keepin’ it scandanavian

From Stockholm to Oslo…

I spent my junior year of college at Warwick University in Coventry, England (the birthplace of ska – Specials, Madness, The Selecter, etc.).

We traveled around a lot while we were there (it was that or attend school), and my favorite country was Norway. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. See…?

That’s just a small sample of their power…

Anyway, I was over at Scissorkick (an electonic music blog) today, and lo and behold, another post – this time from Steve – about a Scandanavian musician. This post is about Joachim Dyrdahl – aka DiskJokke – a 28-year-old violinist who seems quite adept at putting together some pop-electronica.

You can listen to “Folk I Farta” here (with credit to Scissorkick… enable your popups for this one):

01%20Folk%20I%20Farta.mp3

In my opinion, the cut seems pretty cold and stark, but definitely dancefloor electonic. To me it sounds distinctly 80s in a lot of ways, but with present-time approaches and sensibilities. Either way, there are a lot of influences at work in his music, and I’m definitely motivated to check out more.

Hope you’re enjoying your trip to northern-most Europe.

newtunes site development update

Amidst all these posts of music and observations, we have been quietly but quickly picking up speed on the development of NewTunes v1.0.

In case you’re new here (and welcome to you), NewTunes aims to turn the “people who purchased this, also purchased that” model on its head with our own search engine. Enter a song you like in our search engine, and we’ll serve you up new songs that sound similar to the one you entered. We think this will be a truer, more efficient and reliable way to discover new music.

Last week, Joe Amstadt (developer) and I went to New York to meet with some of our site development partners. While we were there, we finalized all of our site requirements (or, what features will v1.0 have).

It was a tough discussion. There’s a lot we’d like to include in the initial site launch, but there’s limited time, and we can’t do everything. Things like allowing musicians who load music on our site the ability to also load a gallery of album art. To us, this is obvious, and it will be there… in time. But this is an example of one capability that will be left on the cutting room floor for v1.0 (but hopefully not long after that).

Just yesterday, we finalized the site requirements – the core functions of the site. The next few weeks will see the completion of the site architecture and then the aesthetic design of the site. The goal is to launch the site in late fall, and we are still on track.

In the meantime, this blog will continue to act as the placeholder for the site to come. We hope you’re finding it worthy of your time. As more developments emerge, we will share them with you here.

get the headphones and close your eyes…

The other day, I mentioned my friend Nick, who I grew up with in Brookfield, WI. We finally spoke, and I recalled to him that without his influence, I may never have found the entire genre of atmospheric jazz that includes Pat Metheny, Jean-Luc Ponty, Jeff Lorber (before Kenny G was, well… Kenny G), Grover Washington, Jr. and many others. If you’ve never listened to either, stop here and go check them out… I’ll wait.

Anyway, you may remember that Nick recommended to me the band West Indian Girl – whose albums I promptly purchased upon hearing them. This time, Nick dropped another gem on me – Explosions in the Sky.

Explosions in the Sky (MySpace link) is from Austin, TX (given how on the radar Austin is, you’d think more bands would actually come from there), and while they’re not a new band, they are new to me (look for that post coming soon). They’re an instrumental atmospheric rock experience similar to that of Ozric Tentacles or a lengthy Grateful Dead jam minus Jerry’s guitar.

Unlike many of the bands today who are using the ease of studio production to push their careers, it appears to me that Explosions in the Sky is very much a live experience. They are at once mesmerizing and engaging, and they seem to create a very personal sonic experience that makes me really want to see them.

Here’s a live clip of them playing “Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean.”

If you don’t have 10 minutes now, set this aside and come back to it when you do. Or just purchase one of their CDs, go sit in the grass with your headphones, close your eyes and let them take you where ever your mind wants to go.