cubikmusik

open letter to hype machine (via creamteam)

I 100% agree with the points made below by Veronica @CreamTeam.
It was a disappointment to read of the latest updates announced last week by Hype Machine.

"An important change on the front page is the selection of blogs we draw from.  By default, we now show posts from the top 100 music blogs as reported by Technorati, Delicious and our data.  You can click “all blogs” to see the latest posts from all blogs we index."
Addmittedly they do say they are experimenting but I think many of us have seen Hype Machine moving in this direction.

Veronica's Response:
Your site has changed the way music is communicated in the digital sphere. You have forged a community from bloggers of disparate tastes, ages and nationalities. Behind the curtain of your green tinted pages and embedded players we have become more than a link on your homepage, we have become a network of friends. We’ve taken on projects together, attended shows from artists we discovered on your site and talked, laughed and slept on each others’ couches all in the name of our common passion, music.

Your recent decision to feature only content from the Top 100 Blogs on the site’s homepage is a slap in the face to the very music community you connected. A ranking determined by del.icio.us and technorati scores is hardly a fair system of measurement. You have taken “people excited about music, thinking, drawing, experimenting, creating” and ranked the worth of their voice in web stats.

A selection model based on hard data is an ineffective direction for community building. What was once camaraderie will turn to competition as we see an increase in sites building large blog rolls to gain popularity versus choosing an edited selection of like-minded writers for link exchanges. Indexed blogs not featured in the Top 100 will be swayed to post artists based on popularity to increase the chances of having their content seen via site search. When popularity replaces originality not only is journalistic morality tested, but up and coming talent is pushed off the grid.

It’s said that a picture is worth more than words and in a medium where we are so often anonymous, it feels like an appropriate occasion to meet face to face.

'puter died

looks like my harddrive is fooked. possible that i've lost everything. thankfully backed up my tunes about two weeks ago so not much lost on that front.
on the 'photos from the 6 years of my life front it may not be so good.
might be out of action for a a few days until i get my stuff all sorted.
in the meantime, here's to richard swift's very own 'lady luck' to mind my stuff.
Download Richard Swift - Lady Luck

cubikmusik update

haven't been posting as often as i'd like over the past while. not sure why but there seems to be a few of us out there that have quieted down since before christmas. business of getting ready for that and the stress of putting together best of year lists is always a challenge. ;)
i've been listening to lots of new music over the last while as well as devouring books. such is the weather in ireland, not much hangin' on the beach and whatnot.

two posts i came across today that has got to be shared are from jus' like music and jez at innersounds.
'myron and e with the soul investigators' at one and 'alice coltrane, pharoah sanders and joe henderson'.

another thing i've been doing over the last month or so is thinking about cubikmusik and what it means to me. along with that have been wondering if it allows me to share a lot of what catches my eye (pun intended) on most days. i've always loved design and art and over the past few years have delved into both worlds somewhat by starting to collect what i think are interesting pieces of art/design/visual stimulation. now i want to try and collect a digital collection of various odds and ends that i come across and at the same time share them with those of you into that kinda stuff. some of this (like the item below) will be music related but most probably won't. if you are into this kinda stuff (music/deisgn/art/film/books) do check out horse latitudes who do it all well and with style.

so, enough words and more visual stimulation and possibly choice musical control for anyone looking for "maximum modularity and customization of their controlling experience" from jazzmutant. these are a wonderful piece of design that would be appear to be quite effective at their purpose. anyone use one of these? care to comment?

artists who use lemur in some shape or form include 'daft punk', 'richie hawtin', 'bjork', mia, hot chip and many others.

(via notcot)

so, expect more of this kinda stuff. hope you enjoy.

and thanks to (my bro) keith for egging me on

Download One Pure Thought (Supermayer Remix)

sidebar pics...

since typepad changed their setup (on the backend) to increase functionality, etc. that the sidebar pics (that link to associated posts) are not resizing to be the same. i will try and get this fixed but in the meantime hopefully this broadcast does not interupt your viewing pleasure.
:)
cheers

happy 3rd birthday to me

today is cubikmusik's 3rd birthday. well, we are older than that but as a music blog we are 3 years in place.
this was our first post back in 2005 and since then we've had almost 400 posts. along the way there have been two redesigns, a great many additions to the blogroll/ links with some amazing music blogs and bloggers becoming virtual friends that someday I hope to meet over beers and music nerdism.
I have no favourite posts as there are too many to really go throug but I, like many readers, particulary enjoy the 'under the influence with...' series of posts.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who drops by to check out some of the tunes that make up the soundtrack of my life and especially those that take the time out of a hectic life to leave a comment or drop me an email. That makes it all so worthwhile.

