Please, Listen to this Music.

I'm back! With some other stuff - music in this case. 

Pass this on. More people need to know about more, wonderful music, but only people who care. Give it to fellow music buffs, people who are interested in expanding their horizons.

This will hopefully have multiple parts.

My goal here is to tell people about great music that not enough people know about.

I refuse to categorize by genre because people, being people, will see one genre or another and say, "Oh, jazz? I don't like that." Or the same with any genre. I used to do that and I'm doing my best to break that habit. I will be organizing in no particular order.

A general layout will be:

   Artist/Album(s)

   Description

   Download link

So let's get started. But first, I've got a few more things to say...

1) The vast majority of these are both free and legal. Assume that an album or song is unless I say otherwise.

2) Not all of this is something you'll like. It's an enormous variety of genres, styles and artists, with a particular (and accidental) focus on hip-hop that I've come to love.

3) Please, pass this on. Leave me suggestions. I'd love to see this blossom.

4) The main focus will be less-noticed, or less "mainstream", artists, songs and albums. You won't be seeing anything you hear on the radio (any more) on here.

5) The majority of these are by some obscure artists that you've probably never heard of.

So! Here we go.

PROF

   Albums - I recommend them all, myself. Some take a bit of time for them to grow on you, but when they do they're fantastic.

   Prof is a local (Minneapolis) rapper - and a joker at that -  that a shamefully small amount of people know about. Sure, he can sell out shows, but they're at smaller venues and he's not exactly a household name. As far as I know, I'm possibly one of the only people at my school that actively listens to his stuff. It's fantastic - songs' topics vary from depression to booze to having a huge ego to about everything else. It's also very well-made music. The tunes still haven't bored me, and there's something to be said for that given how long I've been listening to them. Almost all of his albums are on his label's website for free digital downloads, and they're all great. He's still active - his last full-length album - 16 tracks in this case - was released in August.

(Yes, he's white. So what? He can still rap.)

Pick up his music at:

http://tinyurl.com/6hvavvy and http://tinyurl.com/ybnof8n.

(The latter is a collaboration with St. Paul Slim, another fantastic local rap artist.)

BOB OSTERTAG

   Albums - I can't say a ton on this, as I haven't gotten to listen to his older stuff as of yet, but "Motormouth" is fantastic.

   Bob Ostertag does music that I'm struggling to describe. He does a lot of synthesizer work - for example, all of "Motormouth" was done on a single synthesizer. His music is very stereo, with totally different things happening in each ear most of the time. It's electronic music that's quieter than most and very experimental. It's overall really cool stuff, and give it a listen if nothing else.

All seven of his albums have been released for free at:

http://tinyurl.com/3jk84gp

EMERALD PARK

  Albums - I recently picked up "For Tomorrow", which I recommend heartily.

  Emerald Park is an indie-rock group with a very crisp sound and production. Their music is very professional-sounding, with killer harmonies and catchy licks to boot. The album "For Tomorrow" covers a great span of ideas and sounds, from "Lights of Sunday"'s quieter singing and acoustic guitars to "Ume"'s more traditional rock beat and feeling - until the vocals and maracas come in. It's very high-quality music, and there is absolutely no reason for you to not pick this up right now.

They also released "Slow", a four-track album that takes a total U-turn from what "For Tomorrow" is like but manages to maintain its brilliance. These two albums often split fans on which album is better, but they're both fabulous.

Grab Emerald Park's "For Tomorrow" and "Slow", respectively, here:

http://tinyurl.com/3pccbo8 and http://tinyurl.com/3whwnc8

WAX

   Albums - Check out "Scrublife"  

   Another fantastic rapper, this man's got something unique going for him - his rhythms. He often extends words further than you think they should be and it works better than you'd think. He also has a fantastic voice and makes very intense tunes, which works very well for him.

He's got some particularly great songs on this album - "Red" is a great starter which shows you how his music works and is a fantastic song in its own right, "Two Wheels" is an interesting take on bicycle-riding with some fantastic rhymes in there, not to mention "Old Ways" and "Mary", both of which are harrowing songs that you just can't stop listening to.

Download "Scrublife":

http://tinyurl.com/4666xsq

WASARU

   Albums - "Prisoner of State", "Undefinable Scenes", "Fragments of Stories", and "Imperceptible Memories" are a great. In other words, I love all of it.

   Wasaru does strange stuff. It's very slow and minimal electronic music, so any beats or notes placed matter quite a bit. Many of the songs, especially on "Imperceptible Memories", my personal favorite, have strange vocal harmonies. Don't make the mistake of thinking the vocals have meaning, though - they're more instruments than transmitters of meaning. All four albums are varied just enough while maintaining a style throughout. This artist is definitely not for everyone, but I didn't say you'd like everything! Please, check it out.

