Wednesday 27 June 2007

HUMAN LEAGUE will perform 'DARE' in it's entirety for the very first time

Fan-bloomin-tastic!!

One of my fave albums of all time and a big influence on me so this is great news

Seen the League live twice before and it's always a seductive mix of pure synthpop genius coupled with 80's school disco nostalgia for me but this should be something special - glad I have managed to secure reasonable tickets for the Nottingham Gig - albeit 6 days after it was announced - doh

Full details on the League Online website but the gist is as follows:

Electronically Yours is delighted to reveal the 2007 dates where The Mighty League will perform 'Dare' in it's entirety for the very first time. The League's manager Simon Watson today confirmed the dates and details regarding the TBC dates should be known shortly.Tickets will go on sale this weekend though Simon is keen to stress that some venues may be slow in getting these details up so keep an eye on venue websites and other outlets such as ticketmaster.co.uk.

November
Mon 26 tbcTue 27 UK, Nottingham, Royal Concert Hall
Wed 28 tbcThur 29 Day OffFri 30 UK, Manchester, Apollo

DecemberSat 1 UK, London, Hammersmith Apollo
Sun 2 Day Off
Mon 3 UK, Stoke on Trent, Hanley Victoria Hall Tue 4 UK, Wolverhampton, Civic Hall
Wed 5 UK, Norwich, UEA
Thur 6 Day OffFri 7 UK, Sheffield, City Hall
Sat 8 Day OffSun 9 UK, Glasgow, Academy
Mon 10 UK, Perth, Horsecross Tue 11 UK, Gateshead, The Sage With thanks to Sidewinder.

Covenant - The Men (Remix Version)

Joined the 'dark side' for tonights musical entertainment - Tormented Radio are serving up a fine blend of EBM & industrial...

Stand out track so far is the superb Covenant - The Men (Remix Version) - awesome! melodic, powerful and great vocals (normally the weak point with this style of music for me)

Check out the superb (if a bit slow) Covenant website

DAVE GAHAN - New Album!

DAVE GAHAN - "HOURGLASS"
http://www.davegahan.com/news/press_release_20070626.html
It has a title! Dave's second solo album, slated for a late October release, will be titled "Hourglass". Check out the press release for some insight into the recording process, upcoming song titles, and the crew behind the album!

Look forward to that - especially as it states "HOURGLASS is more electronic-sounding than Paper Monsters"

Tuesday 26 June 2007

Autechre - Eutow

Just tuned into the superb Limbik Frequencies web radio station and they are playing 'Eutow' by Autechre - what a SUPERB track!!

Some early tracks from Autechre have left me fairly underwhelmed but this is a corker and although the album it is from, 'Tri Repetae' has been out for ages it is still on my shopping list

Worth checking out

Monday 25 June 2007

Thingamagoops

I must get me one of these!
Thingamagoops are really just simple, analog type synthesizers but I can see why the are popular....very silly....

Watch the demo or check out the site

Saturday 16 June 2007

Tycho

Just listening to the album by Tyco called "Past is Prologue" (Merck044 2006)

Superb IDM, really gentle and relaxing and although obviously falls into the bleepy IDM category somewhere, the main point of this is 'melody' and electronics, not predictable sound effects - Nice......

Check out the official website

Tuesday 12 June 2007

ABF Mix - Oliver Shine

Respect to Oliver Shine!!

Playing rocking set tonight on the monster French web radio channel ABF - massive

Tune in now!!

http://www.radioabf.net

http://www.olivershine.com

Friday 8 June 2007

Spaceman-technologies

Check this awesome site out Spaceman-technologies even 'sounds' cool!

Especially the ELECTRONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND INTERFACES

"In 2003/2004 Spaceman Technologies developed quite a number of innovative sound synthesis and electronic music controllers, sequencers and interfaces. These efforts were mainly concentrated on developing tactile instruments, sequencers and mixing desks based around the Spaceman Technologies multi-object tracking and multi-touch sensor technologies, in collaboration with Novation EMS Ltd. In addition to these projects various DSP-based sound synthesis and spectrum analysis toys and gadgets were developed such as the SoundMouse and the OpticalMicrophone."

