Earlier today Warp sent out an email with additional info about Quaristice
First and most important - the album is available for download TODAY from bleep (I'll give you a few seconds to head over there and get your copy)
Second there are going to be a few different formats available:
1- 2x 12" version
2- 2 disc set
But most importantly a box set* (which as of NOW has sold out)
Strictly limited to 1000 copies worldwide. This is the 20 track Quaristice album, plus an extra CD containing 11 different versions of selected tracks. These tracks are all produced by Autechre and are exclusive to this edition of the album. The double CD set comes in a Designers Republic styled, photo-etched, 0.4mm steel slipcase with foil blocked inner gatefold wallet. Full images of the artwork coming soon.
The two other formats are still available for pre-order, I would suggest you do so now :)
Turn down the volume if you are web-surfing at work.
The video was put together by The Bastard Fairies. A band of cool mutant popsters (who incidentally are giving away a 12 track sampler from their debut album Memento Mori at the minute) that included a bit of one of their songs at the end of the viddie.
(It may actually rival the now infamous Will Ferrel Landlady video from last year. )
Worth checking out, and hey who doesn't love free music on a Saturday morning?
So this is it. 2007 was a pretty interesting year here. So much music that I went into overload and had to take time of from blogging, because I was listening to so much damn music. There were some really cool things happening in my little musical microcosm. Bands re-uniting, taking a stand against the RIAA, and being immortalized on the big screen. Here are a few of my highlights:
Radiohead releasing In Rainbows in a few formats was really cool. Shouting a collective "sod off!" to their long time record label, and signing with a couple of smaller indies was even cooler.
Covering Ceremony was just the icing on the cake.
Nine Inch Nails. Damn yo. Not only did we get the fantastic Year Zero, an impressive remix album that included multi-tracks for making your own remixes, but Trent found the time to produce Saul William's Niggy Tardust which benefitted from Radiohead's pay what you like scheme.
2007 also brought us announcements from two of our longest out of circulation bands that they were recording. Portishead and My Bloody Valentine are both finishing up studio albums.
Video Director Anton Corbijn brought us the biography of Ian Curtis with the critically acclaimed Control. I had high expectations for the film and was very happy that they were not just fulfilled, but it exceeded what I thought the film could be. Not really the feel good movie of the year (that honor belongs to Juno) but a film that is in my top 5 of all time.
The film which clocks in at my number 1 spot Blade Runner also had a re-release in the form of a 25th anniversary edition dubbed - The Final Cut it looks more beautiful than I ever thought possible, and it made me remember what it is I love about film all over again.
Speaking of re-releases The boys at subConscious Communications remastered some very influential albums in expanded editions this year. Download's Furnace Doubting Thomas's The Infidel and Plateau's Music for Grass Bars got the treatment, and we got to hear a new collection of Skinny Puppy outtakes, The first Download record in 5 years, and a new Tear Garden album. Great year for fans of the Puppy crew indeed!
Finally 2007 brought us the announcement that march 3rd would give us a new Autechre album.
There are so many other albums and things worth mentioning that I can't possibly give it all lip service here, suffice to say though if you are a music fan (and I would assume you are) 2007 should have given you more than a few things to peak your interest.
I was a little slow on the uptake on this one but a new AE album was announced December 3rd. The 20(!) track album Quaristice will be released March 3rd on Warp.
As previously reported on this blog Tor Lundvall has released (through strange fortune) a sampler that will act as a precursor to the Seasons Unfold boxset.
Each of the the four tracks are exclusive to the sampler and provide a great introduction to Tor's world of ambience. I am a very big fan of the atmosphere he creates, and it his albums should be in the collection of fan of biosphere's substrata
If you haven't places an order with Strange Fortune yet, now would be a great time to start doing so!
I didn't quite know what to expect when i heard this album. I had heard the clips (and in fact encouraged people to download the tracks) but my cynicism kind of got the best of me. I didn't think this record could possibly be as strong as the two "leaked" tracks.
