Music

Michael Formanek -- the Rub and Spare Change Rudresh Mahanthappa & Bunky Green -- Apex

A while back, some head-caser (I forget who) made some disparaging remarks about ambient, IDM, and drum n bass. While it is far beyond my abilities to defend Monotonous Snare Music, I do have a keen interest into the other genres. "IDM" (Intelligent Dance Music) is kind of a misnomer at this point, as virtually none of it is remotely danceable. The truth is "IDM" meant something quite different in the first half of the 90s, when it served to differentiate from dance music that was more than insipid house music or moronic raver noise like (shudder) happy hardcore. I used to read the IDM mailing list on hyperreal.org. They had a keen "IDM" logo in the style of IBM. Sa…

This was an idea suggested by Voltskool at the end of last semester. Instead of posting when I'm on the air in Slow Forum, I'm going to bump this thread with the appropriate links. If there are any other HCers who do webcasts or anything similar, feel free to post about them in here. Old code because I'm busy DJing and don't have time to fix it: Sup, Heads? My radio show is on the air right now, in Case you wanted to listen.

Lossless Streaming Music Service WiMP , now comes to the UK/US as Tidal. http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/09/03/tidal Which is handy given that Qobuz has filed for the French Equivalent of Chapter 11 protection

Head-Case ? Group at Last.fm The group is set to member approval, so once you apply any current member will be able to accept you. last.fm basically tracks what you listen to after you download the plugin for foobar2000, Winamp or iTunes. It then creates a weekly listened to top artists, and overall top artists. If you apply to the group the fastest way to get accepted- reply to this thread.

Since the Darkest Desires thread never went over well (I think the name turned some people off ), and I know there are a few of you who have a rather extensive music collection, I am curious to see if anything has changed from the old Desires threads back on HF. Any new favorite albums or recent discoveries? I know there is the "What are you listening to" thread, but that is a little light on the info and not specific. Here are a few albums that have been getting some serious playing time lately: Mar de Grises Melodic Doom/Death Metal from Chile. While I love Swallow the Sun's first three albums, I have no idea why this band has not overtaken their popularit…

And which ones do you plan on attending in the future? Myself, I never found time to go to a lot of concerts, but I'm hoping to change that now that I've got time and money. Before I moved to Houston though, I was lucky enough to see Pearl Jam on my last night in the 'Burgh Eddie was really feeling the crowd, and went through 2 bottles of wine and played for about 2 and a half hours. September 11th I finally get to see Tool

With all the great analysis videos out there is it time for a separate thread?

Thought it might be useful to have a thread on music related articles clogging the tubes. I'll start with... When Country Was King: Before Nashville, Southern California Served As Ground Zero For Honky-Tonk - http://ow.ly/5voKi

Is it possible that there is not a dedicated podcast thread yet? https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/

In case this virus lasts a few more years, maybe time for a dedicated virtual concert thread? Besides the wonderful SFJAZZ Fridays at Five and SFOpera's weekend streaming, there's also an interesting Nick Cave show today. IDIOT PRAYER: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace

Please post any interesting music or performance videos. I'll start with... [url=http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/astonishing_performance_by_a_venezuelan_youth_orchestra_1.html]Gustavo Dudamel leads El Sistema's Teresa Carre

I didn't know where to put this, but they're re-releasing the Blu-ray disc: https://www.thesdeshop.com/products/tears-for-fears-the-hurting-limited-edition-sde-exclusive-blu-ray-audio The surround disc was originally released in 2023 (I haven't heard it) - every so often, I like to dive down that audiophile remastering rabbit hole 🐇🕳️ (one commenter mentions listening on a sound bar on page 6): https://www.thesdeshop.com/products/tears-for-fears-the-hurting-limited-edition-sde-exclusive-blu-ray-audio Comparison: https://magicvinyldigital.net/2024/02/11/tears-for-tears-the-hurting-review-test-vinyl-records-1983-2019-abbey-road-studios-2023-cd-1983-1999-amazon-mus…

