Music worth buying: The Decemberists April 7, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Music.Tags: cd, folk, mp3, Music, prog, the crane wife, the decemberists, the hazards of love
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The Decemberists just released last week a new CD named The Hazards of Love
The new album builds on the same sound but somewhat louder (guitars) and is a concept album where the tracks are technically separated but listens like one long track.
This band with this album crosses British folk with prog influences, which makes it a very nice and different piece of music to listen to these days. Highly recommended if you’re tired of the usual crap which is thrown our way by record execs.
Goodbye Last.FM, Hello Deezer March 27, 2009
Posted by jphebert in Business, Music.Tags: deezer, last.fm, Music
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Last.FM announced that if you’re not in the US/UK/Germany, a subsciption to listen in will be required. Therefore I say goodbye to Last.FM which was my best friend at work when I’m not on the phone or in a meeting. Therefore I’m switching over to Deezer, which is free but the system I find is as good so far.
I think this represents a failure to monetise a great idea, where Last.FM has not been too keen on advertising relying on music sales. If they would strategically put ads in both the web site and the client (which I was using), things would be different.
Now they’re loosing tons of users daily and once the customer is lost the re-aquisition cost is high since loyaly is now elsewhere. Let’s see where all this will go.
Music worth buying: Gazpacho December 29, 2008
Posted by jphebert in Music.Tags: gazpacho, Music, neo-prog, Porcupine Tree, progressive, Quidam, Riverside
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It’s getting harder to find good bands/artists to buy music from these days without doing some digging first. One of my favorite lookout points is Last.FM, where they play similar artists to the ones you like. Bad for the wallet once you hit the jackpot and one fo them is Gapacho from Norway.
This band is just plain good – neo-prog style I guess, if you like Quidam/Riverside/Porcupine Tree/Marillion (w/o Fish) you’re in for a treat. They do something not all bands are able to do: texture. Just dive in and enjoy, their best album which I’ve listened to so far is Night, but I’ve only played 2 out of 4. I actually ordered all 4 to save on shipping 
– just try this sample and you’ll get hooked:
Revisting DFX for WinAmp / Windows Media Player August 20, 2008
Posted by jphebert in Music, technology.Tags: logitech, media player, mp3, Music, real, realplayer, winamp, Windows
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Listening to music on a Windows PC? Then you have to try this piece of software: DFX 8, it’s a DSP (digital signal processor) for common media players. I’m no signal processing expert, in fact I have no clue on how this stuff works, but it does. I took a lot at it years ago and accidentally ran across it yesterday.
DFX will “enrich” the sound coming out of your media player application, I use WinAmp 5 mostly with Logitech X-240’s at work. The speakers kinda sound “bland” so music is impacted by this, and sometimes online radio sources are lower-rate so sound is also impacted. You will find this tool will make your gear sound much better, you have to try it. No I’ve got no financial interests in this
Also, the basic version is free, and the “loaded” one is 40$. I might just flip some coins into this and go for full but the basic is quite sufficient today.
Enjoy!
iTunes Vs WinAmp 5.5 August 8, 2008
Posted by jphebert in Music, technology.Tags: aac, apple, ipod, itunes, mp3, Music, nano, winamp
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I’m sure some iTunes purists will be irked by my next statement: I’m starting to manage my trursty 2GB Nano with WinAmp 5.5.
Wha? Egad! Simple: there is a feature found in WinAmp which is absent in iTunes and I don’t know why, you can transcode on the fly track from one format/bitrate to another when syncing. It takes longer of course, but my rips at home are all in MP3 @ 256Kbps for universal use. Life is simpler that way.
But to save room on the iPod, I transcode to AAC @ 128Kbps to keep a high resolution enough so I won’ hear the difference and save up a ton of room.
So I’ve made the move, until Apple comes up with this I’m sticking to WinAmp. In my defense, I’ve recently moved to 5.5 from 2.95 which is still the best media player hands down ever made. There you go.
Comments welcome of course.
Rush on the Colbert Report July 20, 2008
Posted by jphebert in Music.Tags: colbert, Music, prog, progressive, report, rock, rush
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Rush has not played in front of a live TV audience for 30+ years in the US. Egad!
Online progressive rock radio: Morow.com May 15, 2008
Posted by jphebert in Music.Tags: itunes, Music, progressive, radio, winamp, windows media player
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I’ve been listening to this online radio station for the last week or so and it’s the best one I’ve found in a long time. They play progressive rock from all eras from most bands, and a bunch you’ve never heard of too which are great to discover. Point your Winamp/WindowsMediaPlayer/iTunes to www.morow.com and enjoy!
Music worth buying: Wobbler April 10, 2008
Posted by jphebert in Music.Tags: gentle giant, harmonium, king crimson, Music, prog, symphonic prog, triumvirat, wobbler
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Wobbler is a symphonic prog band from Norway which I ran into by sheer luck on Amazon’s suggestions. So after reading on them I gambled and bought it, I wish my lottery tickets would pay off the same way!
It’s a band that released an album (Hinterland) which could have come out of 1975 literally. Their sound feels like a mix of Gentle Giant, ELP, Triumvirat, King Crimson with a dash of Harmonium. Worth the money!
The album has only 4 tracks if you count the 37 second opening, so expect that you’ll have long/complex songs which captured my ears since I got the CD yesterday. Enjoy!
Morcheeba’s Dive Deep thoughts March 24, 2008
Posted by jphebert in Music.Tags: dive deep, itunes, morcheeba, Music, trip-hop
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Morcheeba just released their new album (#6) named Dive Deep. For fans, it’s one notch below Who Can You Trust / Big Calm / Charango but it’s definitely better than The Antidote and Fragments of Freedom. Skye is not there, the brothers used a bunch of vocalists and the end result is is very charming. If you like the band, it’s a worthwhile purchase. Here is a sample, Enjoy The Ride, the 1st track on the CD.
Portishead: Machine Gun video March 20, 2008
Posted by jphebert in Music.Tags: Music, portishead
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New stuff – but where is the groove??
