And that was the moment I was waiting for, when Bruce hits his full flow as he talks about "robots" taking "jobs".
http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/459/State-of-the-World-2013-Bruce-St-page05.html#post104 
"whatever happens to musicians will eventually happen to everybody."

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[from: Google+ Posts]

My favourite carbon atoms have travelled through time and space for 5 billion years to bring you this message.
[from: Google+ Posts]

Another reason to visit Trinity Buoy Wharf where the River Lea meets the Thames in East London. There's a listening post there in the top of the lighthouse to this. http://longplayer.org/what/overview.php

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[from: Google+ Posts]

State of the world 2013
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/12/what-are-the-big-issues-of-201.html
vs
http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/459/State-of-the-World-2013-Bruce-St-page01.html

As usual the comment stream on the Charlie Stross blog is much, much richer than that on The Well around Sterling/Lebkowsky. I'm not sure what that says about the crowd involved as it's probably more to do with the medium of expression. Bruce Sterling has interesting stuff to say as always, at least as interesting as Charlie Stross. It's more the quality of the discussion I'm interested in here.

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Best of 2012 Music
They're not all in yet, but here's a placeholder of best of 2012 music (mostly dance/electronic) lists from people and sources that deserve a little respect (IMHO).

Resident Advisor
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1700
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1701
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1702
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1703
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1704
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1705

Xlr8r
http://www.xlr8r.com/news/2012/12/see-you-2013-check-out-our-best-

White Noise
http://whitenoisereview.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/20-best-eps-of-2012.html

The Quietus
http://thequietus.com/articles/10924-the-quietus-albums-of-the-year-2012
http://thequietus.com/articles/11013-hyperspecific-19-tracks-of-2012-list-mix

Simon Reynolds 12 for 12
http://blissout.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/12-for-12-normal-0-false-false-false-en.html

Drowned in Sound
http://drownedinsound.com/lists/the-best-of-dis-2012

DFRNT Sitting Ovation
http://sittingovation.com/articles/dfrnts-favourite-albums-of-2012/

Fact Magazine
http://www.factmag.com/category/endofyear/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/26/artists-best-of-2012-10-lee-gamble-patten-ital-mishka/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/25/artists-best-of-2012-9-blackdown-king-britt-dj-q-hoya-hoya/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/24/artists-best-of-2012-8-slugabed-hodge-christian-martin-deviation/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/23/artists-best-of-2012-7-wolfgang-voigt-lil-jabba-dusky/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/22/artists-best-of-2012-6-scratcha-dva-hyetal-soul-clap-tvo/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/21/artists-best-of-2012-5-dominick-fernow-peverelist-regis-andy-votel-raime/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/20/artists-best-of-2012-4-silent-servant-pan-holly-herndon-old-apparatus-pete-swanson/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/19/artists-best-of-2012-3-the-bug-jackmaster-logos-mista-men-type/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/18/artists-best-of-2012-2-starkey-faltydl-supreme-cuts-bok-bok-tri-angle/
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/17/artists-best-of-2012-1-daedelus-ryan-hemsworth-trouble-bass-semtek-bloom/

MthrFnkr
http://mthrfnkr.com/post/36057609845/young-blood-sound-of-2013
http://mthrfnkr.com/post/37240184931/following-up-our-first-introduction-to-what-the

The Wire (in print or subscription)
http://www.thewire.co.uk/news/21457/rewind-2012-issue-out-now

20 Jazz Funk Greats
http://www.20jazzfunkgreats.co.uk/wordpress/cats/best-of-2012/

Pitchfork
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9017-the-top-50-albums-of-2012/

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[from: Google+ Posts]

It's that time of year again. Bruce Sterling's State of the World discussion with Jon Lebowsky on The Well. So that's an enthusiastic, Italo-phile, Texan, Sci-fi author currently absorbing Belgrade's doom and gloom; An Internet evangelist, gonzo futurist, Texan, prognosticator; and a supporting cast of mostly Californian techno-shaman.

http://www.well.com/conf/inkwell.vue/topics/459/State-of-the-World-2013-Bruce-St-page01.html

Pretty much equal parts of amazing factoid, critical analysis and infuriating points of view then. And being on The Well, it's fairly hard to join in with any meaningful discussion. Oh well, I expect to be both stimulated and annoyed! That's what usually seems to happen to me. ;)

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Last.fm streaming going subscription only or shutting
So farewell then, Last.fm radio. From Tuesday 15 January 2013, most of the world loses access completely, United States, United Kingdom, and Germany retain ad-supported free access on the website but subscription only in the desktop and iPhone clients. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Brazil is subscription only.

