"Iceworld" [mp3 removed]
Finished most of this a few days ago but was stuck. Listening to that tracker music for 24 hours provided some ideas for how to resolve it. The gritty quality here is not low sample rate but possibly a blown amp on the Mutator filter distorting an already gnarly stretched-out and gated sample. It needed a pretty, "icy" melody floating on top to pull it together--or almost pull it together; the incongruity is important.
Johnny Sunshine is a regular volunteer singer for SKFTB (Super Karaoke Fun Time Band). A star is born: [YouTube]
(he looks like Val Kilmer and moves like Iggy Pop--psychedelic guitar slides in the break by Otis Ball)
The video features adventurous camera work in an echt-New York metro area setting.
Long but well-told explanation by Michael Lewis of the mass cognitive dissonance that led to the current financial crisis. Lewis wrote the book Liar's Poker, about his experiences as a trader during the '80s financial madness. He thought the insanity had ended but now says current events make that period seem quaint. Junk bond shenanigans again--but this time in connection with even more dubious financial instruments based on home lending. What--house prices wouldn't keep going up forever? Who knew?
[hat tip backspin]
The Senate seems incapable of stripping Joe Lieberman of his Homeland Graft committee chairmanship--this after he actively campaigned against the President-elect and "endorsed and supported every last radical Bush policy to expand executive power and surveillance activities," per Glenn Greenwald.
It's obvious Senate collegiality and bonhomie trumps the popular will regarding this unsavory sociopath. They're all so afraid of Lieberman--he must give them bruising eye contact in person and threaten to get really, really mad.
Update: Senate capitulated to Lieberman's ego and allowed him to stay in his Homeland Graft slot. That's change we can believe in. Yes we can.
Thanks to Travis for recommending Mazemod.
It's mostly tracker-produced music but only the "Chip" category has that "8-Bit sound."
Was pleasantly surprised by the tunes under "Acid" - lots of nice drum and bass and breakbeat stuff with samples* as opposed to square waves, very clean and pure ideas.
It seems to be kids recreating the early '90s (house, 'ardkore rave, early jungle) using software very much at the level of the original gear, but there are surprises--it isn't just nostalgia.
Unfortunately the published playlists are just a small part of the music on the site. You have to page or play through the songs under the categories "Chip," "Bass," and "Acid"; no search function is available and there appear to be hundreds of songs. So if you hear something you like odds are you will never hear it again.
*Disclaimer--Am still getting up to speed on how .mod files work so "samples" is mainly used to distinguish the texture of the sound from raspy videogame blorts--"low res sample data" is probably more accurate. Also, I have no idea when most of the tunes on the mazemod site were actually produced. We discussed at length on my old blog the difference between the tracker scene and old school rave/breakbeat and I still don't entirely understand it.
