Take3DVD

English composer Gustav Holst composed The Planets between 1914 and 1916. The Birmingham premiere of the suite took place in 1918, fifteen years before Pluto was discovered. Though the Planets became by far the most popular work of Holst's and one of the most known pieces by an English-born composer, Holst did not consider the piece one of his finest. Partially because of this, he never wrote an eighth movement, though unexpectedly the IAU relegated Pluto from its status as planet proper in 2006.

The distance to Mars if the Earth were 100 pixels wide.

via www.youtube.com

Unravelling the Mystery of the Prince Rupert's Drop.

"It is probably no accident that Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which is really the seminal work of the 20th century in so many ways, happened in 1913, just before the greatest conflagration that the world had ever known … Stravinsky talked of trying to recapture the violence, the sense of the earth cracking open, that he witnessed every spring in Russia…but on a deeper level, it's a musical metaphor for the vessel of an exhausted era cracking open." (Sir Simon Rattle)

via www.guardian.co.uk

Published on 9 Mar 2013
"Hawking" is the extraordinary story of the planet's most famous living scientist, told for the first time in his own words and by those closest to him. Made with unique access to Hawking's private life, this is an intimate and moving journey into Stephen's world, both past and present. An inspirational portrait of an iconic figure, Hawking relates his incredible personal journey from boyhood under-achiever, to PhD genius, to being diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease and given just two years to live. Despite the constant threat of death, Hawking manages to make many remarkable scientific discoveries and rises to fame and super-stardom. "Hawking" - a remarkable man, and a remarkable movie.

via www.bbc.co.uk

Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar has died in a hospital in the US, aged 92.

His family said he had been admitted to the Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego last week, but had failed to recover fully from surgery.

Shankar gained widespread international recognition through his association with The Beatles.

via www.bbc.co.uk

After making northern Mali's "Blues" music famous around the world, Ali Farka Toure is a legend in his home town of Niafunke, where he was mayor until his death in 2006.

The memorial to him is still intact but his music is no longer heard in the town's streets.

Ali Farka Toure - Savane

BEDRICH SMETANA      1824-1884
 
Overture to The Bartered Bride

 
 
Regarded as the founder of Czech musical nationalism, Smetana was one of the first composers to integrate folk-based material from his native country into his compositions. The son of an innkeeper who was an amateur violinist, he began playing in a string quartet at age five, and produced his first symphony at age eight.
 
Like many 19th-century operas, The Bartered Bride centres on an arranged marriage. (The original Czech title can be literally translated as 'The Sold Bride' or 'The Purchased Fiancée.') Set in a Bohemian village, it tells the story of a young girl, Marenka, who is in love with Jenik.  However, she has been betrothed against her wishes to the son of Micha, a local landlord. Unknown to everyone but himself, Jenik is in fact none other than Micha’s long lost eldest son. Jenik shrewdly persuades the marriage broker to state that Marenka should be married to the eldest son of Micha. When it is revealed that it is none other than Jenik, all ends happily.
 
The work begins with a theme bursting with rhythmic energy. After this has been presented fugally, a sudden crescendo ushers in the second subject, which has the flavour of a Czech dance tune. Both themes are explored in a short development section, which is followed by the conventional recapitulation. At the end, an unexpected, wistful passage revisits the second theme before the overture reaches its brilliant conclusion.
 
Overtures to operas are usually written almost as afterthoughts, but Smetana was so taken with the story that he wrote the lively prelude before beginning any other work on the opera. The result is a piece that stands alone beautifully, yet still serves as a wonderful introduction to the work that made Smetana famous. The first production opened in Prague on May 30, 1866, though an early version of the overture, for piano four hands, may have been performed some three years earlier.

via http://bhco.co.uk/pages/node/265#

ABOUT

Biography

I LIKE TRAINS are a hidden treasure. Haunting instrumentation and broken, world weary vocals portray a tender depiction of tragedy, past, present and future.

Building the bricks of a productive creative partnership, over the past six years I LIKE TRAINS have perfected their craft. Their sullen heart felt songs wash across you like a sea of wondrous turmoil. I LIKE TRAINS have had their music featured on Hollywood film trailers, adverts and television, including an episode of cult series CSI:Miami. In October of 2007, the band released their debut LP, ‘Elegies To Lessons Learnt’ which contained a captivating collection of tracks documenting a series of historic downfalls and the mistakes we failed to learn from. The band are set to release their eagerly awaited second LP later this year. Whilst articulating the morose truths of life, the band provide a ray of light with their gentle flowing guitars, rich earthy vocals and glimmers of exultant choral euphoria that show hope within despair.

I Like Trains - The Shallows by I LIKE PRESS

A playlist of music tracks with ‘white’ in the title.

