Like electric guitar before, invention of synthesizers and samplers unleashed creativity in people who not necessary had credentials to be musician. Synth driven music peaked in mid eighties with unsurpassed abundance of great tracks and ground breaking sound.
BBC's 3 part program, The Great Bleep Forward presented by Andrew Collins explores the development of electronic music from Theremin in the beginning of XX century to samplers and computer based music today. Series filled with great musical illustrations and interviews with key players in the development of electronic music. Dense, BBC at its best.
All interesting New York summer concerts this year held in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. The best shows not even by rock bands. Goran Bregovic & His Wedding & Funerals Orchestra delivered speedy Balkan vibe to the delight of numerous Eastern Europeans in the audience. Another wonderful act came from South Asia, Bollywood composer and singer Kailash Kher with his exotic band performed modern indian music. Traditional Indian sound blended with Spanish guitar and rocking drum set very accessible to non Indian ear. Kailash started singing career after failing business. Good luck!
You can't judge music record by the sleeve, but in most cases it works. Smart and talented musicians has good enough taste to pick right visuals. Sometimes record artwork much better than music it contains. Many wonderful vinyl album covers from 70's stuck in my mind, but I can hardly recall music of quite a few. Artwork alone was enough to enjoy record as an object. At that time I was not aware that majority of them was produced by single creative unit called Hipgnosis. Founded in 1968 by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell in London, this company created packing for the best albums of Led Zeppelin, Genesis, UFO, Black Sabbath, Peter Gabriel, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Paul McCartney, Syd Barrett, Scorpions, Styx and The Alan Parsons Project among others. Storm Thorgerson was responsible for the imagery of Pink Floyd stage shows. Based of photographic image, playful and daring ideas rather than gimmicks of Photoshop, Hipgnosis work remains unsurpassed by this day and most likely will never be, since Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell still in business and full of fresh ideas as ever.
I like old American industrial architecture. If I have chance never pass an opportunity to explore and snap a few pictures. These wonderful buildings disappearing fast. Often is very difficult or too expensive to utilize cavernous spaces for todays needs and they left to crumble or torn down. New York's Public Art organization Creative Time known for utilizing most impressive NYC spaces for art projects before theu gone. This year Battery Maritime Building in lower Manhattan become temporary home and integral part of an installation by David Byrne named Playing the Building. It's relatively low tech analog project what makes it even more unique in digital age. Mechanical devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. Old church organ keys are used to trigger motors, mallets and air compressors. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.
My favorite album of the year 2007. Unique and successful blend of distinct Led Zeppelin sound with Nashville's bluegrass sensibility. Every single song is beautiful and well crafted, no fillers. Recorded with love and care. Im sure it will claim it's own place in the music history.
by David Byrne and Brian Eno released in 1981. 