Yeah, I took a huge shot of STFU in the mouth when the album dropped. This is by far the most genre bending album I have heard in a very long time. It's (to quote the NY mag) as if "...NIN meets Gnarls Barkley meets Justice..."
All of the noise that Trent brought with Year Zero (which imho is spectacular) combined with the social consciousness of a Fear of a Black Planet era Public Enemy.
Best part about it? No RIAA. $5.00 if you want a lossless copy of the album. Free if you just want to have it at 192kbs.
I decided to try and play a track from the album last week at the local Goth night. It was Saul's cover of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday The response? VERY favorable. (I dropped it during a post punk set that included joy division, and a little smiths new wave action. Everybody wanted to know who it was, and more importantly how to get the album.
The album is just fantastic. From the very industrial influenced Black History Month, Niggy Tardust, and the Ritual to the really modern hip hop sounds of Tr(n)igger which samples the aforementioned Public Enemy) this album breaks so many musical boundaries that one can only hope that more "producers" (and I use that term very lightly for folks who do little more than sample a hook and add some modulation) will look outside of their tunnel vision and really make the kind of record that can make an impact on more than a limited time fickle audience.
I give this album an unconditional stamp of approval and implore every who has read this entry to download the record. The most it would cost you is $5.00. You will not be disappointed. I promise.
Purchase The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust from NiggyTardustdotcom
Sometimes a video and it's audio are so well meshed that the two of them embed themselves very deeply in your psyche.
Such was the case when I clicked on a bulletin a friend of mine posted to myspace this weekend. Here is is for your enjoyment:
The video was taken from a part of a show by the Royal Deluxe Theatre company called The Sultans Elephant what struck me about the video was not just it's very obvious mastery of puppetry, but the song that was used in conjunction with the video decollage by the French band Les Balayeurs du desert is so perfect that it was almost as if it was written specifically for the video. (edit- it may very well may have been. The band is apparently very closely tied to the theatre company)
download decollage from the album Jules Verne Impact
Hmm... I wonder who could have let this one go? Nobody is naming names but if you would like to have a listen either head on over to the pirate bay or grab it here
It looks like TR is putting his money where his mouth is... sorta. The new Saul Williams album (which he produced) is being delivered in a Radiohead esque content delivery system. Here is Trent's letter to fans:
As many of you know, I've been working closely with Saul Williams on his new record. We've spent many hours together in hotel rooms, busses, backstages and studios around the world working on something we knew was great. This is the most involved I've been with any project outside NIN since Antichrist Superstar, and I've been impatiently waiting for the chance for you to hear it. Well... guess what?
The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! has arrived! After my own recent dealings with record labels we decided to release it directly to you. Head over to http://www.niggytardust.comfor all the details. Register now and you can download the record November 1st. Working on this project was a real pleasure. Saul was interested in breaking boundaries / crossing genres / defying expectations and we learned a great deal from one another in the process. When asked about the sound of the record, I've had to resort to "... I really don't know HOW to describe it." That's a good thing more than ever these days.
A word on the way we've chosen to release this. There are obvious similarities in how Radiohead just released their new record and the way we've chosen to. After thinking about this way too much, I feel we've improved upon their idea in a few profound ways that benefit you, the consumer. You obviously will be the judge of this in the end. One thing that IS very different in our situation is that Saul's not the household name (yet!) that Radiohead is, and that means we need your support on this more than ever. If you like what you hear, spread the word.
I hope you enjoy the music,
TR
I hopped on over to the site and was presented two choices. Pay nothing and get the album. Or I could pay $5.00 and have my choice of 192kbs or 320kbs mp3 OR a lossless FLAC version (which would require reformatting to play in iTunes or on an iPod).
So now we have somebody who is as well established of an artist as Trent Reznor helping to get a record out there for a really deserving artist. I REALLY hope more people follow suit and push this new model forward. It's the only way that artists will break free of the label system.
You can pre-order the album below. I urge you to do so.