A sample of this Chingford based band’s latest album, which is already available in the UK but due to be released in the US 15 Sept 2009.
They are new to me but have great energy and enthusiasm, just the music to start off this weekends bank holiday.
This is what a fan (Rifleshardcore) thinks of this album:

“The Rifles, in one record, have moved themselves from a humble London-based quartet, seemingly happy with their massive cult following, to a band who appear to have finally realised that, quite literally, no-one else does what they do as well as they do it, and they deserve recognition.
And long may that continue.”

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the legendary 1969 Woodstock Festival here are live recorded highlights from Day 2 compared by J T Bison of The LIVE Jackd Radio Show.

Patrick Watson is a musical mad scientist. He’s an internationally acclaimed singer, composer, songwriter, and producer. Patrick Watson is also the name of this mad genius’ band, fleshed-out like Frankenstein by Robbie Kuster, Mishka Stein, and Simon Angell.

Both the man and his monster have received international acclaim since the September 2006 release of Close to Paradise in Canada. The first-ever release on Secret City Records (based out of the band’s native Montreal), Close to Paradise propelled Patrick Watson quickly into stardom; it went gold in Canada, and won numerous awards, including Canada’s prestigious Polaris Prize. The album saw international release in September 2007, and the band hasn’t looked back, selling over 100,000 copies worldwide. Since then Patrick Watson’s fanbase seems to have grown exponentially, with the live show now commanding huge audiences across the world, from Paris, to Reykjavik, Amsterdam, London, New York, and of course, Montreal, where Watson and most of the band still resides.

Despite the internationally demanding schedule, Watson himself also found time to contribute to Cinematic Orchestra’s 2007 album, Ma Fleur, and to compose scores and songs for a number of films—something he has always had a passion for. It should come as no surprise then, that the band’s music is often described as cinematic and wildly eclectic. In fact, this aspect of their sound can be traced back to Watson’s earliest musical days. While he was honing his angelic voice at age seven singing in local churches on the West Island of Montreal, he also grew up studying classical and jazz piano performance, arrangement, and composition. His first recording project was an experimental suite of music set to a series of photographs by Quebec artist, Brigitte Henry. To this day you can still hear a composer’s ear behind even the band’s most accessible pop songs.

Watson met guitarist Simon Angell in their hometown of Hudson, Quebec while they were barely teenagers, and the two have collaborated ever since—Angell’s soundscapes and noise-influences having developed into the perfect complement to Watson’s colourful melodic compositions and gut-wrenching falsetto. Then, while studying music at Vanier College in the late-nineties, Patrick had met Ukrainian-born Mishka Stein, and Swiss/British Columbia ex-pat Robbie Kuster, who were increasingly invited to fill out his rhythm section when performing live shows (with Angell having long-since become a permanent fixture). Though still Watson’s project, an informal residency at the legendary Café Sarajevo and an eerie live chemistry between the four musicians quickly led to more group writing and a growing word-of-mouth fanbase.

Just Another Ordinary Day was self-released in 2003 as a result, and stands as a kind of snapshot of a band in formation, highlighting the bands penchant for dreamy soundscapes (echoing Sigur Ros, Bjork and Radiohead), with Watson’s voice as the centerpiece. Through 2004 and 2005 buzz on the band’s live shows lead to performances with an impressively diverse group of artists, from Phillip Glass and Steve Reich, to Feist. In the summer of 2006, they even invited on a European tour with the late James Brown, a fitting last leg to the first chapter of their story. Close to Paradise was released immediately after, in September 2006.

Patrick Watson and his bandmates spent most of the latter half of 2008 in Montreal recording the follow-up to Close to Paradise—Wooden Arms, which will be released in spring 2009.
Reference: Patrick Watson website

Here’s a selection of tracks from their 2006 album “Close To Paradise”.

This indie band from Chapel Hill, N.Carolina have recently released their latest album “Not For Everyone Just For You”.
Relatively unknown, North Elementary is a music collective revolving around the songwriter, John Harrison. There are a number of tracks which I particularly liked and would predict that they wont remain on the sidelines for very long.
The album can be heard as a stream on their myspace page or as a preview I have 3 tracks here:

North Elementary - Ones In Love

North Elementary - Golden Tigers

North Elementary - You Have A Heart

Here is my latest “mixtape” of artists compiled on Jango.

Explosions In The Sky

Explosions in the Sky is an American instrumental post-rock band from Texas. The band has garnered popularity beyond the post-rock scene for their cinematic, elaborately developed guitar work, narratively styled instrumentals, what they refer to as “cathartic mini-symphonies,” and their enthusiastic and emotional live shows. They primarily play with three electric guitars and a drum kit, while band member Michael James will at times exchange his electric guitar for a bass guitar.