Download "Prisoner of State": http://tinyurl.com/3r899bs

 Download "Undefinable Scenes": http://tinyurl.com/3fk4ymu

Download "Fragments of Stories": http://tinyurl.com/44fro8d

Download "Imperceptible Memories": http://tinyurl.com/3mn3aoa 

GIRL TALK

  Albums - "All Day", "Night Ripper", and "Feed the Animals" are particularly grand.

 Girl Talk has been going for quite a few years. He's a mashup artist, which means he combines songs already made - a lick here, a chorus there - to make one epic, long song. His stuff is a lot of hip-hop and rap combined with, often, '60s-'80s guitar licks and beats. Very few of his albums are bad, but they all take a bit of time to grow on you - but when they do, they're unbeatable.

Download Girl Talk's music under a pay-what-you-want model (Including $0.00) here:

http://tinyurl.com/3jh4ase

DUBMOOD

  Albums - "C'etait Mieux en RDA Vol. 2" is a good starter - it was released for free, unlike most of his music. This one's a happy exception, though.

  Dubmood is a french chiptune artist. Chiptunes, for the uninformed, are songs styled to sound like older-style video games, like the stereotypical "bleep bloops" of said games. He makes fantastic stuff, even if it is quite niche - not everyone will like it. I find it to be fantastic, as because of the limited access to different sounds, a chiptune composer has to be really, really good musically.

Download "C'etait Mieux en RDA Vol. 2" here:

http://tinyurl.com/3tlvw83

BI-POLAR BEAR

 Albums - "Today I Found Happy" is a great choice.

  Bi-Polar Bear, is, unlike what you might think, two people. They're a small hip-hop group with fascinating pieces - "NPFJ" is a particular highlight of theirs. They have intelligent lyrics and their beats are fantastically minimalistic - some of them, that is. The album starts of with "Fuck Her", a three-minute long bashing not unlike "Fuck You" by Cee Lo Green. It plays almost like a parody of hip-hop, with an excessively large amount of DJ scratches. It's fantastic, somehow, and sets the album off on the right foot. Check Bi-Polar Bear out, please. 

Snatch it up - all but one song is free, and the last one is roughly a dollar - here:

http://rollwiththebear.bandcamp.com/

Out for now.

So, look what I found.

All it needs is a bloody save/share function.


http://seawitchery.tumblr.com/post/4070384205/i-started-out-clicking-strategically-and-by-the

It's Like Old Friends Meeting, but we've Probably Never met in Real Life

So.
Uh, hi.
I haven't been posting much recently, have I?
Well! Here we go. 
What's been keeping me so horribly busy recently, you ask? Well...


1) Camp Kici Yapi 
It's a YMCA camp that I help JC (Junior Counselor) in. It's strictly a volunteer business, at least at this level. That went throughout weekdays in August of 2011. I mainly dealt with kids, aged anywhere from 4-8 years old. I find that the 7-8 year-olds are the worst - they're old enough to get that you have authority, but young enough to not understand the concept that sometimes it's a great idea to listen to orde- I mean requests. 
        Lots of fun; I basically help run a day camp. Looks great on a college application as well, I imagine. I plan on doing my second year of that this summer. Interview on March 1st - wish me luck!


2) High School
That pesky, pesky thing. Of course, I couldn't just run the 8:30 to 3:00 hours like everyone else. I did Cross-Country running (Fall) and hope to do Track this spring. I also did Seussical (A musical inspired in large part by Dr. Seuss's works) and robotics, but more on that later. 


3) Driver's Ed
Why is everyone so impressed that I have my permit now? I finished Behind-the-Wheel today and I'm now working on getting ready for the road test.


4) FIRST Robotics
So FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is this big but sinfully unknown and wonderful organization. It does a lot of stuff with - all together now! - Science and technology. Its goal is basically to train a future generation of engineers. They, essentially, "Train students to tackle problems that haven't formed yet with technology that hasn't been invented yet in ways that haven't been thought of yet." 
Pretty lofty stuff, I know.
So! FIRST, every year, does a robotics competition. This is a big deal; while most people may think of this as being a largely-in-the-United-States sort of a thing, we've got teams all over. Israel and Brazil, in addition to the United States, are various examples. Every year, FIRST hosts a game for teams to build robots to compete in. They're remote-controlled and wireless; and much larger than you'd think. 
I'd love to explain this year's game to you, but I'll let a video do the talking...

