The Null Device

2002/3/5

3RRR just played a glitchy electronic reworking of The Smiths' There Is A Light That Never Goes Out by a German outfit named Schneider TM. Apparently it's from a Rough Trade compilation called Rough Trade Shops: Electronic 01, which consists of 2 CDs of tracks selected by people who worked in Rough Trade record shops. Sounds interesting...

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My musical instrument collection grows slightly: I was on Sydney Rd. today, and at one of the pawn shops there, I picked up a Casiotone MT-45 keyboard. (That's the one with the laughably thin imitations of instrument sounds, and the 8 built-in rhythm loops that you may have heard used by everyone from Ninetynine to Sealifepark to Lacto-Ovo.) I'll probably use it for experimenting, and possibly in recording as well; and if I figure out how to get into live performance, it may come in handy (being small, for one).

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Oh dear... there are goth furries out there. Wonder if they consider themselves much cooler than the furries who aren't goths. Or indeed if they're into Star Trek slash fiction as well. (via Psychoceramics)

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Cos mentioned this outfit a while ago: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Basically a guy in San Francisco recording naïve little pop songs on toy keyboards and answering machines; very DIY.

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Dead media: In 1986, the British government commissioned a new digital Domesday Book, as a state-of-the-art time capsule of contemporary Britain. 16 years later, no-one can read it. The New Domesday Book, you see, was stored on 12-inch laser discs, accessible by special custom hardware and software based around the BBC Micro (which was sort of the British national computer in those days, and only used in education and official functions; pity, as it was probably the most sophisticated system based around a 6502, but I digress). This is emblematic of how a lot of data in obsolete formats has been lost, because the means to access it no longer exists.

A crisis in digital preservation now afflicts all developed countries. Databases recorded in old computer formats can no longer be accessed on new generation machines, while magnetic storage tapes and discs have physically decayed, ruining precious databases.

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I picked up Röyksopp's Melody A.M. today; at first listen, it's pretty good; ambient and soundscapey and a bit moody and atmospheric and groovy in places, though managing to avoid becoming dull or repetitive. (Unlike some superficially gimmicky retro-house acts, of the "here is a track called "Minimoog" that has a MiniMoog in it, and here is an 80s-electro-hip-hop pastiche, and here's some filler, and here we build a track around a sample of African flute; cool, non?" variety.)

I also picked up the most recent Stereolab CD, though the jury's still out on that.

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