Dylan is a freak. But this is the level we’re talking about here: U2, Dylan, and Radiohead. It’s worth tipping your cap. And watching some videos.

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Even if this Pantha Du Prince song wasn’t good i’d probably still post the album art but i’m glad I found this amazing Four Tet remix to go with it, you know how it goes its Four Tet and its loopy and gorgeous.

My good friend Danny aka Philistine DSGN aka The Tower of Light made me aware of 2 things recently: 1. Old PJ Harvey where the electronics are really dark 2. Odd Future with Tyler The Creator, both blowing my mind.

I was really geeked for the new Isolee record, I mean just hoping for magic and I could really only find one song that I fell in love with and it was In Our Country, I hope some singles pop up over the next few months.

This video below isn’t the best for the work place, just an FYI

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With the big electronic goth movement happening here in NYC comes some pros and cons, one definite pro that has come from it is the music, nothing has grabbed me more than this oOoOO remix, this could have been on the last Telefon Tel Aviv album and I wouldn’t have blinked twice, pretty perfect sounding.

I always get super giddy for new Tim Hecker, I can close my door to my room and let his songs fill my room, its always an experience like walking thru a hurricane at night.

If you want to take it up a notch on the noisy ambience listening I highly suggest someone like Yellow Swans, alil more harsh but so rewarding.

I’ve really never done this but I finished a small EP last week under the name Heathered Pearls and made it available for free to download,its very loop based with hints of subtle changes and meditative i’d say, hope you enjoy.

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Pulling out some long experimental cuts for you today, starting off with Dolphins Into The Future which was random purchase yesterday at Sound Fix, the record store clerk suggested it and i’m glad I picked it up. If you like the soft synths and VHS quality sound then this whole album is perfect for you, i’d suggest getting it on vinyl, it just got repressed.

Jane is an lo-fi loop based project consisting of Panda Bear (Noah Lennox) of Animal Collective and Scott Mou who’s one of the nicest record store people you can talk to at Other Music in NYC. I love 20+ minute tracks like this, I can let it ride out while I do work and really enjoy myself without fumbling thru iTunes.

Anika is coming to NYC in just alil more than a week! check the Stones Throw site for date in LA and NYC. Her tempo and raw delivery is exactly what i’d like to hear live these days.

To round out today’s playlist we have Solar Bears reaching for the stars with their remix of FUR, enjoy this calm Monday.

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Oh Stones Throw, I love that you give me the option to have the instrumentals, nothing against Aloe Blacc’s voice at all, its great but I love a beat label that gives up the instrumental.

For those Com Truise fans out there, here’s one of his other alias under the name Airliner

I got to take my younger sister to see Mux Mool, Sepalcure and Daedelus the other night, she was geeked thru the whole show but wanted more Daedelus to take home and listen but looked around and couldn’t really find music that sounded like his live set, any suggestions?

The rare chance Flying Lotus remixes you is an honor these days for producers. Ninja Tunes’ Andreya Triana recently got the pleasure and the outcome was something that should of been on Los Angeles.

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A future classic in my mind, this mix by Tensnake for Resident Advisor keeps a pace that feels right for any occasion. If you haven’t followed the highly informative and giving RA site then I suggest you should, decent reviewers but more importantly a great site for these mixes. That Floating Points track still gets me, damn, so good.

DOWNLOAD THIS MIX HERE

01 – Groove Armada – Dan-Solo (Album Edit)
02 – Lindstrom & Christabelle – Lovesick
03 – 6th Borough Project – McLovin
04 – Tiger & Woods – Gin Nation [Editainment - Tain 2]
05 – Kim – Give Me The Dance
06 – Floating Points – Vacuum Boogie
07 – Ike – Diskadenz
08 – Bass Hitt – The Beat That Makes You Move
09 – Blunted Dummies – House For All
10 – The Royal We – Party Guilt (Dinky’s Arp-A-Pella)
11 – Sound Stream – Soul Train
12 – Rockers Revenge – Dubbing On Sunshine
13 – Rick Wilhite – Drum Patterns & Memories (Rick’s Morning Service Mix)
14 – Liberty City – If You Really Love Someone + Andre Hayden Project – Tribal Life
15 – Tony Lionni – Found A Place
16 – Blake Baxter – Our Luv
17 – Raz – Amour Puerto Riqueno
18 – Tensnake – Coma Cat
19 – Tensnake – Somethin About You
20 – Sterling Void – It’s Alright
21 – (NYE noise)
22 – Saint Etienne – Only Love Can Break Your Heart

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Post tags: Tensnake mix, tensnake Resident Advisor

A reader sent this video called Sonar to me yesterday and it definitely caught my eye. Made just with flash, the video seems to me like a graphic visualization of music, like if we needed to describe music with images instead of sound. It’s amazing how complex the video gets at the end, I love how the shapes start to align and pop, it’s such a rad effect. I could almost see something like this being a video game, though I’m not exactly sure how it would work.

Bobby

Sun Boxes are an environment to enter and exit. It’s comprised of twenty speakers operating independently each powered by solar panels. There is a different guitar sample in each box all playing together making the composition. The guitar samples are all of different lengths so the whole piece keeps evolving.

One of my favorite moments in Annabel Scheme is the party thrown by a mysterious musician known as “The Beekeeper”:

If you had electronic eyes and night vision—I had both—you would have seen slips of paper passing from person to person. On each slip was a phone number. Each one was different, and there were a dozen circulating in the crowd. Each wandered and blinked like a firefly as kids used their phones, torch-like, to illuminate the number, then passed it on. Here and there, then everywhere, they were dialing numbers, switching their phones to speaker-mode and pushing them up into the air like trophies.