A while ago, I did some work on a python proxy that uses the API to stream last.fm radio to things like Winamp. I imagine that will go subscription only as well.

Oh well. Streaming is apparently how we will all listen to music via Spotify, Pandora, Grooveshark, Google Play, etc. But it seems CBS (who own last.fm) can't work out how to make it pay or deal with the licensing issues outside a few countries. All a bit sad when last.fm was one of the first.

Announcement: http://www.last.fm/announcements/radio2013
Discussion: http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/2197072
Proxy http://www.last.fm/group/LastFMProxy

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[from: Google+ Posts]

J-Pop, K-Pop. So where's C-Pop?

One of those must-read articles if you're trying to make sense of 2012
world culture. http://thequietus.com/articles/11001-psy-gangnam-style-k-pop

I remember the future-rush.
It's different from the thrill of encountering a true original.
The sensation is electric but impersonal; It's about new forms not new faces; It's a much purer, harder hit.
It's the same scary-euphoric rush that the best science fiction gives: the vertigo of limitlessness.
I still believe the future is out there. (c Simon Reynolds)
It's all kicking off again. (c Paul Mason)

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Music I've failed to find in 2012

Toffler013 - DFRNT - Rising Tide / Sunflower / Triple Threat EP [Toffler]
OTE016 - DFRNT - The Big Freeze / Monday Morning EP [On The Edge]
DECA024 - Orphan101 - Patcher EP [Deca Rhythms]
Plan004 - Recondite - Plangent #004 [Plangent Records]
MAD016 - Some Truths - Midnight mornings drenched in dayglo [MAGIC + DREAMS]
Wigflex007 - Hizatron & Bashley - Discharge [Wigflex]
ABTV001 - Moodymanc - Tuck [Abstract Theory]
BW06 - Aidan Baker With Richard Baker - Smudging [Backwards]
MMAKEU01 U - Eah / Evil Spirits / Haunted / Heaven [Man Make Music]
Nocow - Yule [styrax]
FRJ014 - Geiom - Glesprin EP [Frijsfo Beats]
KING015 - A Thousand Years – Farmers in Fields of Stars [King Deluxe]
Syron - Waterproof

I suppose I could try and buy some of them. But then they may not be worth listening to or they may drop into my lap some time in the new year.
[from: Google+ Posts]

Will Self on Radio4 - A Point of View. Nostalgia Ain't What It Used To Be!

Saw/heard this and thought of Retromania[1] and Hauntology[2]. A 10 minute essay on how nostalgia is an affectation of the young because they have so little of it. Touching on familiar territory about the digital availability of all of history and the ever-accelerating tempo of the news cycle.

words: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20726824#
audio: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p7hf3
Source blog: http://will-self.com/2012/12/14/a-point-of-view-digital-
past/
[1] http://retromaniabysimonreynolds.blogspot.co.uk/
[2] http://www.scoop.it/t/hauntology

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[from: Google+ Posts]

I'm seeing more and more of these around London and the SE of the UK. Bins made of clear plastic bin liner so you can see what's in the rubbish. I have this horrible feeling that this is an anti-terrorist, anti-riot thing allied to public safety announcements about reporting unattended baggage. It makes me want to fantasise about dropping a smoke grenade into them, except that of course the heat would mean it would just burn straight through the bin liner. 

There's a delightfully "New Aesthetic" comment at the bottom of the tumblr post with reference to "the bin icon doesn't resemble the actual bin" "Failed skeuomorphism. We need... [a,sic] catchy word for that."

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Drummage
Simon Reynolds has called for examples of drummage here.[1]
This is about the human body possessed by rhythm, but more than that, about musicians who are physically close, sharing the same space, joining together in the moment to build that mundane miracle, a groove.

