Past Lessons, Future Theories
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
  Swoon 173 - January 29, 2007
Aphex Twin - I Care Because You Do (Warp)
Pub - Kamikazi (Ampoule)
Reload - Peschi (Warp)
The Black Dog - Gawble Vianag (Soma)
Fairmont – Gazelle (Border Community)
Richard Devine - Rsl-com (Sublight)
Pantha Du Prince - Saturn Strobe (Dial)
Radioslave - My Bleep (Roman Fluegel mix) (Rekids)
Dark Mountain Group - Lose Control (Reprise mix) (Buzzin Fly)
Solieb - Isotropy (Lazy Fat People mix) (Solieb)
Audiojack - Whitenoise
Sasha vs. Charlie May - Seal Clubbing (James Zabiela mix) (Renaissance)
Artificial Latvamaki - Is It Not Now Either) (Mezzo-tinto)
Dropshadow - Disease Fototienda (Plaid mix) (Peacefrog)
Chymera – Murmur (Mezzo-tinto)
Trentemoller - Always Something Better (Herbert Mix) (Poker Flat)
Matzak - Dadaughter (boxer)
Bvoice and Khz – Outhood (Pro Tez)

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Monday, January 29, 2007
  Don't buy Vista!
Michael Geist has a great column in The Toronto Star about why Windows Vista is going to take over your computer, erase your hard disk and burn down your house. Essential reading, and more signs that the movie and recording industry doesn't like the people who buy things from them.

Best of all, it appears at the top of Google News listing of Vista stories. Ha-ha!

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  Pantha du Prince - This Bliss



Pantha Du Prince's "This Bliss" is out today on Dial records, and I'm very happy, because it's an excellent album. If you like melodic techno and progressive house, this album is for you.


The album opens gently with Asha, which has soothing melodies, a percussive cowbell, and a low, bassy melody. Next is Saturn Strobe, which is the best track on the album. It has a beautiful string melody, with great beat programming, French horns and some serious cowbell action. I love it. It's a big, weepy track without a hint of cheese.


Knowing that variety is good, Pantha du Prince steps back from the heavy melodies and switches to some more beat-driven tracks. Walden 2 is ten minutes of beats and a metallic melody. Moonstruck follows with more electro-styled buzzing melodies.
Eisbaden brings melody back to the forefront, with one that bounces up and down and all around, somewhat like the following track, Urlichten.
Then, everything's set aside for White Out, a mean techno track in anybody's book. Florac comes next, and is also one of the faster tracks on the album, but not quite so mean.
Two tracks wrap things up. First is Steiner Im Flug, a simple, melodic track. To end it all is Seeds of Sleep, which, as its name suggests, is a spacy, dreamy track and a perfect ending to an excellent album.

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  Tobias Becker - Trallafitti


Tobias Becker is the owner of the Platzhirsch record label, which released the biggest dancefloor hit of 2006, Gabriel Ananda's "Doppelwhipper (Live)". Trallafitti is Becker's mix cd, highlighting modern techno from many different labels, like Wagon Repair, Spectral, Soma and others from the minimal and traditional scenes.

Simply, the first half is minimal tech-house. It's somewhat experimental, with lots of clunks and bangs, and few basslines. The second half, beginning with Audion's "Hot Air", is where the tempo picks up and the basslines and melodies begin to appear.

Personally, I find the first half to be a little slow, and not very funky. The second is quite good, with a lot of interesting tracks from Marco Carola, Shed and Taksi.
You also get an extremely nice bonus cd: nine tracks from the Platzhirsch label. Three are from Gabriel Ananda, including Doppelwhipper, which, incidentally, is the B-side of Miracelwhop, also included, and Tropophonie, an older, pounding techno track. The six other tracks are all proper techno from Rocco Branco and Jason Emsley.
It's released today, on Platzhirsch.

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Thursday, January 25, 2007
  Artificial Latvamaki - It Is Not Now Either
The latest song that I'm always humming to myself and playing over and over is Artificial Latvamaki's "It Is Not Now Either". You can hear a sample here.