A couple years ago I finally remembered that my DAC can decode hi-res digital so I got a bunch of music to see if 24/96 and SACD were any better than plain old CD. The results have been mostly disappointing for me, most of the hi-res recording sound different but not really any better than the standard CD versions; I don't get the extra space, realism, details, and sweeter highs that hi-res proponents claim to hear. I've tried a lot of different genres from jazz & classical to metal and I'd say only around 10-15% of the music is better enough to make the hi-res version worth it, the rest of it is either marginal improvements or just different but not better. Ov…

Yeah, I know this has been done to death on other sites, so hear me out. I could care less about the Hoffman forum diatribes of musical greatness and shit like that. I frequently read the "What Are You Listening To" thread here and many other threads to see what's out there and get a feel for what many of you truly love in music. If nothing else, we get a good sense of where you are coming from musically. I figure a top five list would underscore that, and, hopefully, people find some new music to listen to. What do my favorite albums have in common? Melody, energy, dynamics, and catchy as hell riffs/choruses/solos. I have to have something to hum in my hea…

Might as well start it up. This last week: Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (previously damaged) Kaki King - Legs to Make Us Longer Kaki King - Everybody Loves You Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

While I suspect that their methodology may be a bit suspect, I like the fact that they recommend specific pressings. Just don't know (personally) where to find a list of albums with measured DR rankings, although it seems to me that I've seen that before. If anyone has a good source, please share it. Spoiler Would have never guessed that Neil Young's Harvest would have made this list. Guess maybe because most of my listens were via cassette or 8-track most likely. LOL!! https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/04/audiophile-albums-show-off-systems/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJbiBxleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHdIaG5CVJ_7HV1XInkWg-Wcl3bi5eLqEwY5TvbZI40UW4lJ_Eqj6sLgZDg…

I think there are enough of us with turntables to warrant a specific vinyl thread. After all it's not the same as streaming digital. Shirley Bassey: Good, Bad but Beautiful

As the title says. For those of you living under a rock, Bandcamp has been the single best site for artists to sell their music to discering fans for many years now. The artists get their payment immediately and the fans get their choice of DRM-free downloads formats (which is to say, FLACs). Epic Games is an at-best questionable entity that owns the money printing machine known as Fortnite and the Unreal game engine (which can be used for good or evil, but usually the latter). Epic is partially owned by Tencent, who are an arm of the Chinese government. Spoiler Would you care to purchase some Uyghur eyeballs? This is a bit like ...ca 20…

http://winamp.com

Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation - 1988 Blast First Enigma release: Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation GDC/Deluxe Edition:x` I posted these before, but they (painfully) illustrate the my point. This is a thread idea I've had for ages. In the age of the brick wall, so many remastered releases sonically inferior to previous releases. Such sins are particularly egregious in the world of classic rock, but the phenomenon plagues nearly every genre. The remaster of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works: 85-92 managed to wreck what was already a very lo-fi endeavor to start. Right now I'm trying to figure out what is the best Led Zeppelin set. I bought the original 4…

Spotify HiFi is a lossless streaming tier coming later this year https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295273/spotify-hifi-announced-lossless-streaming-hd-quality https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-22/five-things-to-know-about-spotify-hifi/ from: https://newsroom.spotify.com/stream-on/

Short note to let you know that due to lack of resources, one of the largest Yes fan sites offering loads of bootleg recordings from Yes concerts, will go offline in July. They are hosting about 3TB of Yes music. Were you interested https://yessongs.nl/

One constant among all discussions I read on audiophile fora is the back-and-forth between older enthusiasts who have spent $800 on Pet Sounds and younger enthusiasts who have spent $0 pirating video game soundtracks. I think the best way to bridge that gap is to put everyone on a level playing field. If you would, please share some examples of albums you love that were first released before you were born. For my part, here are five to get us started. 1) Ahmad Jamal: Chamber Music of the New Jazz This is a phenomenal recording, showing really thoughtful playing by Jamal. I'm particularly fond of the rhythmic tapping and string plucking he employs t…