We Are Changed

Vote for me!

So I made this Paloma Faith remix for an on-line competition. If you vote for me, there is the slightest chance that I might get some cash. So please do so by following this link. Many thanks.

A Little Orchestra at Oxjam

A Little Orchestra will be playing at the Oxjam festival in Kilburn this weekend so do pop along for a mix of indie pop and minimalism. A Little Orchestra will be onstage at 8pm at the Black Lion on Saturday the 20th of October. Wristbands cost £10 and that will gain you access to gigs at Black Lion, Powers Bar and The Good Ship with live performances from DJ Logic, The Meds Collective, Peter Conway, Siza and many many more. Further details can be found at the A Little Orchestra blog and on the Oxjam website. So, go on. It is, after all, for a good cause . . . 

"The cracks were starting to show": Strange Idols & Idolatry

Your friends and mine, The Strange Idols, are to release a new retrospective CD album on Cloudberry Records.

Due out on the 25th, the CD will feature all the singles and b-sides released by the group during the three or four years they were active in London before they split up about five years ago, plus a few bonus rarities, all lovingly remastered for this special edition release. Shoegazing fans will no doubt be interested to note that Neil Halstead of Slowdive fame recorded and produced several of the tracks of the records.

There's a tremendously extensive interview with all the members of the band over at the Cloudberry website. But in the meantime, this seems like an ideal time to dredge up the remix I did of their song 'She's gonna let you down again' which you can download below.

Dwellings Close - Sneak Preview

The new teaser trailer for Dwellings Close, the first feature film from Mexican director, Jorge Cuaik (with music by me), takes its inspiration from Japanese karaoke videos. The film itself will be making its way around the international festival circuit next year. In the meantime, catch a glimpse of what's in store below. For more details, follow Dwellings Close on Twitter and Facebook.

 
Dwellings Close - Preview from Jorge Cuaik on Vimeo.

Tom's Codec

Above: a reworking of Suzanne Vega's track 'Tom's Diner' using only sounds from a poorly-ripped MP3 in various stages of distress.

Below: an extract from this review of Jonathan Sterne's new book, MP3: The Meaning of a Format.

Part of the mythology of MP3 history is the role played by Suzanne Vega's track ‘Tom's Diner’. The story goes that the fidelity of the format is the result of engineer Karlheinz Brandenburg repeatedly playing the song through his codec, endlessly refining until it had perfectly captured the warmth of Vega's voice.

 So it happened that in 2007, the singer was invited to the Fraunhofer Institute - billed by the latter's PR team as a visit from the ‘mother of MP3’, much to Vega's horror at the implication that she was about to meet the format's various fathers. Before a gathering of press, a panel of engineers played first the distorted version Brandenburg had been so struck by, and finally the ‘perfect’ MP3 copy. Sterne quotes from Vega's own account.

 ‘See,’ one man said. ‘Now the MP3 recreates it perfectly. Exactly the same!’

‘Actually, to my ears it sounds like there is a little more high end in the MP3 version? The MP3 doesn't sound as warm as the original, maybe a tiny bit of bottom end is lost?’ I suggested.

The man looked shocked. ‘No, Miss Vega. It is exactly the same.’

‘Everybody knows that an MP3 compresses the sound and therefore loses some of the warmth,’ I persisted. "That's why some people collect vinyl . . . " I suddenly caught myself, realizing who I was speaking to in front of a roomful of German media.

‘No, Miss Vega. Consider the Black Box theory!’

 I stared at him.

‘The Black Box theory states that what goes into the Black Box remains unchanged! Whatever goes in comes out the same way! Nothing is left behind and nothing is added!’

I decided at this point it was wiser to back down.

‘I see. OK. I didn't realise.’