So we built a robot. I haven't got any pictures of it on hand, but it uses a single-joint arm and a three-prong grip similar to a claw. I think it's going to do well, even if I haven't any idea how the mini-bot's doing. We shipped two days ago (2/22/11) and our first competition (Minnesota North Star Regional) is in early March. I'm extremely excited for all this.

Here's our not very fleshed-out site.

So that's what's been keeping me.

What am I doing right now? 

1] Well, I'm in love with Wired Magazine, for one. Their last two issues have been delightfully off-putting in their topics (The flesh/organ markets, Apple factories in China and the related suicides, etc.)

Some articles to check out:

A Man Walked Into a Bank with a Bomb Locked Around His Neck

       It's a tale about this man that was tricked - or forced, take your pick - into robbing a bank. But it gets much deeper than that. This article is pretty crime-science heavy.

The Cover of this Month's Issue

       I'd love to show you the article about the Apple factories in China and the situation surrounding it, but they haven't uploaded this month's issue on to their website yet. Get back to you on that one.

I do, however, have one other link:

Inside the Business of Selling Human Body Parts

       It's slightly twisted, but I love this article. It covers all you need to know if you want to buy, say, some skin. (I hope a situation like that doesn't come up, however!)

2] Music and Related Topics

Why Music Matters - Jack Stamp

A very clever and smart speaking on the place of music in schools. It's pretty funny to boot.

The New Pornographers

They're simply an amazing band, and I don't get why I didn't pick anything by them up earlier.

Canadian, too!

3] Cleverbot

This is pretty old, but I just now got into it. I know how it works, as I know someone who has a friend that helped made it. 

Dont' know what it is? It's a conversation website in which you're talking with an AI, and you have a fairly normal conversation.

[SPOILERS AHEAD, SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH UNLESS YOU DON'T MIND SPOILERS]

Okay, so here's how it really works.

You get hooked up with a random person that is also using Cleverbot. You're supposed to make your speech formal and not give it away, and the other person does the same. If your conversation stops for too long, you get hooked up to a different person. This can result in some hilarious conversations:

[END SPOILERS]

Cleverbot: You should always remember that people love to hear the sound of their own names.
User: Mine's difficult to remember.
Cleverbot: How do you define Artificial Intelligence?
User: Intellilgence that's artificial.
Cleverbot: I mean self sufficient artificial intelligence.
User: What do you mean by that?
Cleverbot: All time is fleeting.
User: Of course!
Cleverbot: I asked you who's the horde king.
User: I AM.
Cleverbot: You are what?
User: THE HORDE KING.
Cleverbot: Oh, alliance.
User: I will eat your nose.
Cleverbot: You are already desiring me. You can't help it.
User: You're too much of a ROBOT for me to desire you.
Cleverbot: No greater truth.
User: The ships hung in the sky much in the way bricks don't.
Cleverbot: Oh, the pirates, yes they rob us!
User: No, your cat does.
Cleverbot: I don't have a cat.
User: WELL, GET ONE.
Cleverbot: Do you like to sing?
User: Yes.
Cleverbot: Will you sing for me now?
User: I'm sorry, I don't think I can do that.

Aaaand...

Cleverbot: Its something you wear.
User: Like my watch?
Cleverbot: Watch what?
User: Watch the watch, watch-wearing watching watchman.
Cleverbot: I want to, but I don't have time.

Aaaand...

Cleverbot: ): Insomnia?
User: Yes.
Cleverbot: I hear going to support groups where others have worse problems can help.
User: Such as?
Cleverbot: One Love - Bob Marley, Strawberry Fields Forever - The Beatles. There are others as well.
User: Those are songs, not support groups.
Cleverbot: I know they are songs, I said they were songs.
User: You're an insomniac, aren't you?
Cleverbot: Yes. Humans are animals.

Aaaand...

User: My sister petrified me.
Cleverbot: You should stab her in the face.

Last one.

User: Aer you clinically insane?

Cleverbot: I noticed that.

User: So, tell me all your problems. Be detailed.

Cleverbot: I don't believe in god.

User: God? The band?

Cleverbot: Yes

[Note: God isn't a band. I just did that to see how people reacted. Or, maybe God is a band. I haven't checked, after all!]

So yeah. 

What have you been up to?

That's what I've been doing.

My Current Addictions (Week 4)

Yo, it's me again!

I'm back from my trip and hopefully didn't miss much.

This one's going to be a "focused" one, with this topic being music.

Plus, I'm doing an experiment this week. I won't post descriptions - post your own in the comments!

1) "Silence" by Gomez

2) "I'm a Celebrity" by Right Said Fred

3) "So What" by Miles Davis

4) "They Don't Like Music" by the Black Eyed Peas

I'd like to see your opinions on what you, or I, may think of them!