Orion

So, Nokia Music Store opened today. Here are the facts:

– The music has DRM.
– The music is in WMA-format. Yes, Windows Media Audio.
– The music bitrate is 192kbit/s.
– You can play the music only with the latest version of Windows Media Player.
– An album full of DRM and in WMA format costs 8 pounds.
– You can also stream music. Streaming is like listening to a free internet radio or last.fm. Except in Nokia Music Store it costs you 8 pounds a month.

What a kick-ass store!

Very rare 20 minute video footage from Temple 2, Paasitorni, Helsinki on 4.4.1993.

Talk to almost anyone in the music business’ vital indie and DJ scenes and you’ll encounter a uniformly optimistic picture of the vinyl market.

I don’t 100% agree on that, but it’s a very interesting article on Wired.

Wired: Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD’s Coffin

Just when I hyped Ultima Thule podcast in the previous entry, they have started Ultima Thule Ambient video presenting some ambient music video rarities. Some of the them are VERY 80’s, but that’s just the fascinating part :)

I think this is some of the best ways to use YouTube, but I’m sure the copyright controllers won’t agree. I just checked last night my “Oldskool Music Videos” playlist on YouTube and 95% of the videos were removed “due to copyright violations”. I wonder how long Ultima Thule’s channel will last…

Some photos from Aero – Tokyo event. Click the image.

Short reviews of different movies and music albums and singles from the past weeks:

Disturbia: Bad actors, bad screenplay, nothing new, don’t waste your time.
Zodiac: Way too long, but some nice and creepy moments. Three-out-of-five.
Transformers: Much worse than I expected. More and worse humour than in Independence Day. At it’s best this could have been very dark sci-fi thriller – now it was a blockbuster family movie with some robots in it. And yeah, what comes to music – did you notice the similarity to Terminator2 theme on the first combat scenes?
Knocked Up: Do they do good comedies these days anymore? :P
Ocean’s 13: Was ok, but the worst of the three.
Bourne Ultimatum: See above.
Shooter: Was a horrible film without a hint of a surprising plot. Don’t bother.
Sunshine: Was surprisingly good. The description made me wait for an Armageddon remake, but it was more like Solaris or Space Odyssey 2001. I hoped they could have left off the totally useless action and chase scenes. Anyway – not a superb movie, but pretty good sci-fi – recommended.

Have I just been very unlucky with my choices or where are all the good films? I’d be happy to get some good recommendations.
Then, let’s get to music.

Justice – Cross. I finally got my hands on this. You’re probably heard this is THE dance album of the year so I won’t say more. Amazing album.
Tuomo – My Thing. I’m soooo late with this one, too. Hyped, hyped, hyped. And I’d hype more if you hadn’t heard it all already. Probably some of the most original Finnish albums I’ve heard in a long long time.
Radiohead – In Rainbows. Had to buy this just to support Radioheads idea of selling their album online for a price you choose. You can pay 1£ or 1000£, whatever you prefer. I paid 4,5£. And it turned out to be a very good album. Try it.
Tom Middleton – Lifetracks. Probably one of the best chill-out albums in a year or two. It contains some older tracks, too, but they haven’t worn out at all. The album was only 5,94e on iTunes still a couple of days ago but they’ve raised it back to 9,99e.
nrnet – Music For Sunrise. I got very inspired by nrvnet’s chill-out mixes which are available for download on his blog. I recommend especially Music For Sunrise. I bet you’ll hear more soon on my podcast.
Aril Brikha – Ex Machina. Aril Brikha’s sound is fascinating and very original – the earlier singles were highly supported on my DJ sets and the full lenght album is nothing but the same at its best. Definitely the best melodic techno/electronica album of the year.
BT is giving out his track 1.618 from his last album for free on Last.fm. Download it here. See the video of 1.618 (so awesome!).
Underworld – Oblivion with Bells. I listened the samples of the new album and it seemed to be a huge disappointment (if you don’t count Crocodile, which is excellent:). Has anyone had a closer look?

To find some of the articles mentioned above, try Beatport, iTunes Music Store or Play.com.

The RSS feed of Orion’s Blog – Urban Electronica now includes full content.

It means instead of short excerpt you can now read the full blog entry directly on the feed including all links, photos and videos.

If you – for a reason or another – can’t see full entries, try subscribing again to the feed. The feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/OrionBlog/.

This clip is a perfect way to end a very media educational day (you may have followed the earlier Jaikus written from today’s seminar (in Finnish)). Especially this Jaiku fits with this video very well.

Nice stuff, hopefully this will be aired on TV channels, too.

Plump Djs are giving away a free download of their previously unreleased track “Listen To The Baddest”, which won’t be available on their new album.

All you have to do is send your full name, email address, mobile number and the country you live in to info@fingerlickin.co.uk and to say thanks we will send you a link to our previously unreleased track ‘Listen To The Baddest’ which won’t be available on the album. It’s that easy. We would like to ask that you please respect our work and don’t copy or share it, but most importantly enjoy it and we’ll see you on the dance floor soon,

Lee & Andy

Check out their MySpace page for more details.

Via: Electronicablog.com

For real, Sony – how low can you go?

[Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG] …has a very broad definition of “stealing.” When questioned by Richard Gabriel, lead counsel for the record labels, Pariser suggested that what millions of music fans do is actually theft. The dirty deed? Ripping your own CDs or downloading songs you already own.

Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Making “a copy” of a purchased song is just “a nice way of saying ‘steals just one copy’,” she said.

and after comments like this they STILL blame customers… eh, sorry, they blame pirates that “Sony BMG is half the size now as it was in 2000”.

Right.

via: Ars Technica

Awesome photos from last weekend’s Inspiration event.
See the full Sessions2 gallery.

Kuuluisa rockbändi Radiohead julkaisee In Rainbows -albuminsa verkkosivuillaan 10.10. Jippona on se, että ostaja saa vapaasti päättää, mitä hän digialbumistaan maksaa.

via: Digitoday & Piraattiliitto