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The Easton Ellises – [2012] EP Two
80’s Pop with New Wave. Having proven their disco-suitability with their previous release (review of The Easton Ellises – [2011] EP One) at netlabel Enough Records, this sequel comes as a pleasant surprise. Without deviating from the success recipe, this EP delivers danceable music by truck.
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Crepusculum – [2009] Sing on in Silhouettes
Ambient guitars. Many of them. Strange, uncommon harmonies that sound uncannily familiar. Multiple acoustic guitars, all recorded by Fred Baty (aka Crepusculum), create a rich soundscape. Rhythmic chords and melody patterns render percussion unnecessary.
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Berlin wallpapers II
After the post Berlin wallpapers from 2011, here the second batch of assorted photos from Berlin.
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Wallpapers of Berlin morning mist
Fernsehturm Berlin offers a great view over the city. I was up there in the morning on a sunny day. A milky mist had not yet vanished, covering everything in a blurry aura. Enjoy!
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Almost black desktop wallpapers
Photographed in Berlin’s Museum of Technology.
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Reichstag dome
Trying out stuff with my new ultra-wide angle lense in a nice setting. Post-processing with GIMP. Recipe (roughly): Cropped, Resized, Layer duplicated; Top layer: Gaussian Blur (15px), Levels, Transparency; Bottom layer: Unsharp mask (radius 1, strength 0.5), Levels.
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Virt – [2003] FX EP
Classic(al) chiptunes. Virt is one of the great masters of this genre. Chiptunes are about taking the limited resources of old audio hardware and trying to bend the space of what is possible within these constraints. This EP (and it’s successor, FX 2.0) are soundtracks to imaginary NES (Nintendo Entertainment System, 1980s) games. And then…
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Rho – [2010] Cedarleaf
Unambient ambient. This release raised the bar for me when it comes to “memorizing” what it sounds like. Should I put it into the ambient category? Or eclectic electronica? Cinematic orchestrations, based on solo guitar melodies, served on a bed of electronic sounds. Not easy to classify. Listen for yourself…
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Rktic – [2003] Northern Lights LP
Frosty minimal techno. This (by online standards) antique release at the Thinner netlabel had a big part in slowly seducing me into exploring the less danceable areas of electronic music. I wonder how this album will sound to me in 30 years. It now feels quite timeless, a bit like some tracks by Kraftwerk.
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Nic Bommarito – [2009] Harp Fragments
Melancholia shoegaze in beautiful cinemascope. Think Ennio Morricone’s classical movie soundtracks, but in today’s style. The same deserted emotions, but mixed with modern post rock. 7 tracks, released at netlabel 12rec, brilliantly show that post rock can be so much more than guitar effect avalanches.
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How to git push to multiple remotes with one command
There are multiple questions with even more answers on this exact question at Stack Overflow. The simplest answer, which I failed to find again, looks like this. Add the following lines to your repo’s .git/config: [code lang=”bash”] [alias] pushall = !git push origin master && git push github master && git push remote3 master [/code]…
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Sasha Raskin – [2011] Only Music
Electronic soft rock. Jerusalem-based artist Sasha Raskin makes us a great present by releasing his debut album for free at the netlabel diym. To cite French reviewer @adiffuser: Do not rely on the efficiency and the energy of the first title to automatically store the music of Sasha Raskin in the category electro-pop mainstream.
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How to use TikZ for inline polygons
The trick is to define inner sep=0pt when beginning the tikzpicture environment, as I learned from pgf bug report #172 minimum size in regular polygon fails for small length from last year. Here is a minimum working example, adapted to my use case of inline polygon symbols with roughly text height, i.e. 2ex in my…
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Dr. Mindflip – [2014] Every Waking Moment
Quirky indie pop. Netlabel blocSonic keeps to its mission to deliver solid indie music, this time in form of swingy pop tunes. Acoustic instrumentation (drum, piano, bass, acoustic guitar) + vocals create a solid soundstage and 4 slightly eclectic songs.
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How to change the default matplotlib font
The default fonts for matplotlib are set in file matplotlibrc in the folder $USER_HOME/.matplotlib. You can find them here, depending on your operating system: Windows: C:\Users\YourName\.matplotlib\matplotlibrc Linux: /home/YourName/.matplotlib/matplotlibrc Within the file, search for the font section, and uncomment (remove the hash symbol # at beginning of line) or add the following settings as desired. In…