Download 14_wesley_music_danny_krivit_edit.mp3

au revoir texas

I am sitting on my porch on a 95 degree (Fahrenheit)/ 35 degree (Celsius ) evening here in Austin. I've spent pretty much every night over the past month like this. Listening to music, drinking beers, enjoying the heat and pretty much soaking up a particular lifestyle that I've become accustomed to.

Tomorrow I leave Texas which has been my adoptive home for the past 4 1/2 years. I am on my way back home to Ireland to start the next stage of my life.
I am very much looking forward to being closer to my family and friends there as, in all honesty, being away from them was the most difficult part to living half way around the world. This is not a disrespect to anyone that I have befriended since I arrived in the States 6 years ago, but I think you know that. ;)                          A new adventure lies ahead as I explore new opportunities and start to build on some of the 'virtual' friendships that I have formed through cubikmusik. London is a definite place for me to visit to have beers and chats about music and life with my friends at innersounds, dilated choonz, unusual & electric and beyond. I look forward to that day.

I have loved my time here in the States but have a special affinity for Texas. When I was moving here I was asked, on many occasions "why are you moving to Texas?". Why not I say? In fairness I moved to Austin which is quite different from most other parts of Texas but nonetheless...Texas it is and I still love it for what it is.

So, what will I miss about the great state of Texas, the amazing city of Austin and the States in general? Hard to remember everything that has brought me good times so if I left something out I apologize.
In no particular order, except the first which is always highest on my list, people:

The many, many, many great people that I have had the honor and privilege of sharing part of my life with in various capacities. Some will go unmentioned (as they don't read cubikmusik, but will know how I feel about them) but others I will call out.
Sergio and Josh in San Diego who I got to share much time with talking about and listening to great music and generally enjoying company.
Jodi from San Diego who will always be a dear friend to me. I miss you Jodi.
Doug over at AustinSound. Doug, keep on keepin' on mate. You're on the right track with what you do.
Mr.Curiosity (Lawrence) who taught me to try and be more sponge-like when it comes to music ,that the little things in life really don't matter and to live life to the fullest.
Michael at Sonic Itch Music who is full of surprises and an absolute pleasure to hang out and work with.
The do512 crew who welcomed me, and others, into their offices, lives and parties so that everyone could feed off the exciting energy that they have.
Dev and the BlogFreshRadio crew. A pleasure to have gotten to know virtually and then to have been able to hang out at SXSW was superb,
Each and every one of you is always welcome to come visit in Ireland someday (soon). I have also met countless others be it briefly or over varying periods of time so please know that those times I treasure also.

Here's a run down of some of my favourite places and things that I leave behind:

the salt lick. (Its in a 'dry county' so you get to BYOB),

Hut's Hamburger's, 

fireman's #4 (brewed in Austin..i love it!),

el chilito ,

mean eyed cat (the best damn johnny cash shrine in the world),

the side bar (best damn jukebox in a bar),

the heat (gimme hot over cold anyday),

waterloo records,

bird's barbershop (I was pretty close to trying to open up a barbershop like this in Austin as there was a serious opening in the market. Along came Bird's to save me all the hard work. How can you beat a cold beer and video-games while you wait for a haircut?)

Going to East Texas, hanging out over good food, lively conversation and shooting guns. (Yeh, I know. Not PC to like guns and stuff but it sure is fun shooting clay pigeons and coke cans for an hour or two on a Saturday in the sun!).

Road trips across the many, many miles of roads with little or no traffic, the sun and a stereo blaring out top tunes as you race down the highway at 80+ miles per hour.

Balboa Park in San Diego.

Vegas Baby! (so many great memories from that crazy town).

Padres games (especially in their amazing new stadium).

The Spurs (next year Rick, next year).

Disneyland (always an amazing time with family trips there).

sxsw (what a guaranteed fun time)

last but not least....sitting on my back porch with an ice cold beer, listening to crickets and watching fireflies all over my garden. Its a beautiful thing.

I will return to Austin, hopefully making SXSW a regular trip each year but will also come back to visit friends across the States so that I can further explore this country that welcomed me with open arms.

So, with that. goodbye ya'll.

Download 01_cant_shake_the_sands_of_texas_from_my_shoes.mp3

drum and bass, drum n' bass or drum 'n' bass?

This is something I've been meaning to do for a quite a while now but time hasn't really permitted. Over the last two or three weeks though I've (literally) been cleaning house as I've been getting ready to sell it. Maybe that was inspiration to clean my blog house, do some tidying up, rearranging and additional decorating.

