02
Oct
2011
Colida – [2006] Eyes Shut and Ears Wide Open
Colida is a hard alternative rock band. And pretty good at it. This release at the German netlabel analog und ehrlich was recorded in 2005 in Oldenburg and is Colida’s third album. It only has four tracks, but those are worth the download. Fast, driving riffs, dry drums and a great voice — what else can one want? Read on for the download link and a preview of my two favourite tracks.
17
Sep
2011
Derek Clegg – [2011] Beautiful World
This album is so conventional that it’s almost boring. It has the default Pop-Rock instrumentation, that familiar singer-songwriter sound and unsurprising song structures. But hey, that does not have to be bad. Especially when it sounds as good as on this release by DIY Musicians.
Like always, two commented preview tracks await you below, together with a download link awaiting your click.
17
Sep
2011
Carlo Serafini – [2011] Gammatar
Why always stick to the boring, twelve-halftones-per-octave, well-tempered diatonic scale? That’s what Wendy Carlos (creator of the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece Clockwork Orange) might have thought when inventing his muscic scales Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.
Carlo Serafini took the Gamma scale, tune his guitar and recorded nine songs with this tuning. The sound is strangely familiar, yet uncommon and irritating. Better listen and find out yourself…
15
Aug
2011
Coloured desktop wallpapers
Just a new batch of colourful desktop wallpapers in the usual (1920×1080 pixels) resolution. The blue waves were photographed in a shop window in Prinzregentenstraße, Munich. The green leaves are from Frankfurt, behind the Museum für Angewandte Kunst. The yellow lamp is the decoration in a small restaurant in Barcelona. The red picture is a lamp in someone’s apartment. Top of the wall is from Luitpoltpark, Munich again.
15
Aug
2011
Zillertal mountain hike
Last weekend, I went on a mountain hike with my camera. Fortunately it didn’t rain, so I could take many photos of rocks, mountains and the sky. We started Friday evening, walking for three hours before arriving at the hut Alpenrose where we stayed for the night. The next day we had big plans: climbing up Schönbichler Horn and descending to the Schleigeisspeicher storage lake (above).
06
Jul
2011
Pretty Lights
Usually I only write reviews of music that is hosted on the Internet Archive, from time to time I have to make an exception to this self-imposed rule. Remix artist Pretty Lights from Colarado, USA, has distilled a glitchy style of sampled instrumental hip hop with disco attitude. Fortunately, I found two of his tracks available for direct streaming, so read on and decide yourself if you want to add this artist to your collection…
24
May
2011
ojdb – a free music streaming site
After weeks of beta-testing, I finally publish the link to my new project ojdb. It is an in-browser music player like deezer, spotify or grooveshark, except for two differences: First, it contains only about 2800 3100 tracks at the moment (compared to millions). Second and more important, all tracks are released to under a Creative Commons license (compared to copyrighted commercial tracks). That means, distributing of the music is allowed as long as the artist is credited.
17
May
2011
More white desktop wallpapers
You would not guess which search terms bring most visitors to my page: all combinations of the word white and wallpaper. Unsurprisngly, my post on white desktop wallpapers is the most visited page of my blog. So I thought I better publish more pictures like that… The first two images are from Munich (Allianz Arena, Pinakothek der Moderne), the other three are from Barcelona (airport and museum of modern art). As all my wallpapers, they are in 1920×1080 (1080p) resolution.
04
May
2011
Barcelona by night
While the harbour looks great in the night, the valuable coastline next to the city is occupied by concrete, cranes and industry. The first two photos show both freight and passenger docks. The city itself is quite photogenic, thanks to bright lighting and organically grown buildings. The Plaça d’Espanya is one of Barcelona’s traffic nodes in the north-west. The cheapest connection to the airport (bus line 46) departs here. La Rambla is the main promenade, connecting Plaça Catalunya to the coast at Port Vell.