Every decade or so, some westerners re-discover what happens out in the desert in the northern Sahara of Morocco and especially up around the Atlas mountains. People like William Burroughs, Brian Jones, Ginger Baker and in this recording, Rebop Kwaku Baah, the percussionist from Traffic. This record has haunted me since I first heard it. I foolishly lent my vinyl copy to a friend that I lost touch with before I could get it back. 30 years later or so, I found an MP3 rip. Occasionally, some of the musicians get persuaded to go on the road and turn up in London or Paris for a few concerts before disappearing again.

So close your eyes, and imagine yourself by the camp fire in the middle of the desert. There's a bunch of desert people of all ages from apprentice kids to wizened old holy fools. The drum circle has been going for a few hours and it'll keep going for another few hours. People wander in, play for a bit and then wander out when they get tired.

Every one knows the way the rhythms develop but it's an exercise in group think and improvisation. Nothing's written down or pre-determined. There's no sign of 4-4 or even western style bars but there's a groove and it can take you to the stars.

REEBOP KWAKU BAAH & GANOUA . TRACK : RIF ZEF ZEF

[1]http://blissout.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/all-talk-of-10th-anniversaries-and-40th_11.html

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[from: Google+ Posts]

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And the first contributions are in from the drummage cru.
http://blissout.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html

Drummage, part the second:- http://blissout.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/drummige-cru-2.html. This contains a somewhat bizarre comment about me. Julian Bond at Voidstar with a really unusual pick that momentarily makes me understand why Can invited him to join the band. Err, what? Have I got an evil twin or alter-ego that was invited by Can to join them? Is this a joke that I simply don't get?

From the "Truth is stranger than fiction" desk.
Bio-engineered cyanobacteria squeezing "blue petroleum" from its colonies and then selling the high-value algal by-products as nutritional supplements, such as omega-3 fatty acids.

So far so good but what happens when the encrypted gene sequences cross into human gut E.Coli and we get human spontaneous combustion, eh?

Apocalypse. It's so much easier in the real world. Ah Peter Watts, I love your sense of SciFi humour. Now hurry up and release the next Blindsight book.
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=3813

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Digital remixes of 9 year old CDs
Finding this just a little strange. Four Tet's curation of Late Night Tales was one of the better editions in that series, back in the day. But does it really justify a digital remaster/reissue just 9 years later? Surely just a professional quality rip to 320kb or 192kb vbr is all that's needed. Or is this a retromania, hauntology and cynical attempt to capitalise on people spending money on buying all the same music again in yet another format. Or to capitalise on Four Tet's current rising stock and brand in the music scene.

What are we to make of a curated mix set in these days of people buying single tracks instead of whole albums? Or avoiding buying music directly by streaming it from Spotify or Youtube. And £8.99-> £14.99!!! really? I only discovered this because it turned up on one of the russian file-locker monitoring blogs. Free beats 15 quid, any day. But then Amazon is charging 11.50 for the CD and 5.50 for the MP3s. Truly, music pricing makes little or no sense these days.

http://www.discogs.com/mp3/Four-Tet-Various-Late-Night-Tales-Four-Tet-Remastered/1915601

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[from: Google+ Posts]

The Copyright Industry is trying to kill the (UK) Pirate Party
http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/help

What this is all about
http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Reverse_proxy_of_The_Pirate_Bay
http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Richard_O%27Dwyer
http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/wiki/Main_Page

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[from: Google+ Posts]

It's Music of the Year time. And Burial-Kindred is going to be in a lot of those lists. So here's what I wrote at the time.

New Burial EP. Everybody else is talking about it so I'd better as well

The world and their dog are falling over themselves to write some pretentious rubbish about Burial's latest EP, "Kindred". So much so that Quietus has a competition for the best Pseud's Corner entry.
http://thequietus.com/articles/07997-burial-pseud-quotes
http://www.facebook.com/questions/339833632727100/?qa_ref=ssp

Personally, my favourite quote was in the comments on the YouTube video of the middle track, "Loner".

@Gwotch Skrillex > Bural @loltrev if he's? so good, so why he can't make a proper drop hahahaha
onlyrealDubstep - 1 day ago

Which I think you'll agree pretty much sums up the state of music appreciation in early 2012, doesn't it? Or at least music appreciation on Youtube.

