Apple set to launch 'HD' music files

Apple has apparently been in talks with record companies about new ways of 'enhancing the quality of song files it sells and possibly charging a premium rate for the high fidelity tracks'.

Music is usually recorded in studios in a 24-bit audio format but most tracks are reduced to 16 bits to be put onto CDs. This is still uncompressed ie all the recorded information is still present but at a slightly lower quality.

Mp3s are made smaller still - often they are a tenth the size of the original recording, and although clever algorithms are used to disguise this data compression as much as possible, the sound quality is significantly worse. The public, though, has been trained by the music industry over the last few years to find this crap quality acceptable.

Jimmy Iovine, Chairman of the dinosaur Universal Music Group said recently: ‘We are trying to fix the degradation of music the digital revolution has caused. It’s one thing to have music stolen through the ease of digital processing but it’s another to destroy the quality of it. That’s happening on a massive scale.’

Holy shit. Firstly, there's the tired old mantra slipped in there about 'stealing' of music and then he tries to blame some un-named other person for the fact that mp3s are essentially shit compared with uncompressed audio. Who is selling the mp3s? Oh, yes - his label. Rather than Universal deciding to stop selling this music with its 'destroyed quality', they are clearly happy to continue selling it but use this as an excuse to sell the same music again at decent quality but bump the prices up.

Radiohead's critically aclaimed (but actually predictable and tedious) new album was released in 24 bit format this month. Good for them, though, in one sense. Finally, the public can get hold of music at a quality near to that heard in the recording studio. I see no reason, though, why Universal or Apple or anyone at all should be bumping prices up. Greedy, thieving bastards, the lot of them. A forward thinking label would say: 'We're going to release everything at 24 bit and at current prices'. They'd probably make a fat profit for a while before the music industry bandwagon-jumpers followed suit a year later.

It's still unclear from the limited information whether Apple are planning 24 bit but compressed audio (sort of a super mp3) or 24 uncompressed audio (WAV quality) which would be vastly superior. Let's hope they make the right decision, selling at a sensible price. Let's hope the big four fossil record companies don't scupper it by being as resistant to progress as they always are.

Jack boots or ecstacy?

Can music change the world? Can it change anything at all? It's a question that's been asked many a time, with various answers. I'm one of those who believes that music is capable of affecting a change in our culture.

Music effects the emotions while bypassing the intellect. Ponder that for a moment.

This fact is both the source of music's incredible power and also it's great weakness. It can be used destructively, such as when we see stirring marches used to stir populations into believing all the militaristic bollocks spouted by governments the world over while shiny-booted troops march up and down, or it can be used to heal, whether by expressing the depths of desolation (for example, old delta blues from the American deep south) or when making people forget their daily grind by dancing all night in a club.

How can we harness the positive side of music's two-sided power? I think maybe music we create can only express what's already in the musician to be expressed; miserable gits can only produce miserable git music. Well centred people can make music that lifts others up and inspires them - even if it is a blues tune expressing pain. That is music's great paradox.

Gnawa Zone

PCP#339... Welcome To The Gnawa Zone...



The latest edition of the PC Podcast features interviews with various members of Secret Archives of the Vatican and the Broken Drum Records/BDR Dancefloor collective, recorded in Marrakech in mid February. We talk about all kinds of things including our new dancefloor orientated label, cunningly named BDR Dancefloor.

Listen to the podcast HERE.


Pete Cogle interviews the Talking Dog

Tracks

1. Tinariwen - Tamatant Tilay
2. Texture - The Dawn View
3. Secret Archives of the Vatican - Old Codger Dub
4. Singletrack - Nightmare
5. Unknown - Traditional Gnawa Music
6. Nicola Lionfish (Dubbed by the Talking Dog) - ABC Dub
7. Secret Archives of the Vatican - Bint Al Wazir

Gnawa musicians in Marrakech

DubZealand - review

DubZealand: bass culture music... is a new compilation from (the clue's in the name) New Zealand. Compiled by Jstar and Dr Cat, it has fourteen tracks that cover the spectrum from fairly traditional rootsy dub to some poppy reggae and a couple of tunes that slide into dubstep territory. Here in the northern hemisphere we're pretty much unaware of the NZ music scene but it seems we're missing out on some good stuff! Green Queen Music have done us a mighty favour by making this top quality music available on a CD and download release.

