Boing Boing Music!

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." - Martin Mull

Do you dig ambient drone? Are you deep into sixties psych? Curious about forest metal? Connoisseur of outernational grooves? Unclear on dubstep vs. brostep? Krautrock vs. kosmische? Fussy about free jazz? Wondering about wyrd folk? We are pleased to introduce our newly-designed Boing Boing Music page and several new features to guide you in your musical discovery! Some of what you can now expect to see on Boing Boing, all tidily organized over at Boing Boing Music:

* Daily record reviews from Aquarius Records: Remember when you'd hit your local record shop and the obsessive music geeks behind the counter would rant about the best new releases you've never heard of? That scene is going strong at San Francisco's Aquarius Records, the city's oldest independent record shop. Now, our friends at Aquarius are bringing their illuminating music reviews to Boing Boing, complete with video and audio snips so you can listen as you go.

* Weekly "Music Appreciation" guides: We've asked some of our favorite music writers to create ports-of-entry into unfamiliar, underrated, or downright overwhelming genres -- from drone to hauntology. Today, Marcus Boon, author of In Praise of Copying and contributor to The Wire, shares his insider's guide to Global Bass. Coming soon, entries by Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor and Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis.

* Plus, "Friday Freak-out" vintage videos, playlists, free downloads, and much more!

Check out Boing Boing Music!

(Special thanks to our sponsor State Farm and Federated Media's Amy O'Donovan, Giles Taylor, and Sarah Ruxin!)

• [Stephen Schenck]

  This pic reminds me of the statue-carving room from DOTT.

  • [Dave X]

     Those are the intonarumori designed by Luigi Russolo. You can see a video of re-constructed ones played by Mike Patton here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrfCq71EfNU

• [GawainLavers]

  I didn’t think the line belonged to Zappa, but I didn’t realize the rabbit hole was this deep…

  • [David Pescovitz]

    Ha! Thanks! Corrected. 

    • [GawainLavers]

      Heh, probably still needs a Hall of Fame asterisk.  I think I’d heard it applied to Cage, but that probably says more about the kind of people I associate with…

      • [Anarcissie]

         I thought it was Saint Oscar’s.  However, I can’t prove it, and dancing about architecture actually seems like a pretty reasonable way to convey some of the achievements of that field.  I’d like to see dance versions of some of Gaudí’s work! 

  • [swlabr]

    Martin Mull gets less respect than Rodney Dangerfield.  

• [deadbot]

  I checked out Boing Boing Music, but I can’t figure out why the Tettix – Cool Pizza OST post isn’t there. The music is amazing and the post was the best tip-off to new music I’ve seen on Boing Boing. I’ve been listening to the Cool Pizza OST and other Tettix music non-stop the past few days.

  • [David Pescovitz]

    Thanks! It’s not there because some of our previous posts aren’t tagged appropriately but hopefully will be at some point.

• [mrtut]

  “If architecture was made by freezing music, pop songs would be made of molten shopping mall plazas”

  (Free translation of Max Gold’s adaptation of original Schopenhauer/Goethe quote)

• [DocPop]

  I’m glad to see the boing experimenting with more original content, but the lengthy Saturday Night Live and album reviews seem so out of place in my feed. Is there a way to separate them (as well as the weekly comic posts like Tom the Dancing Bug and Hip Hop Family Tree) from the main BB RSS feed?

  Again, I’m happy to see BB branching out, but I’m mostly interested in the news pieces, and this new stuff seems a bit out of place with that.

• [Dave X]

  I’m just happy to have a place where all the “cute girls with a ukulele” posts will be safely contained.

• [rausantaella]

  Will the music posts be not shared in the regular feed?

  • [pesco]

    Oh yes! Everything will appear on the front page and regular feed. But if you want to explore just the music posts, the new Music page will be just that.

• [swlabr]

  So while we’re here, I have a couple of queries:

  Around six or seven months ago on BB, there was a psychedelic thing with video images of a 70′s dancercize girl with boots, and a really odd smirk. What was that?

  Also, last year or so, there was a trip-hop video with interesting scissors-like rhythms, and a lady floating in a triangular fashion, and her boyfriend had a feathered head-dress. What was that?

  Yeah, I am sorry I didn’t favourite them right them, but those images were compelling.

  • [The NIALLI$T]

    Your first query – has to be this one, right?

    Orphic Oxtra – Skeletons Having Sex on a Tin Roof

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5BdyIGtYcg

    I still prefer the Madonna “Girl Gone Wild” version:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYIaqzV479c

    • [swlabr]

      Thank you very much, that’s the first video! The jazzy version is, um, interesting, and I usually wouldn’t prefer Madonna in most contexts, but I’ll agree here. 

• [Their feldspars]

  That photo would make a great album cover.

• [Beanolini]

  Krautrock vs. komische?

  It’s ‘kosmische’ (cosmic), not ‘komische’ (comic).

• [kawayama]

  the top image is also reacreated in the Einstürzende Neubauten “Blume” video:
  http://vimeo.com/36592054

  • [swlabr]

     Note to BB editors: EN’s “Blume” is the most interesting short music video I’ve ever seen. Maybe we should program it sometime?

• [Richard Jee]

  if the 2 men in the picture are Chester Rice & Edward Kellogg then this is 1920′s. First loudspeakers (designed for cinema i think)

  • [swlabr]

     I think it’s the original line up for The Art of Noise.

• [Adam Cheshire]

  Brostep! Why am I only hearing this word now? I’ve been complaining about this stuff for the past few years (some of which I actually like) – mainly by saying stuff like “This isn’t  dubstep, dammit! There’s more to dubstep than wobbly basslines you bastards!”