Meanwhile, my immediate reaction after downloading the files was "Did I get a bad rip or something? Why's there so much hiss, static and noise all over everything?" I had exactly the same problem with the two releases from Clams Casino last year; Instrumentals and Rainforest. There's clearly something going on there that's worth listening to. But it's submerged in lo-fi noise. So much so that I got a friend to throw over the uncompressed FLACs just to check but they sounded exactly as bad as my MP3s. Apparently, it's actually supposed to sound like that. At which point I go, 'wut?'

Anyway back to Burial - Kindred. If you can get past the gratuitously low production values (I'm sorry. Cheap shot!), we've apparently got to a point where Burial sounds like a bad copy of a Burial Clone copy. Which is really quite sad because for a while now there's been a gushing rush of Burial Clones some of which are really quite good. Except there's only so much drum track based on a 19th century shuttle loom, compressor hiss pump and heavily reverbed vocals that have been auto-tuned, pitchshifted, chopped and diced that you can listen to. And here we are with one last pressing from the batch of cider apples. Up to this point, you could enjoy the copies, then go back and listen to Burial and realise that he just plain did it better. He still is, but it's got to the point where this particular batch of apples has no juice left in them.

So we're left with the cliche "it sounds like a wasted post-club journey home, with the night's music still ringing in your ears"
http://thequietus.com/articles/07964-burial-kindred-hyperdub-urban-explorer
at which point I want to repeat the sentiments here. Why is so much of the music we listen to so bleak
http://thequietus.com/articles/07838-the-new-bleak
in part because it accompanies the insidious sense of 'We're all fucked' that's been steadily growing in the wake of several rounds of savage, self-interested government action.

I tried to get home, but I couldn't find the night bus stop. It's only an hour's walk if I can just walk in the right direction. Think I'll just sit here for a bit with my can of beer. So it's music to share an early Sunday morning park bench with in the heart of a financial district wasteland in a 28 days later (or Shaun of the Dead) out-take.

Yeah, that's about right, innit.

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White Noise: Burial – Kindred »
UK producer Burial is as close as you get to Dance royalty, and I have to admit I wasn't relishing the task of attempting to articulate my thoughts on his new release. Since he put out Untrue in 2...

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+Marco Horvers My post was quite the rant, wasn't it! ;) After a few more listens, it's all growing on me. And clearly there is a LOT going on in the mix. And perhaps that's what sets him apart from his imitators.

The other thing going on here is that I've been on a 8 week UK Bass downloading and exploring binge. So I've lost track of just how many times I've heard that wonky 'shuttle loom' drum track. So hearing it again on this latest version was a little confusing because I'm sure I'd heard it recently on a Late or Synkro (or was it Koreless, or BNJMN, or ) tracks, which in turn had been sampled and ripped from earlier Burial stuff.

Clearly the IDM end of dubstep encourages an intelligent, intellectual appreciation so Pseud's Corner is forgiveable and hardly surprising. This really isn't intended for the middle of a 3 hour set at 3am when everyone's banging, mate. And it certainly doesn't have that warm cosy feeling of curling up in a Deep House groove.?

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I was listening to Burial-Kindred; the treated vinyl hiss, the Clack-Clackity, Clack-Clackity rhythm track (also used on Ghost Hardware, way back when). When it suddenly turned into the sound of Steampunk industrial noise from a cotton mill. It's the two step shuttle going from side to side mixed in with the clacking of the treadles and the whirring and hissing of the pulleys, belts and steam. Before you could say "Tiny Tim", I'd followed a flash of cultural associations (football!); Dickens, the Hawksmoor churches[1], London street urchins and mudlarks, The Cries of London, The Artful Dodger, Peter Akroyd and London:The Biography, Neverwhere and the Angel of Islington, Oliver Twist (Please sir, can I have one more can of lager?), "consider yourself one of the family", the gin and opium dens of East London, the Whitechapel murders.

So there you go. It's not Post-Modern, Post-Industrial, Noise Music. It's actually Steampunk, Pre-Modern, Industrial-Revolution, Noise Music. And being made in London; A city with layers and layers of psycho-history to go with it's layers and layers of psycho-geography.

[1]Christ Church, Spitalfields is properly strange and well worth a visit.?