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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
  I love indexed
Girl + marker + index cards = Great blog

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  Swoon 172 - January 22, 2007
Two Lone Swordsmen - Spin Desire (Rotters Golf Club)
Robag Wruhme - Ikkes Schlozze (Musik Krause)
Superpitcher - Lick the Pipe (Kompakt)
The Mole - Consumer (Shitkatapult)
Electromenager – Wet (Shitkatapult)
Neon Tetra - Hidden Secret (Noise Factory)
Kinder Atom – Bubble (nice and smooth)
Shout out out out out - Procrastinator's Fight Song (Normals Welcome)
Minilogue - Elephant's Parade (Wagon Repair)
[a]pendics.shuffle and Mikael Stavostrand —Stanislav (Adjunct)
Mike Shannon - Ghost Writer Blues (Cynosure)
Lee Jones - There Comes a Time (Aus)
Matzak - Algol Star (Boxer)
Pantha du Prince - Steiner Im Flug (Dial)
Ripperton - 10a (Liebe Detail)
Mark Henning – Pokerbot (Trapez)
Jeremy Caulfield - Nude Beach (Dumb Unit)
Trentemoller – Always Something Better (Trentemoller mix) (Poker Flat)
Dick Acidsoxx and Waxen W. Wane – Neck Tar (Acidsoxx)
Maisie – Universal (Acidsoxx)
Enigma – Hello and Welcome (EMI)

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Monday, January 22, 2007
  SNL-The First Person in History of the World to Dance

Songs sucks. Otherwise, totally awesome.

 
Saturday, January 20, 2007
  Richie Hawtin's 2006
Richie Hawtin has an interesting diary of 2006. You can learn what the year of a top tier DJ is like.

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Friday, January 19, 2007
  Stem cell debate
Bunk from beginning to end. Some day Levin and Kass and all the rest of the nuts will be gone from the President's Council on Bioethics. I hope it's soon.

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Wednesday, January 17, 2007
  The Voltage Gate: Tangled Bank #71: Welcome to 1771!
The latest Tangled Bank is up, so take a trip back in time to check out the past two week's most interesting science writing on the web.

The Voltage Gate: Tangled Bank #71: Welcome to 1771!
 
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
  Oekologie, first issue
Oekologie, a new blog carnival featuring writings on ecology and the environment, has posted its first issue.

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  Swoon 171 - January 15, 2007
Orbital - Who Are They? (Internal)
Shinjuku Zulu - Slow Is the New Fast (Neuphoria)
The Heavy Petters - Wasting Your Time (Freaky Flow)
DJ Olive -Follow Me, I'm Right Behind You (The Agriculture)
Bocce - Ping Pong Pixel (Datambol)
Shout Out Out Out - Dude You Feel Electrical (Normals Welcome)
Idiots - Two Alike (Matapop)
Kinder Atom - Broken Bedsprings (Nice+smooth)
Robag Wruhme - Pontifekks (Musik Krause)
[a]pendics.shuffle and Mikael Stavostrand - Lucky For Me (Adjunct)
Trentemoller - Into the Trees (Poker Flat)
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Jet (Paul Kalkbrenner mix) (Bpitchcontrol)
Gui Boratto - Shebang (Kompakt)
Aril Brikkha - Winter (Kompakt)
Bola - Vespers (Skam)
Aphex Twin - SAW 2.3 (Warp)
u-ziq - Die Zweite Heimat (Rephlex)
Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life (Kompakt)
Cortney Tidwell meets Ewan Pearson - Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled (Ever)
Robag Wruhme - Hamburg03.07.06 (Musik Krause)

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Monday, January 15, 2007
  24 Premiere
I enjoyed the premiere of 24. Not quite as thrilling as other seasons, but it was easy to be hooked.

I have to admit I laughed a few times.

  1. When Jack goes all vampire and kills a guy by biting his neck.
  2. When Jack kicked the suicide bomber so hard he flew out the back door of the subway. I've only ever seen sliding doors, not hinged, swinging doors on subways.
  3. Watching Jack move around rather nimbly after being stabbed in major nerve bundles of the arm and spine. Right.
  4. President Palmer v.2: Jack was right. We were all wrong.
  5. Seeing Jack punch in the coordinates of the terror cell, then having a Sprint commercial for a phone that can do the same thing immediately after. Nice marketing collusion.

