Tuesday, 6 March 2012

When the US Government Can Kill You, Explained

For those of us with fond memories of The John Peel Show...

HERE

Linton Kwesi Johnson - Chiemsee Reggae (1999)

Children’s Classics as Minimalist Posters

(Thanx Claudia!)

Hackers Steal Michael Jackson's Unreleased Tracks

Michael Jackson's entire back catalogue, including an unreleased collaboration with Will.I.AM, has been stolen by hackers.
The Sony Music archive has been infiltrated by cyber-crooks, who have illegally downloaded more than 50,000 digital files.
Record company bosses paid $250 million (£156 million) to Jackson's estate in 2010 for the catalogue, including unheard material from studio sessions when the superstar recorded Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad.
A source tells Britain's Sunday Times, "Everything Sony purchased from the Michael Jackson estate was compromised.
"It caused them to check their systems and they found the breach. There was a degree of sophistication. Sony identified the weakness and plugged the gap."
The haul is also said to include a duet with the late Freddie Mercury and Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am.
The attack was discovered weeks after hackers targeted Sony's PlayStation Network in April (11), but was only confirmed by a Sony Music representative on Saturday.
Via

Yoga and Sex Scandals: No Surprise Here

How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body

DJ Spooky - Infinite Abstraktion Mix

Tracklist:

1. Robot Working. Then Stopping
2. Radical Change - Malcolm X
3. Invaders from the Planet Sqratch (feat. DJ Qbert) - DJ Revolution vs Dj Qbert
4. Multiphonic - Dj Spooky featuring Rob Swift
5. 5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO DJ Spooky featuring The Coup (Medeski, Martin & Wood remix)
6. Volcano (Four Tet Remix) Anti-Pop Consortium
7. Bassnectar's Superstylin Smashup - Bassnectar vs Groove Armada
8. Decehall Party - DJ Xela
9. Fakir Alternate Remix - DJ Rekha (DJ Spooky remix)
10. Insh'allah - Sub Swara 11. Hold The Line (Mr Lex and Santogold) - Major Lazer
12. Hi Fidelity (Shambhala Riddim) - Sub Swara
13. Earth Break - Mr. Magic
14. Triple Trouble - The Beastie Boys
15. Big Money Comin' - Crookers
16. Aerodynamic - Daft Punk (Dj Spooky remix)
17 Michael Jackson 2 Many DJs vs DJ Spooky
18. 25 or 6 to 4 (Instrumental Track) [Karaoke In the Style of Chicago]
19. Say It Loud/Mind Power - James Brown
20. Respect - Aretha Franklin
21. Superstition - Stevie Wonder
22. Jamrock Collage - Damien Marley vs Dj Spooky
23. Anonymous Skulls - Medeski, Martin & Wood
24. Everything In Its Right Place (Dub Tribute to Radiohead) - Vitamin Dub
25. Two Face - Ticklah & Victor Axelrod

Download
Via

UK Police privatisation plans defended by senior officers

Hundreds detained after Moscow anti-Putin protest

Monday, 5 March 2012

First Listen: Krzysztof Penderecki And Jonny Greenwood

Jonny Greenwood, AUKSO Chamber Orchestra conductor Marek Mos and Krzysztof Penderecki, on stage after a 2011 concert. Photo: Marcin Olivia Soto
How do you capture the energy — both positive and negative — of the past 50 years by using instruments perfected in the 18th century and made of wood, glue and horsehair?
That challenge lies at the very heart of this album, which brings together one of rock and electronic music's superheroes, Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, with one of his own idols: the septuagenarian Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. The collection features two string pieces written by the elder composer, 1960's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and 1961's Polymorphia for 48 strings, juxtaposed with two of Greenwood's similarly set answers to Penderecki's work: Popcorn Superhet Receiver (inspired by Threnody) and 48 Responses to Polymorphia. Here, they both choose to use a seemingly antiquated vehicle — orchestral strings — to convey the noise, chaos and energy of our time. The results are ear-tingling.
Penderecki is an idol to Greenwood: In a recent charming joint interview with the London Guardian, Greenwood describes the unlikely duo's first meeting: "I shook his hand after a concert like a sad fan-boy." But there's no fan-boyism here: What we hear on this album is a meeting of two artistic visionaries connected in a real dialogue, the decades separating their work and their chronological ages all but collapsed and deflated. Recorded in Kraków after a joint performance of their music last September, the performances are by Poland's AUKSO Ensemble with the composers' direct oversight; Penderecki conducted his own scores, while violinist, chamber musician and conductor Marek Moś led the group for Greenwood's pieces.
Penderecki's Threnody originally carried a thoroughly abstract and deliberately unevocative title: 8'37" (a nod to composer John Cage's infamous 4'33"); it was only after the piece premiered that Penderecki linked his work explicitly to the horror of the atom bomb, though the piece's howls of anguish, expressed in all kinds of screams, rumbles and wails, speak clearly enough. The title change struck some observers as an opportunistic move, but the piece's popularity — and Penderecki's renown — skyrocketed after the name switch.
Written in 2005 with 34 individual string parts, and written as a response to Threnody, Greenwood's Popcorn Superhet Receiver takes its name and inspiration from shortwave radio: It's the sharply articulated chaos of 34 individuals often going on their own trajectories, not the tightly controlled, gleaming unified mass that one might traditionally associate with classical players.
Penderecki's Polymorphia also had a fascinating birth. The composer played a recording of Threnody for patients with mental illnesses at the Krakow Medical Center while the patients had encephalographs (brain-wave charts) made; he then based Polymorphia's musical lines around the shapes on their charts. In his reply to Polymorphia, Greenwood takes up that big, glorious and triumphant C Major chord — and then shatters that harmonic glow into smithereens. He begins with a strangely Bach-reminiscent chorale ("Es Ist Genug," or "It Is Enough," which is also the name of a famous Bach chorale) that Greenwood then distorts and dissolves over and over again. He builds tension and lets it drain away, takes up an idea and then lets it go in swirling eddies of motion.
Anastasia Tsioulcas @'npr'