The buzzing was coming from the phones. It was a low, rhythmic drone. At first you couldn’t hear much, but apparently, if you put enough phones on speaker all at once, it starts to get loud.

Really loud.

So that was the trick: There were no speakers because the crowd was the speaker. The bees did not sound so far-off now.

Scheme clenched her teeth. “This is hurting my face.”

Suddenly it stopped. The graveyard fell silent. It was a field of pale arms thrust to the sky, swaying like seaweed. Kids were bouncing silently on the balls of their feet. Waiting.

Then there was a count-off, a tat tat tat tat and then the music started and it was everywhere, megawatts of power flowing out of every palm and pocket. There was no focal point, so bodies were pointed in every direction, ricocheting and chain-reacting. Kids were losing it, jumping up and down, colliding and cuddling in the dark grass.

The music had a clear beat, but it was warped and scratchy, like someone was tuning a giant radio. Snatches of singing would ring out for a moment, then decohere. There was a trumpet that pealed from somewhere very far away…

The music was coming together as kids followed their ears. If your phone was buzzing with bass, you joined the bunched-up sub-woofer section. If it was sending high notes sizzling into the air, you joined the line that snaked around the crowd’s perimeter. The music worked its pattern on the crowd. It was both amazingly high-tech and totally pagan.

The first question I had after reading this was — I wonder if Robin knows about Zaireeka, the Parking Lot Experiments, or the other stuff that The Flaming Lips tried in the late 1990s?

I still don’t know. But I was reminded of that perplexity today reading this interview with Pitchfork’s Mark Richardson that’s all about the amazingly high-tech and totally pagan crap that the Lips tried before exploding with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin. Complete with YouTube videos, several of which were new to me.

If you were taken with either (Scheme or the Lips), try both.

#10 City Center – “City Center” (Type)

City Center ISO50 posts: 1 / 2 / 3

#9 Neon Indian – “Psychic Chasms” (Lefse)

Neon Indian ISO50 posts: 1 / 2 / 3

#8 Various Artists – “Pop Ambient 2009″ (Kompakt)

Pop Ambient 2009 ISO50 posts: 1

#7 Junior Boys – “Begone Dull Care” (Domino)

Junior Boys ISO50 posts: 1 / 2

#6 Atlas Sounds – “Logo” (Kranky)

Atlas Sound ISO50 posts: 1 / 2

#5 Kings Of Convenience – “Declaration of Dependance” (Mawlaw 388 Ltd)

Kings Of Convenience ISO50 posts: 1 / 2 / 3

#4 Fever Ray – “Fever Ray” (Rabid)

Fever Ray ISO50 posts: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

#3 The Horrors – “Primary Colours” (XL)

The Horrors ISO50 posts: 1 / 2 / 3

#2 Washed Out – “Life Of Leisure” (Mexican Summer)

Washed Out ISO50 Posts: 1 / 2 / 3

#1 The Drums – “Summertime!” (The Drums)

The Drums ISO50 posts: 1 / 2

2009 was a creative year for musicians like City Center who has the perfect voice and a natural sense for lo-fi singer songwriter material, if you’ve worn the groove out of your Panda Bear record then look no further and pick up his self titled LP. We saw Dubstep take over in the US and UK clubs with unique takes on albums from Martyn, 2562, and many others. Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear showed the top 40 charts that indie rock has a big say in what people want to own and even Jay-Z thought so. Lo-fi is back on all different levels like surf, folk, and a fusion of a ton of different genres which really had a big impact on my daily listening.
I’m not going to ignore that some people didn’t like my #1 song and #1 album of the year and I kind of want to share why I liked it so much. At first they were a band that i wanted to sign but after seeing a few shows of them playing live I was hooked, soo much energy, passion and catchy parts plus the band is just fun to watch, the tambourine player even was more hyper than any musician I saw all year. The songs all have this mash of a lot of music that I grew up on and still to this day listen to frequently. I see them as a band that can jump into the top 40 and get a budget to be a great band to see live and I guess the live show did it for me this year and I loved sharing the bands songs with friends, so I guess those are some of the reasons why I loved The Drums release.

HONORABLE MENTION:
Telefon Tel Aviv – Immolate Yourself

*Please note I did not include any releases by Ghostly International, Moodgadget, remixes, Tycho songs and ISO50 exclusives just to make this a fair collection. If you like this list then take a second and check out ISO50’s 2008 list.

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Post tags: Top 10 albums of 2009

MyTunesRSS is an application for accessing your iTunes library from any computer connected through a network.

Max is an application for creating high-quality audio files in various formats, from compact discs or files.

streaming classical music

Probably the most popular project this summer was the MIT Disco Dance Floor. The build team eventually released the controller schematics and software. Several other projects spun off as a result of this.

Lyricsfly was created to simplify the process of finding lyrics to your favorite song titles. Lyricsfly is using a slightly modified java script engine from the brilliantly crafted Google Suggest project, along with some PHP code to serve suggestions as t

REAPER is a powerful but sensible Windows application that lets you record, arrange, edit, and render multi-track waveform audio.

Ripping services are gaining in popularity because they make it so easy to convert (a.k.a. rip) your entire collection into MP3 files for your portable media device.

a cover of Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps"

Now you can search for a popular artist name, and often Google will show some information about that artist.

On the social networkings of rap artists.

listen to your music collection anywhere on the net

A whole slew of Nintendo .mp3s, remixes and mashups.

Control of xmms with a laser pointer