I hope my laughter isn't a sign of continued cheesiness. I want the show to settle into its normal groove.

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  Joined Myspace, and Swoon podcast
I've joined Myspace. We can be friends.

Also, you can subscribe to my Swoon radio show as a podcast/rss feed through my myspace blog.

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  My comet picture in SkyNews
A picture I took of Comet McNaught has been added to SkyNews magazine's gallery. Yay me!

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Saturday, January 13, 2007
  Making life's first RNA molecules
Scientists have discovered a way to synthesize an important component of RNA from small molecules. The finding lends support to the RNA world hypothesis, which is one of the hypotheses describing how life got started on earth.

RNA is the intermediary between DNA and protein. DNA gives cells instructions, proteins carry out the instructions. But somehow, this all had to get started from extremely simple molecules, like ammonia, water, methane and carbon dioxide.

DNA is a difficult molecule to make. Its sugar portion has a modification that can only happen with enzymes. It is incredibly unlikely to find it naturally. That's where the RNA world hypothesis comes in: it has a much easier to make sugar, therefore it was the molecule that started life on Earth, not DNA, even though DNA is now by far the most common genetic material. Only a few viruses use RNA to transmit information through generations.

Importantly, strands of RNA can catalyze reactions. Scientists think this could have led to the formation of proteins and DNA.

The details are not completely known. But John Sutherland and colleagues from the University of Manchester have found a way to make the sugar portion of RNA from three smaller precursor molecules, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate, 2-aminooxazole, cyanoacetylene, and water.

Water was common on the primordial earth. The scientists speculate that the other two molecules could combine when one evaporates and is delivered to the location of the second component in rainfall.

By doing this, they sidestep a chemical bottleneck that avoids creating a problematic molecule, ribose-phosphate, which is hard to make and decays quickly, and they also offer a way of making RNA from smaller molecules, which may show how life got started from small molecules.

It should also stick in the craw of creationists and intelligent design fans. They always like to wonder how complex things arose, an argument that basically stems from personal incredulity. Well, if this discovery pans out, it shows just such a logical way.

Reference:

J. Am. Chem. Soc., 129 (1), 24 -25, 2007. 10.1021/ja066495v S0002-7863(06)06495-X
Web Release Date: December 13, 2006 Copyright © 2006 American Chemical Society
Two-Step Potentially Prebiotic Synthesis of -D-Cytidine-5'-phosphate from D-Glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate
Carole Anastasi, Michael A. Crowe, and John D. Sutherland

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Thursday, January 11, 2007
  Comet McNaught, January 10, 2007




I took these pictures of Comet McNaught from St. Catharines, Ontario, on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Comet McNaught is looking really good. Very bright, easy to see after sunset with binoculars and the naked eye, if the western skies are clear.
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Tuesday, January 09, 2007
  Best albums of 2006
Here are some my favourite albums of 2006.

Excellent: none

Great:
Ellen Allien & Apparat: Orchestra of Bubbles (Bpitchcontrol)
Nathan Fake: Drowning in a Sea of Love (Border Community)
Booka Shade: Movements (Get Physical)
Trentemoller: The Last Resort (Poker Flat)

Very good:
My My: Songs for the Gentle (Playhouse)
Kaito: Hundred Million Light Years (Kompakt)
Solenoid: Supernature (Orac)
Jeff Samuel: Step (Trapez)
Crowdpleaser & St. Plomb: 2006 (Mental Groove)
Two Lone Swordsmen: Emissions Audio Output - From the Basement Volume One (Rotters Golf Club)
Bola: Shapes (Skam)

Good:
Plaid: Greedy Baby (Warp)
SCSI-9: The Line of Nine (Kompakt)
Mikkel Metal: Victimizer (Kompakt)
Mstrkrft: The Looks (Last Gang)
Laurent Garnier: Retrospective (Mute)
Coldcut: Sound Mirrors (Ninja Tune)

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  Best mix cds
Here are my favourite DJ mixes of this year.

