Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA.

The message above has appeared on the Muxtape website. It also appears if you try to go straight to a muxtape you know the address for. It seems that the Recording Industry Association of America, after going after anyone who has burnt, borrowed or stolen an album, is now cracking down on the free streaming site. Some might say this move by the RIAA was inevitable, either way lets just hope Muxtape lives to see see another day.

Update: This news was originally reblogged from Nialler9 with no attribution. Apologies.

Seu Jorge is playing next Saturday as part of the Dun Laoighre Festival of World Cultures. While in Brazil he’s known for his original Samba-Funk music, Western listeners’ll probably recognise him from City of God, or from this:

Tickets were €28, but they’ve long sold out. Content yourselves with the following instead, and be quicker off the mark next time, eh?

Jorge’s main claim to fame are his covers of classic Ziggy Stardust-Era Bowie songs, translated into his native Portuguese. Bowie himself remarked on “this new level of beauty” brought to his songs by the Brazilian musician. So, firstly, ‘Rebel Rebel’, or, according to a swift Babelfish ‘Rebelde, Rebelde’..

And secondly, ‘Life on Mars’ from The Life Aquatic:

When it comes to rolling out the promotional wagon to campaign for one of your label’s stalwarts, only Warp could come up with something quite as geeky and simplistically ingenuous as the rollout for trip-hop pioneers Nightmares On Wax’s new album “Thought So…”. Trust me for a second and click here, and observe the irresistable delights of the NoW online game. Not entirely unlike SNES conoisseur’s choice “Kirby’s Dream Course“, the Thought So game is accompanied by streaming, steaming tracks from the Ibiza-based two-piece’s latest offering. Strangely though, the game is decidedly more addictive than the new material.

For more tangible Nightmares action, park yourself in front of your laptop tomorrow night (20th August) about half past 7 for a live stream of the album’s Ibiza launch party, over on ibizasonica.com’s rather slick site. Or, if you’re one of our 6 readers on the Balearic island, get yer shorts on and head down to the Ibizarocks hotel for a free launch party.

Personally, I’ll be trying to beat my high score of 2,600.

Last night I made my way home from Pukkelpop in Belgium. I could easily rant on about the differences between continental festivals and those found on our lovely wet isle, I’d rather just say something nice. Normally at festivals I try and see as many bands as possible, even if that means seeing three acts for twenty minutes a piece. This time around I tried to see as many full shows as possible. While some shows weren’t worth sticking around for, others were a delight. I also made an effort to see more acts about whom I knew very little. One such act was South Africa’s MaxNormal.tv. I wandered into the Wablief? tent (generally home to non-English speaking acts) on Thursday afternoon, not quite sure what to expect. Behind a laptop was a diminutive blonde dressed in chav-chic, on the decks was a stocky guy in a Hawaiian shirt, and rapping away at the front of the stage was MaxNormal, wearing a wife-beater, short shorts, and a futuristic visor of which Róisín Murphy might have been jealous. The ramshackle show consisted of incomprehensible Afrikaans, heavily-accented rapping in English, and a lot of bleepy electro-tech-beats that sat perfectly with the DIY effects on show. The highlihght was definitely a track called Rap Made Easy, during which Max attempts, