Author: ojdo

Pokett – [2004] Your Picture Here

Stephane Garry is the man behind the name Pokett, having released this wonderful 4 track EP on the Sundays in Spring netlabel. It is all about dreamy folk music and ears full of emotional guitar chord carpets. Forget Jack Johnson or Conor Oberst, I like this album much better. It reminds me a bit of…

Wed, 10th Feb 2010
Various Artists – [2004] Swingin’ Singles

The Comfort Stand netlabel is one of the strangest out there. It doesn’t focus on experimental sound in the sense of noise, bleep and clicking sounds, but in terms of a colourful mixture of artists, genres and styles. One song is a typical pop song, the next one would fit a ghost ride or seems…

Wed, 27th Jan 2010
Various Artists – [2008] So Much Achieved. So Much Left To Do.

This album is the 50th release of the netlabel 12rec. from Germany. It covers the range of the label which mainly publishes experimental guitar music with a touch of folk. 17 different tracks wait to be discovered. I present my three favourites in the following.

Wed, 20th Jan 2010
Visit to Vienna

Last week I visited Austria’s capital city for the first time in my life. While the weather was not very pleasing — to say the least — Vienna itself kept its promise. It has a historic centre with many magnificent buildings like the “Burg” theatre, the opera. The town hall resembles a church with its…

Wed, 13th Jan 2010
DESERTEC studies: MED-CSP

This article originates from a presentation given by Hani El Nokraschy, one of the leading persons of the DESERTEC foundation. He presented the foundation’s vision towards a sustainable generation of electrical energy and drinking water around the Mediterranean Sea for Europe, Africa and the Middle East. His presentation covered the three main studies called MED-CSP,…

Wed, 30th Dec 2009
Desktop Wallpapers II

Time for a new batch of desktop wallpapers. This time I have switched the resolution to 1920×1080. The “texture” series are slightly to strongly edited photos from single-coloured objects. I hope you enjoy them.

Fri, 25th Dec 2009
Hardstroke – [2009] In Front Of The See Through Eye

Merry Christmas! This release doesn’t at all sound like snow flakes or a silent night, but is a furiously vibrant example of a fusion of extremes. Rock guitars, electronic chord clouds, funky bass lines, disco-like beats seamlessly blend together to a very distinct listening experience which casts feelings of euphoria and nostalgia. But just listen…

Thu, 24th Dec 2009
Ceilings

I collect some types of very specific photos. One of them are photos of rooms’ ceilings. Over the years I took many boring, but also some interesting pictures. Rotunde was taken in the museum “Pinakothek der Moderne” in Munich. It is so adorable on a sunny day. Next comes Blue steel from “Zenith” in Munich,…

Wed, 25th Nov 2009
Stay Ali – [2009] Vati Vati EP

Stay Ali is a trio from Sweden founded in 2006 by then 15-year-old guys. They produce an energetic mix of techno, electro and disco music. They remind me of Fatboy Slim; especially this release sounds like it was influenced by Justice. If you want some good dance music for a party, get this album! But…

Wed, 18th Nov 2009
Macro photography

As my compact digital camera (a Fujifilm Finepix F100fd) lacks a big zoom lens I have to exploit its strengths: a wide angle lens. It plays out its advantage on group photos in small closed rooms and in macro photography. Suitable victims to train how to take macro photos are flowers: Pretty, colourful and —…

Wed, 11th Nov 2009
Amish82 – [2009] Shovels And Cava

Phew, what a nice electro release! Amish82 remind me heavily of The Knife and Fischerspooner. While this release is very simplistic in construction, the resulting arrangements sound surprisingly rich and danceable. Some kind of “flaw” are the remix version tracks (6-15) while there are only five original tracks. But those five tracks deliver enough quality…

Wed, 4th Nov 2009
How to use custom-made Themes under Windows XP/Vista/7

Deskmodding is the art or the act of customizing the appearance of the graphical user interface. Usually this is done on the level of the operating system, but there are also single applications that allow to modify their appearance by so-called skins. For the operating system Windows it is not possible to easily change the…

Wed, 28th Oct 2009
Using Funambol to sync Thunderbird(s) and Windows Mobile phone

This is an article explaining how to synchronise one calendar (+tasks) and one address book of two PCs with Thunderbird (Lightning plugin for calendar) and a Windows Mobile phone. It is based on the open source synchronisation server Funambol and needs one of the computers to act as a server. The advantage to other solutions…

Wed, 21st Oct 2009
Munich glows

Once in a while it is good to have the camera with me nearly all the time: one day I rode back home in the evening and passed by a sports field which was illuminated. The sun just had set behind the horizon and the sky was still in a dark blue colour. The yellowish…

Wed, 14th Oct 2009
The appeal of scepticism

The philosopher Bertrand Russell states in an article written (but not published) for a magazine in 1952: If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add…

Wed, 7th Oct 2009