Control is now playing at select theaters in the US. If it is in your town please go see it. The better it does the larger of a snowball's chance in hell it will play in Pittsburgh.
Downliners Sekt (who I covered in my VERY FIRST BLOG POST) released a new ep IN JUNE that is using Radiohead's pay what you want model. or Radiohead is using their model...
I was a very big fan of their last release, and I would highly suggest that everybody who is reading this and is into indie electronic music to download the ep and throw a few dollars to the band.
By supporting these models it will really open up doors for other artists to do the same thing, and it will send a clear message to the RIAA that artists don't need them, but they need artists!
Hello everyone. I've waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed. posted by Trent Reznor at 10:45 AM.
hello we have mixed all the tracks and the whole album is shit, so were going to start all over again. ok only kidding...sorry ! its sound pretty good but we have to go back to a few things in the next few weeks though. it sound pretty different from what we have done before i dont think the fondue society will be happy oh well , like the bee joke ends....... fuk em bye geoff
This is the kind of news that really just knocks down. I could safely bet that most of the people who read this blog probably have the same love for the band that I do. Between Dummy and Portishead there are so many memories, raw emotions, lost loves and all night talks that those albums provided the soundtracks for. (not to mention countless makeouts, but I digress.)
In the 10 years since they released their last album the landscape of music has changed. I am very interested to hear if things will have gone full circle for the band with these recordings being influenced by the late period recordings of the bands that influenced them, or if we get a pure album that really makes people drop everything and listen. Not just hear, but really listen just like their last two records did.
With the amount of anticipation that is built up around this record it may not ever live up to any expectations, but after a decade of being MIA there are so many people that are excited just to have them back that it may not matter what the album sounds like, but that Portishead have finally come back.
There are way to many music related things for me to play catch up on, and they keep coming.
This was posted a bit ago by Phil Western on his Myspace blog on the 22nd of September:
I will be releasing a limited edition CD of 10 new songs on a release scheduled for October. The cd will be limited to 250 numbered copies and will be a joint Record Company/DHsound release. I will be taking preorders through here, and also through paypal for early birds (15 dollars, musicatdhsound@paypal.com)
tracklisting so far (three songs still in production)
electric death crackheads stalker where san julian no to gladys ja bay (original mix) creeper tech thieves suffer
Pretty cool, no? This was a busy year for Phil with the first new download and plateau recordings since the early 2000's. I can't wait to get the disc!
Be on the lookout for an email interview with Phil soon.
Completely forgot to post this! Considering Empty City was the whole reason I started the blog in the first place!
Tor Lundvall Sampler CD Available the 1st of Autumn 2007
A surprise underground success of the last year has been the evocative "ghost ambient" music of Tor Lundvall, his _Empty City_ album (2006) attracting his widest and most enthusiastic attention to date.
Tor has lately been written up by magazines from Terrascope to Terrorizer, and his music has been heard nationally on NPR radio stations on the "Echoes" and "Hearts of Space" radio programs.
While for many listeners _Empty City_ came as a first glimpse of Tor Lundvall's distinctive world, his unmistakable ambient soundscape craft happens to stretch back a few years.
Following the buzz of _Empty City_, Tor Lundvall and Strange Fortune have decided to make available a special sampler CD that offers a taste of some of Tor's most delicious tracks from his earlier years.
The new sampler CD is called Tor Lundvall's _The Seasons Unfold Sampler_, and it takes the listener on a journey through four seasons of deep and hazy, reverb-loaded "ghost ambient" sonics.
Tor Lundvall's _The Seasons Unfold Sampler_ is offered free to Strange Fortune customers placing orders at strangefortune.com, starting the first day of Autumn (September 23rd, 2007) and lasting until supplies run out.
Tor's next major release in the works is a deluxe box set to be entitled _The Seasons Unfold_ (release date TBA), that will present his first four ambient solo albums together in one package for the first time.
Now might be a great time to head on over to Strange Fortune to place an order!