Top 3, which I highly recommend. They are so good I won't even bother describing them:

  1. Heidi - Monza Club Ibiza Mix (Get Physical)
  2. Michael Mayer - Immer 2 (Kompakt)
  3. King Unique & Mashtronic - Elektrik 2 (EQ)

Others that were very good:

  1. Jimmy van M - Balance 010
  2. Paolo Mojo - Balance 009
  3. Anja Schneider - Back to Back (Mobilee)
  4. Steve Lawler - Viva
  5. Cassy - Panorama Bar 1

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  Swoon 170 - January 8, 2007 Best of 2006
Nathan Fake - Stops (Border Community)
Bola - Fonk (Skam)
Two Lone Swordsmen - Spraycan Attack (Rotters Golf Club)
Claude von Stroke - Who's Afraid of Detroit?
SCSI-9 - Morskaya (Kompakt)
Gabriel Ananda - (Traum)
Djuma Soundsystem - Les Djinns (Trentemoller mix) (Get Physical)
Martin Landsky - 1000 Miles (Poker Flat)
Thomas Melchior & Luciano - Father (Cadenza)
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Jet (Bpitchcontrol)
Switch - A Bit Patchy (Eric Prydz mix) (Data)
Booka Shade - In White Rooms (Get Physical)
The Orb - God Less America/Gorgeous (Kompakt)
Audiojack - Robot
Extrawelt - 8000 (Traum)
Mike Monday - Bhalobashi (Simple)
Nathan Fake - You Are Here (Fort Dax mix) (Border Community)
Depeche Mode - Darkest Star (James Holden mix) (Mute)
Paolo Mojo - 1983 (Eric Prydz mix) (Pryda)
Ame - Rej (Sonar Kollektiv)

Artists that appeared twice: Nathan Fake, Eric Prydz
Labels that appeared twice: Kompakt, Traum
Where's everybody from? England and Germany

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Sunday, January 07, 2007
  Comet McNaught
Comet McNaught is getting extremely bright, extremely quickly. Catch it if you can after sunset.

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Friday, January 05, 2007
  Two Fatal Cases of Stupidity
2 Boys Die, Mimicking Saddam Hanging
Boy hangs himself 'like Saddam'

They're a little young for Darwin Awards.

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Thursday, January 04, 2007
  House and heroin
It's only a guess, but I think this will be a future episode of House. It's got drugs (heroin), medicine, a stinky, deadly wound (botulism) and a large potential for misdiagnosis. We'll have to wait until the fall to see, probably.

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Wednesday, January 03, 2007
  Resident Advisor's 30 best
Resident Advisor has posted their list of the 30 best dance tracks of 2006. As well, some of the tracks are available as totally free downloads. I agree with many of their choices. Wicked stuff!

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Monday, January 01, 2007
  Swoon 169 - January 1, 2007
James Brown Funky drummer Arista
Eric B Rakim Paid in Full (Coldcut's Seven Minutes of Madness)
Gus Gus Purple (4ad)
Avia Gardnerb My Please (intr_version)
Amute Why do I run reasons so fast (intr_version)
Canonic - Blanched and threshed (Hometapes)
Shinjuku Zulu - Chimera Hey Ya (Neuphoria)
Pantha du Prince - Saturn Strobe
Anja Schneider and Sebo K - Rancho Relaxo (Pan Pot mix) (Mobilee)
My My - Serpentine (Playhouse)
Lee van Dowski and Quenum - The Torque Machine (Defrag)
Maxim Skiba - Randez-vous (Boxer)
Gabriel Ananda - Trophophonie (Platzhirsch)
Minilogue - The Leopard (Extrawelt remix) (Traum)
Stephan Bodzin - Valentine
Lazy Fat People - (Tv 20) (Wagon Repair)
Thomas Melchior and Luciano - Father (Cadenza)
Dom Kole - Flight 815
Justus Kohncke - Faultsnfx (Kompakt)
Paul Luca - Luce (Boxer)
Partial Arts - Trauermusik (Kompakt)
 
  LisaNova on stage with The Flaming Lips at Midnight NYE

Always up for a little Flaming Lips!

 
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