Welcome Ghosts

Little Black Dress

Little Black Dress is the brainchild of veteran Dallas musicians Toby Pipes and Nolan Thies. The two have collaborated on the writing, engineering and producing of all the cuts that will appear on their upcoming debut album in 2009. Their unique sound might remind you of a deep-cut track from one of your favorite 4 A.D. compilations with influences spanning decades of innovative music - from synth driven sounds of Depeche Mode and Cabaret Voltaire, to the droning but noisy guitars and under-stated vocals of My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain, to the layered melodic swirling of the Cocteau Twins.
Along with Toby (vocals, guitars) and Nolan (vocals, bass), Little Black Dress is backed by Brent Elrod (guitars), Earl Darling (drums), Cooper Heffley (electric drums/keys) and Taylor Tatsch (guitars).

Robin

American Analog Set

The American Analog Set, also known as The AmAnSet, is an indie rock band from Austin, Texas, USA. The group is led by singer and guitarist Andrew Kenny. Additional members include or have included Lee Gillespie, Mark Smith, Craig McCaffrey, Tom Hoff, Lisa Roschmann and Sean Ripple. Their name derives from their preference for analog rather than digital recording media. Formed in 1995, the group has released six full-length albums the latest one being Set Free, which was released on September 20, 2005 in North America.

In October 2005, rumours began spreading across the internet that the group was on the verge of disbanding. The band quickly refuted such rumours, but added that they may not tour again due to their obligations with other projects.

Immaculate Heart 1

The Uglysuit

Made up of six friends from Oklahoma City ranging in age from 20-23, The Uglysuit brings a different mentality to what they do – remarkably fresh-faced and honest, the band believes in letting loose, fostering a heartfelt atmosphere of hope and love, and works hard to shape what comes naturally. Playing together since their early teen years has given them an almost familial connection which shines through on their beautiful, fully-realized debut album. The Uglysuit’s music is an extended love song to the notion that everything is possible, yet nothing is guaranteed. It’s born of excitement and energy and built on potential and promise. It’s based on the premise that change exists in everything, and where a wide-eyed view of the world doesn’t equal naiveté. It reminds us that we are alive, and that maybe it’s not too late.

Everyone Now Has A Smile

A Classic Education

A Classic Education come from Bologna, Italy. Part Canadian, part Italian. The band has been going for just under a year. Much has happened since. A Classic Education has been invited to play or toured with Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, Lightspeed Champion, Okkervil River, Hot Club De Paris, Fanfarlo, Jeremy Warmsley. They have played a selection of London’s best club nights such as White Heat, Club Fandango and Twee As Fuck. This past summer the band have been invited to play the Indietracks Festival alongside bands such as Los Campesinos!, The Wave Pictures & The Wedding Present. With their debut "First EP" (distro by Rough Trade), a limited edition 12" that documented the first year as a band, they have been gathering praise and hype from some of the most respected music blogs and websites in the world such as The Torture Garden, Drowned In Sound, Sixeyes, Chromewaves, Music Slut, Song By Toad, Sweeping The Nation, 17 Seconds etc. The band has been busy recording songs with uk musician and producer Jeremy Warmsley (Transgressive Records).

Stay Son

Datarock

Many moons ago, atop one of seven mountains surrounding a picturesque Norwegian countryside, two scruffy-faced individuals-Fredrik Saroea and the man known simply as Ket-Ill-made a pact to alter the face of contemporary music as we know it by single-handedly transforming themselves into what they called the peak of pop evolution. Already home to indie-pop luminaries like the Kings of Convenience, Röyksopp, Annie, Ralph Myerz, and Even Johansen of Magnet, Bergen’s southwest coast would be a fertile proving ground for their exploits, but far be it from Fredrik and Ket-Ill to sit back and let the buzz come to them.* DIY punk rockers by nature, but heavily influenced by the distinctive style and stage presence of groups like Talking Heads and Devo, the boys decided to ditch the thrash guitars in favor of the simple yet versatile Casio MT-64 keyboard and a Roland Groovebox. Toss in matching red track suits, a penchant for Transformers and John Hughes flicks, and two pairs of vintage Porsche wraparound sunglasses and you’ve got a little something called DATAROCK. Their first full-length CD, Datarock Datarock (Nettwerk Music Group; June 12, 2007), takes the feel-good vibe of "Computer Camp Love," turns it up to 11, and blasts a power chord of throwback nostalgia that’ll knock you straight out of your Reebok Pumps. Love letters to Laurie Anderson ("Laurie") and references to Close Encounters of the Third Kind ("Princess") are just the tip of the iceberg. The album’s infectious first single, "Fa Fa Fa," pairs up dance-rock drums with funk-strummed guitars and a chorus that’ll have you jonesing for the nearest copy of Talking Heads’ 77. "Ugly Primadonna," meanwhile, is pure four/four Groovebox robotics and space age Casiotone melodies.†† On "I Will Always Remember You" (featuring Annie), Fredrik does his best Wayne Newton, verbally undressing you with his velvety pipes over a bed of freeze-dried strings before formally "sexing you down" on "Sex Me Up." But more so than any other track on the album, the opening "Bulldozer" perhaps best encapsulates the band’s true modus operandi. Whereas Kraftwerk glorified the Trans-Europe Express and the Tour de France, Datarock prefer to sing the praises of a more proletarian method of transportation: the BMX. Which, according to the Fredrik and Ket-Ill, "is better than sex."