Standout tracks are Big Up Riddim by Dub Terminator, a head-nodding slab of steppers riddim, Dem Only Know by Rhombus in Dub, which has a slight electronica feel and Unitone HiFi's Up To Eleven which captures an old school rootsical vibe with aplomb. International Observer (amazingly, an ex-member of the Thompson Twins) brings some Eastern flavour with Popcorn (Bombay Dub Orchestra Opium Den remix). Jefferson Belt's The Creeping Tings of the Earth has a strange Rasta-inflected vocal but is also quite poppy. Give Some Dub by The Nomad ventures successfully into vocal dubstep/triphop territory. The whole album is great, though, and well sequenced and works as an old-style continuous listen.

The album is available as a download from Junodownload HERE.

Tracks

1. Struggler's Dub - The Black Seeds
2. Big Up Riddim - Dub Terminator
3. Dem Only Know (Dem Only Dub Mix) - Rhombus in Dub
4. Up To Eleven - Unitone HiFi
5. Arms Over Jordan (Deep Fried Dub Remix) - The Red Eyes
6. Popcorn (BDO Opium Den Remix) - International Observer
7. The Creeping Tings of the Earth - Jefferson Belt
8. Lady Love (Richie Price Instrumental Mix) - Sola Rosa feat Bajka
9. Give Some Dub - The Nomad
10. Sing it to Me (Tikidub Sings It - Tiki Taane Remix) - Knights Of The Dub Table
11. Haunted Out-take (Interlude) - Interlude - Sola Rosa
12. South of the Line - Pitch Black
13. Collie Herb Man (Joost Langveld & Roger Perry Reactor Dub) - Katchafire
14. Blessting - Jstar & Dr Cat

Transnational Dubstep - review

Dubstep is a strange beast. Some believe it to have gone the way of the dinosaurs or of telex machines - extinct but having evolved into other, more highly developed species, much as mammals and birds evolved from earlier reptilian ancestors. Others don't see it that way, believing it to be thriving, morphing into ever more sub-genres and influencing mainstream music more than ever before. Perhaps these are, in fact, exactly the same thing. As it dies, it creates more life, perpetuating a cycle of death and rebirth.

Here in Croydon, the Cronx, dubstep's birthplace, the genre has generally been devoid of any such philosophising. However, as dubstep's bastard offspring spread around the world they breed with other musical species and produce beautiful hybrids that demand some thought, some conceptual framework to explain their existence. Here in the Secret Archives, we've long loved musical forms from around the world and we discovered dubstep about three years back (I know, we're always late...). We've been attempting in our own music to bring both ends of our musical interests together but our friends over at Generation Bass have compiled an entire album of amazing, creative, genre-defying music called Transnational Dubstep. They say it's the first major compilation to document the fusion of dubstep and global roots music and its fifteen tracks show influences from all over the globe, from the Balkans to China, from India to Japan and the Middle East - and there's even some Cumbia bringing some South American flavours to the mix.

So, is there a unifying force that has brought these disparate artists and styles together? I'm not sure there is, other than the enthusiasm of people like DJ Umb and his Generation Bass musical partner Vincent Koreman. They're found that artists all over the world are paying no attention to genre boundaries and are blending traditional musical forms from their own cultures and others with cutting edge electronica and transnational dubstep is the result. The tracks on this eminently listenable album are certainly eclectic in their sources but the overall collection works incredibly well as a continuous listening experience.

There are some highlight tracks for me: Shem's Only Human opens with what sounds like a Santoor or a Qanoon and then brings in some utterly filthy squelchy wobble. Yeah! Engine Earz Experiment's Kaliyuga has been around for a little while but sounds as destructively awesome now as when I first heard it some months back. It has an immensely catchy riff that leads into some beautifully raspy bass synth lines while staying evocatively melodic. Undertow in G# by Alexis K features a menacing bass drone over some beautiful broken beats. There's some head-nodding sufi dub from Celt Islam with Dub Reflex, featuring tablas over a grooving steppers riddim (this we like!) and Dub Gabriel -produced Salahadeen by Jajouka Soundsystem (real trance music!) brings in some chilled dubby Moroccan flavours - this we also like very much.

The other tracks are just as good as these - this compilation is cherry picked from a vast repertoire of tunes that have passed through DJ Umb's Generation Bass network of DJs, producers and musicians. Top work, Mr Umb. Well done, too, to Six Degrees Records for being willing to take a chance on a niche album and for releasing it on CD as well as a download. Some of us like to hear our music properly!