Thursday 7 June 2007

New Hypnoticbeats website

At last I have started the task of revamping my website!

Going for a much simpler uncluttered approach using better software and taking the time to utilise photos I have taken and manipulate them for use on the site.

Hoping to get this done in the next week or so - watch this space.....

Wednesday 6 June 2007

2nd, 3rd, 4th...Life - Alternatives to the Mighty Second Life

Not content with having just the 'one' virtual life to accompany my real one, I thought I would investigate the competition........

Findings so far is that there are an increasing number of 'Virtual worlds' becoming available, each with their own personality, strengths and weaknesses. These are not simply 'online gaming worlds' like World of Warcraft and Eve Online

I haven't tried Kaneva, Dotsoul and There.com yet (the latter looking very primitive!) because there seems to be one main rival to Second Life that stands out and that's Entropia Universe
The first thing of note is that the client software is a staggering 1GB download! compared to Second Life which is only 31mb. The setup for EU is similar to SL, you start by designing your avatar then enter the world (choosing 1 of 2 initial destinations) then you are usually met by in world guides.
My first impression of EU was that the graphics, sounds and music were excellent (see load up screen below) possibly better than SL.


However being faced with a barrage of complex movement controls was disappointing and a tad frustrating, maybe ok for hardened gamers but no way as instantly usable as basic arrow keys in SL

However.... now I have started to figure it out, there are a few nifty movements which can come in useful. Here's a picture of my avatar getting help from the in world guide:
The graphics are pretty impressive:

This article gives a good comparison of Entropia Universe and Second Life
From what I have found, there seems to be more activity and research into using SL for teaching and education than EU, though that's not say the potential isn't there for EU also - especially with it's flourishing virtual economy

Entropia Universe has also just partnered With Chinese Cyber-Giant to Create a New Network Capable of Handling 7 Million Concurrent Users and $1 Billion in Commerce Annually - full details here.

It's also worth noting that Anshe Chung Studios are to Link Virtual World Economies by creating the first financial market and financial services infrastructure that spans multiple virtual worlds.

Other big players are getting involved too - there are rumours about Google turning Google Earth into a sort of Second Life competitor (according to Michael Eisenberg, a partner at Benchmark). even the BBC are planning to launch a virtual world for children called CBBCWorld
who knows where this will end - maybe in the future it will be possible to travel 'between worlds' using a 'virtual airline service' ( Maybe I should set one up....) or even when cryonics becomes of age your concious being could be transferred to a Second life avatar -hmmmm

Tuesday 5 June 2007

Virtual Headphones Offer Private Audio

More cool audio innovation - check the full story here

May 15, 2007
A new multiple speaker system recreates the headphone experience without the cord — or the headphones. The speakers focus sound to a small area around the user, yet just a few feet outside that zone, the sound is nearly inaudible. Such a system could work well for home media but could also go a long way to providing office workers hands-free communication without interrupting nearby colleagues.

"The guy who is 1.5 meters (5 feet) away cannot hear what you can hear," said Ivan Tashev, software architect in the speech technology group at Microsoft Research in Redmond, Wash. What's more, he said, "We can adjust the listening zone electronically without doing any mechanical movement."

Turn any flat surface into a speaker

How cool is this? It was featured in a recent edition of Focus mag and wasn't even 'that' expensive...... What if you could turn any flat surface into a speaker? The "Nimzy Vibro Max" promises to do just that, by reproducing sound through vibrations spread across any flat platform made of a hard substance such as metal, plastic, wood or glass. The idea has been tried before, but GadgetCentre says the cube-shaped Vibro Max has an integrated amplifier that's more powerful than previous models.

Also worth a look is : The Soundbug
The Soundbug is a British designed innovation about the size of a computer mouse and turns any hard surface into a speaker! Simply plug it into your music device (MP3 Player, CD Player, FM Radio, etc...), stick it on a door, window or desk, hit play and prepare to be amazed when your surface of choice starts singing back at you!