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[from: Google+ Posts]

I do like a good aphorism: Civilization is the process of turning the incomprehensible into the arbitrary.
http://feeds.ribbonfarm.com/~r/Ribbonfarm/~3/VCOWDvYQlP4/

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[from: Google+ Posts]

Critical analysis via neologisms as a way of throwing light on Retromania

Take 3 suffixes; -phobia, -philia, -mania meaning a Fear of, Love of or an Unhealthy Mania about a subject. Now apply these to the past and you have the following.

Retrophobia, Retrophobe : Retrophilia, Retrophile : Retromania, Retromaniac

This allows us to see that Simon Reynolds' ongoing obsession with the Retromania (c) tendency in western art and music looks principly at a view of the past that is an "Unhealthy Mania". A decadent view of the past that simply repeats it endlessly in pattern work without adding anything new except context.

It also points out at least 2 other possible standpoints in relation to the past. Retrophilia might be a celebration of the past. Not just as a curator but perhaps also as a stepping off point but without the unhealthy obsession. This is the positive, non-decadent counterpoint to the negative, decadent practice of Retromania.

For symmetry then, there is also Retrophobia; the fear of the past. Which might express itself as a denial of the past and an attempt to airbrush it out of existence. So for instance some aspects of Modernism can be seen as Retrophobic. Similarly the practice of re-writing history. In cultural terms, the unfortunate habit of Hollywood to re- write history so that the Americans did everything might be an example of the consequences of Retrophobia.

That neatly dispatches several possible reactions to the past. What about the future?

Neophobia, Neophobe : Neophilia, Neophile : Neomania, Neomaniac

First, Neophobia or Fear Of Change. conservatism with a small c that wants to keep things as they are. There's often a relationship here with Retrophilia that wants to return to the certainties that our parents represented when we were too young to know better. Or to a rose tinted golden age of early adulthood when you mistook the shock of the new for enduring value.

The counterpoint is then Neophilia: Love of the New. Embracing progress and change and taking pleasure in each new experience. It might be easy (for a neophile!) to portray this as almost wholely positive. But of course it can easily slip into one-up-manship. The hipster cliche of "I was into them before they were famous". Or the failure of full appreciation in the too rapid discard of each item because of the next "ooh shiny" moment.

Which brings us to Neomania: The Unhealthy Obsession with the New. This can be child like where a short attention span means that the latest toy is thrown out of the pram for being boring. It can also have almost vampyric quality when aplied to artists where we consumers demand to be made to feel the same way we felt when we first ecountered an artists work. It can also result in the "Rapture of the Nerds".

Simon Reynolds again. Here's some classic neo-mania in the final words of the book of Retromania: "I remember the future-rush. It's different from the thrill of encountering a true original. The sensation is electric but impersonal; It's about new forms not new faces; It's a much purer, harder hit. It's the same scary-euphoric rush that the best science fiction gives: the vertigo of limitlessness. I still believe the future is out there."

As if that wasn't enough, there's also the suffix -phagy literally meaning "to eat" or "eating". So for instance, Anthropophagy is usually a euphemism for Cannibalism. Literally the eating of humans. But it's been used by an Art school in Brazil as a metaphor for eating cultural references in the Anthropophagista. I suspect they should really have called themselves Sociophagists but then this was the 20s of Surrealism so perhaps the implied real Cannibalism as well as metaphorical cannibalism was deliberate. If we apply the same suffix to rerto and neo we have Retrophagy and Neophagy. Putative artistic movements or standpoints that eat past and future influences, ruminating and regurgitating them to produce something new. I'm not sure how real this is but I think there's still plenty to explore for another day. Even though Retrophagy is a pretty ugly word!
[from: Google+ Posts]

Is the Earth Fxxkered?
I'm writing this a lot lately. Please go back and re-read "The Limits To Growth" along with the 20 and 30 year updates. Here's the TL;DR. version. Yes, this cycle of the Anthroposcene is fucked. If the decline in resources don't get you, the increase in pollution will. All the models show massive overshoot followed by a massive crash in the systems. The only question is whether it's our children or our great grand-children who have to cope with hitting the wall.
http://io9.com/5966689/after-extensive-mathematical-modeling-scientist-declares-earth-is-fucked

Enjoy it while you can.

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[from: Google+ Posts]