No., I'm not selling cubikmusik.
who'd buy it? :)

First things first is that you may see that my category cloud has been dramatically reduced in size. Needless to say when you have 'Drum and Bass" , "Drum n' Bass" and "Drum 'n' Bass" listed there is something wrong!
When you're writing and building a blog its easy to get caught up in adding categories to try and describe what you're talking about but I think that I need to be able to keep my categories reasonably focused. We'll see!

Another change has been the colours. In all honesty, when we did the redesign earlier last year I was very happy with how it looked. The colours were appealing but after a while they became a bit too much on the eyes. The black is certainly darker but I think it helps to bring out whats on the page more. Foreground is important while background should only compliment rather then overpower the foreground.

I've also started to try and post pictures in more of my posts. A number of reasons behind this.
-Its looks nice when you have pictures.
-When Hype Machine lists posts and you have a picture its included in the post and therefore is probably more appealing than the default that is assigned. See here:

Agreed?

- I wanted to have a more visual representation of what I write about here. Yes, its pretty much all about music in various shapes and sizes but music is also represented through visuals and so the far right column is set up to show that. This column displays my 'posts in pics' and you can click on a photo to bring you to its associated post.
-Lastly, and this isn't foremost in my thoughts, but it would certainly be a good benefit if readers were more likely to explore other posts through visuals rather than post names. I know I do.

There's a slight price to pay with regard to page load speed but thanks to the wonder of analytics I know that approx. 90% of ya'll are on cable, DSL or faster (a whopping 9% of you are checking cubikmusik out in work on your T1 lines so thats a good thing for you but a bad thing for your boss!).

So, thats it. All and any feedback (good or bad) is most welcome. There may be more changes over the coming days so if you drop by a lot, or not a lot, feel free to  tell me what you'd like to see each time or what you're tired of seeing.

With that, I've decided on "Drum 'n' Bass" so here's some top sounds from Tokyo on Hospital Records.

Download 01_go_back.mp3

(Update Feb. 5th: lower bitrate file added at request of label).

Buy: Direct from label

Download (US), (UK)

Vinyl (UK)

CD (US), (UK)

Irish Music Blog Awards Longlist Announced

I think this is the first time that CubikMusik has been included on an awards list so I am feeling pretty chuffed with myself today. This is a superb list and one that I am honored to be included in.

Thanks to everyone who nominated me to be included on the longlist for Best Music Blog over at the Irish Blog Awards. Needless to say best of luck to everyone listed.

Here's the list which was posted on Rick O'Shea's blog and then Nialler9.

http://egoeccentric.blogspot.com
http://iprefertheobscureremix.blogspot.com
http://nialler9.com/blog
http://kilkennymusic.com
http://www.ireland.com/blogs/ontherecord

http://indielimerick.blogspot.com

http://cluas.com/indie-music/Blogs/Key_Notes.aspx
http://indiehour.wordpress.com
http://mattvinyl.blogspot.com
http://musicroad.blogspot.com

http://theredscrapbook.blogspot.com
http://www.testindustries.com
http://wordpress.hotpress.com/offherrocker
http://sineadgleeson.com/blog
http://mp3hugger.com

http://unarocks.blogspot.com
http://thetorturegarden.blogspot.com
http://ronanfitzgerald.net/houseisafeeling
http://magooo.org
http://bbc.co.uk/blogs/radioulster/stuart_bailie

http://donal.ie
http://digitalsole.info
http://cluas.com/indie-music/Blogs/French_Letter.aspx
http://cubikmusik.typepad.com
http://cheebah.net
http://onavery.blogspot.com

Note: I will be adding an Irish Music Blog section to my sidebar later this week.

Hype Machine Hacked?

***UPDATE: Hype Machine is back up and running***

Not sure whats going on over at Hype Machine but it does seem to be having some issues.
When I was posting last night I noticed this but thought nothing of it as sometimes Hype Machine does have some lag but when I checked this morning it was still the same.
On the homepage the last listed song is from June 1st @ 5am but then at the bottom of the page it says it was last updated at 1.02 pm CST (its now 2.43 pm CST).
About an hour ago on the home page there was a message at the top that indicated that 'hype machine is looking for hackers' and I clicked for more info (from the Hype Machine blog) and I got a 'page not found' message.
Upon returning to Hype Machine home page the message about hackers was gone.

Anthony-wanna give us an update when you get a chance?

Cheers,
Cubik

BlogfreshRadio

This week sees my debut interview type thingy with BlogFreshRadio.