FA-Fa-Fa

Shearwater

Hailed as "almost impossibly majestic and beautiful" (NPR), Shearwater’s Palo Santo (2007, Matador), a suite of ethereal but oddly disquieting art-rock songs loosely centered around the life and death of singer Christa Paffgen (aka Nico), marked the Texan quartet’s debut on the national stage. The New York Times named the album one of the year’s very best, and the band’s singular combination of sonic abandon and restraint, spun around the soaring, otherworldly voice of part-time ornithologist Jonathan Meiburg - drew comparisons to late-period Talk Talk and both the lovely and anxious moments of Eno’s early solo work.This year’s much-anticipated Rook takes the band into realms both richer and stranger. Though a similarly haunted, elegaic mood - punctuated by flashes of dread and menace - pervades the album, Rook is its own animal, at once more accessible (the near-title track, "Rooks", anchored by Thor Harris’ thunderous kick drum, a booming organ, and a stately trumpet line, could almost be mistaken for radio-friendly) and more accomplished than its predecessor, with a depth and grandeur that seem improbably packed into the album’s tidy 35 minutes. Squalls of feedback have largely given way to sudden gusts of strings and woodwinds, though the band’s fondness for unusual instrumentation remains intact - harp, hammer dulcimer, and a curiously carved metal box all take featured roles. Each song is a mini-epic, from the in-medias-res opening of "On the Death of the Waters" to the pounding (but drumless) urgency of "Leviathan, Bound", the abrupt rock of "Century Eyes", the crystalline depths and heights of "I Was a Cloud" and "The Snow Leopard", and the final, elegant flourish of "The Hunter’s Star". Rook is unlike any other album you’ll hear this year. It has the clarity and yearning ineffability of a waking dream, the strange beauty and internal logic of a fairy tale, and above all, evokes a vanishing world that may or may not be our own.

Snow Leopard

Third Eye Blind

Since 1997, San Francisco’s Third Eye Blind have recorded three best-selling albums and assembled one career retrospective. 3EB will release ’Ursa Major’, their first studio collection in five years, in autumn 2009. Led by Stephan Jenkins, 3EB won wide success during a tumultuous group of years when the major-label recording industry was finally losing its grip on an enterprise that for decades it had dominated with steely efficiency. Nothing could have made 3EB happier! 3EB, however, have experienced no comparable loss. Instead, they have gained artistic clarification — and, surprisingly, a fan base larger than ever. Participation in the older, untouchable realm of nervous star-making and could color a band’s identity. In the case of 3EB, it often blurred the perception of their brilliant musical creations. In recent years, those creations have recast the band among a current generation of fans. 3EB now write, tour, record, and communicate in a fluid new world where their music continues naturally to evolve. Their exchange with their audience is unfiltered.

Non Dairy Creamer

Slaraffenland

Slaraffenland are a Copenhagen, Denmark based band. Their sound is a mixture of many different styles, including post rock, experimental rock, alternative, noise, and freeform-jazz, combined in a unique process that is half composition and half improvisation. Slaraffenland were initially formed in 2001, but their current line-up was not finalized until 2002. The band consists of Mike, Christian Taagehøj, Niklas, Bjoern, and Jeppe. Slaraffenland currently have four releases. Their debut album, the self-titled Slaraffenland, was released in February 2004. Slaraffenland was recorded in October 2003 at the Sauna Recording Studio in Copenhagen with the help and guidance of Magnus Groth. Slaraffenland’s second album, a 20 minute EP entitled Jinkatawa, was released in July of 2005. This 4 track EP was recorded at the Fredrik Mellqvist and the Rumraket studios in Copenhagen. Third is the album Private Cinema released june 2007 on Rumraket and Home Tapes. Fourth is the EP Sunshine expected in the fall of 2008.

I’m A Machine