Tracks

1. India Sleeping – Mars
2. Kaliyuga – Engine Earz Experiment
3. Undertow in G# – Alexis K
4. Rude Profile – Fleck & Fish Finger
5. Cumbia Dub – Knowa Knowone
6. Clownie – Innamorati
7. Valium Gitan – SaBat' Machines
8. Only Human – Shem
9. Kamikaze – Dysphemic
10. Shiva Step – Barbarix
11. Bukkake – Syndaesia
12. Bhangra Fever – Midival Punditz
13. Brown Skin Beauty (Liquid Stranger Remix) - Bandish Projekt
14. Dub Reflex – Celt Islam
15. Salahadeen – Jajouka Soundsystem

North African Revolution Hiphop

Our thanks to Andy Kissaragi of Untimely Sound for bringing this to our attention:


Khalas Mixtape Vol 1 is a compilation of songs created by North African hip hop artists from Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, who have emerged as voices of recent uprisings and calls for protest. Mish Ba3eed, or 'not far', refers to the sense of solidarity that these youth feel across borders, the similarities of their causes and the oppressors they face,l their physical proximity and the sense that our ultimate goal is within sight. Each song describes the unique circumstances of each artist's country, carrying with it the subtleties of local dialects, but also highlights the extraordinary similarities of their struggles.

Download it from HERE.



(This is a dropbox link - if it is oversubscribed it may shut down....if so, I will try to find an alternative link).

Ok....try this link: Khalas Mixtape

Godin MultiOud at NAMM 2011

Here's Richard Bunze from Godin talking about some acoustic guitars but he then gets to the point and talks about the amazing MultiOud.

Check out previous posts with clips of the MultiOud being played HERE and HERE.

Hell Dub...

TDZ#92... Hell Dub...

Episode 92 of podcast meister Pete Cogle's dubtastic The Dub Zone podcast is now available!

Details HERE.

Download directly from HERE.

Tracks

1. Banshee Dub - Dubzonic
2. Minimalismi - Para
3. Dubstance - Pama International
4. The Rarest Gummy Of Them All - Earlyw~rm
5. Sound Clash - Dubsalon
6. Dub Cry - Hatman
7. Extent Of The Foot - Mildtape
8. The Train To Zion Tribute - Shan-A-Shan

Secret Archives of the Vatican Podcast 44 - Angry Ninjas

Secret Archives of the Vatican Podcast 44 - Angry Ninjas is now available from Libsyn, MixCloud and iTunes.



Tracks

1. I Put a Spell on You (MiMOSA Remix)
   Nina Simone
   http://mimosa.bandcamp.com/track/i-put-a-spell-on-you-mim0sa-remix
2. I Put a Spell on You
   Natacha Atlas
   http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000SFQHXG/ref=dm_mu_dp_trk2
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIPaZ0V5f-8
3. Eastern Liquid
   Kalya Scintilla
   http://kalyascintilla.bandcamp.com/track/eastern-liquid
4. Lost in Yamun feat. Indi Kaur
   Forensics
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEJt2qTW4K0
   http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/in-shadow/id364457168
5. Jerusalem
   Heartbeat
   http://heartbeatmusic.bandcamp.com/album/true-love-the-1st-israeli-palestinian-german-hip-hop-hudna
6. Arabian Nights
   DJ Nautinto
   http://djnautinto.bandcamp.com/track/arabian-nights
7. Way of the Symurai
   Wrexile
   http://soundcloud.com/wrexile/way-of-the-symurai
8. Like Dem Samurai
   Theonetheonlychesh
   http://soundcloud.com/theonetheonlychesh/like-dem-samurai
9. Black Samurai (Photek v Sixth Finger)
   Voidstar
   http://soundcloud.com/voidstar/black-samurai
10. Samurai Black
    Shistol
    http://soundcloud.com/shistol/shistol-samurai-black
11. Angry Ninjas
    Artem Zlobin
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Angry-Ninjas-Original-Mix/dp/B004KGE0HY
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K5r5qPFguQ
12. Kenjutsu
    Rizla
    http://soundcloud.com/einmal/rizla-kenjutsu/
13. Tibetan Bowl feat. Blender
    Mr One Two
    http://boomkat.com/downloads/365058-mr-one-two-the-lost-country