This is what Blog Fresh is/does:
Blog Fresh is your weekly roundup of what's happening on the music blogs.
Stay ahead of the curve with your host Alex. Every week she travels the blogosphere to uncover the best new music and talk to the most influential music bloggers around to find out what they're listening to right now. You'll also get the Blog Fresh Chart (the most talked-about artists on the music blogs each week) and find out where to get the freshest mp3s. You always hear about it first on Blog Fresh.

Nice one to Alex (the lovely interviewer) and co. over at Porcupine Media for putting this together.
So-get on over there to check out the show with myself and some fine bloggers talking about great sounds that you need to hear.

Cheers,

Cubik

Some Changes

Over the past day or so I have been involved in a very interesting discussion with a group of music fans over at the BeyondJazz forums. I'm not going to go into the details here except to say that I really have enjoyed engaging people in discussion about the pros and cons of mp3 blogs such as CubikMusik and the arguments put forward as to whether they contribute to or negatively impact sales of music.
Here is the link to the entire discussion and I believe it is worth reading.
There are two pages (at time of posting) so take your time and check  it out if interested.

Based on some of the feedback I have introduced some changes to CubikMusik as I believe that change is good and that it is important to engage all members of the music community in understanding their points of view. When I say 'members of the music community' I refer to artists, lablels, DJs, fans, etc, etc.

First change:
In the right sidebar, at the top you can see a poll that I would like for you to take part in. Please be honest in your answer as I wish to see if people are turned onto new music through CubikMusik or if visitors just grab a track and run.

Second change: All posts from today will include links (where possible) to points of purchase for the songs or albums/EPs that contain the songs.

Third change: All posts will include all applicable links to the artist and label associated with the tune.

Fourth change: For each post both the artist and label will be emailed (when contact info. is available) at time of posting to inform them that their song has been posted and to request for the removal of the file if so desired.

All of the above (except # 1) have been things that I have tried to do with each post but have been inconsistent with due to time restraints.

I look forward to any feedback on these changes.

Cheers,

Cubik

Update re: categories, tags and design

For any of y'all that use feedreaders to get CubikMusik if you recieve re-posts I apologize. I am reworking the design and layout of the site (to make it cleaner) and as part of that I am adding categories and Technocrati Tags to previous posts.

Hopefully this will all be done by the end of the upcoming weekend.

Cheers,
Cubik

CubikMusik Part Deux

Ok,ok we tried this before and went away for a 'break'.
This time what we will try it in a different style with MP3s being available for recommendations so that you are listen to the tunes straight away if you wish.

We will keep tunes available for as long as our capacity (and other considerations) allow us. :-)

CubikMusik was started around jan 2003 with music recommendations from friends from alla round the world. It was a monthly update that ran for approx. 18 months with all kinds of recommendations ranging from Primal Scream to Mum to Orishas to Black Heart Procession to Ratatat to The Jesus and Mary Chain to Poor Righteous Teachers (you get the idea). This is, we believe, recommendations of just good music- no genres, no trends...just good tunes to be shared.

So, to kick start us I am gonna recommend two tunes that I feel work so very well together and compliment each other. These are very much electronically driven with solid beats and funky grooves leading the way so here we go and please do comment on what you like and don't like.

Artists: J-Walk
Tune: Following the Noughties
Lable: Grand Central
Source: Compilation calledCentral Heating (Disc 2)

Building an intro. with kinda spooky church organ music can be tricky but J-Walk has pulled it off here by introducting some sonic affects that, even without surround sound, will wrap around your ears. Leading into one of the most basic but solid beats gets us right into the tune that is only the tease for what is to follow....a funky ass bassline that shakes your bones.
Don't get me wrong....this is no disorganized mess; the song is one of the most finely produced melodies that I have come across. Try listening with earphones at full blast-there are sounds in there that I am still picking up on.
On a personal note-this was the one tune that dominated my stereo at 6am on a Sunday morning as I was easing into my bed after a night of fun and frollicks.

Download 08_following_the_noughties.mp3

Artist: Hardkandy
Tune: Summer of '95
Source: http://www.smart-music.net/

WOW! I picked this up from http://www.smart-music.net/ , probably one of the best legal sources of quality, free downloads for the discerning music fan online.

The intro is short and sweet and pretty much picks up where Following the Noughties leaves off with some sweet and low funky beat with strings, 60’s/70’s physcadelic organ and sound effects. The 'sonic theme' is kept here but with less emphasis. The beat, as you will find with my picks, is nice and stong with a bass that just makes you want to move in some way shape or form.
Download 01_summer_of_95.mp3

CubikArubik