HAPPY NEW YEAR

A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY

Here are a couple more fascinating artists! The Institut Für Feinmotorik have a handful of music releases. They make their songs using multiple record players that amplify the sounds from no records at all, and instead the sounds of sandpaper, white noise, thumping rubber bands and other such experimental source material are picked up through the needle and tonearm of the "empty" turntables.

The other admirable umlauted artist is Zoë Keating. Zoë's current releases feature her exceptional cello playing fed into a computer that allows a phrase of music to repeat itself which then allows a new layer to seamlessly be added on top- and so on. Eventually a full string section is breathing beneath up to sixteen layers of musical phrases.

Institut Für Feinmotorik

Zoë Keating

CHRISTMAS TIME TRAVELING

Merry Christmas, Everyone! And Happy Birthday , Mithra you old fart (the God of the Sun- not the Son of God- whose birthdate was lent to Christianity in order to nail down a day for the merry-making we know today to be Christmas)

Christmas certainly does garishly mark the passing of a year for me and most Americans. Even New Year's Eve/Day doesn't have a marketing campaign that completely envelopes the senses the way Christmas does. We always seem surprised that Christmas is here again, and that it's over so quickly, and then we're quick to look forward to Spring and Summer. I remember teasing a friend, who was exhausted from the holidays at the start of the year, by saying, "Before you know it, it will be Christmas again!" I feel that just by repeating that phrase in my head now, I have managed to somehow skip those 360 days and here I am back on Christmas Eve. I time traveled! Even the same tree found its way into my living room, and if it wasn't for a few new ornaments on that tree I could almost assume I traveled back in time. Yes, Christmas is here again. Familiar holiday sights, sounds, and smells have been assaulting me for over a month now and I can only hope to make it safely back to my time machine to do it all again next year... or last year... or maybe on another planet...

L to R: The Laziest Man on Mars, Betty Foster, Santa Claus, Billy Foster.

N'T

My friend Scott French has been making amazing music for years and he only gets better and better. Scott sent me a link to his latest solo project called N'T (N apostrophe T). The album is available here for a price of your own design. Enjoy his eclectic pop sensibilities and keep an ear to the street for him in the future!

FOOTWORKIN'

I just recently found out about this subculture that exists primarily in Chicago. Footwork is a style of dance and music that exists in a hyper realm. 160 beats per minute calls for some fast and impressive legwork. See for yourself!

GET FAMILIAR

...with Burial. This is one of those slipshod fan-made videos, but the song is one of the best songs (on one of the best albums) in my entire itunes. If it doesn't sit well with you right off the bat, then give it those extra listens and it will finally grow on you.

WESTWORLD

Tomorrow will begin another journey to Western Pennsylvania to visit my family, this time for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Snacks will be eaten and movies will be watched on the train ride and similar revelry will continue at my destination accompanied by my parents and my sister.

I really wanted to create this post in order to make some connection between the movie WestWorld and my family's town of Somerset, PA, but the analogies are escaping me for the moment. What would be the murderous steely-eyed rogue robotic cowboy in my reality? Everything else might fall into place though. The Pennsylvania countryside is obviously playing the role of the vacation destination as in the film, and the nostalgia of the Holiday will surely absorb me into the past as did the amusement park in WestWorld to its visitors. At some point, however, my companion will be slain by a soulless Yul Brynnar who doesn't take kindly to strangers, and I will dart about in a world that turns out to be even less familiar when its mask is removed and I am faced with the very real underpinnings of a realm that has been exponentially refusing my control.

Perhaps I'm being chased from theme park to theme park already, only to end up in WestWorld where I'll melt the face right off my predator. I'm being hunted away from CityWorld by a permanent struggle with job loss and recent incompetent clients. The good news is that no matter how exhausting the chase, I should be able to come out on top. Then it's on to Futureworld!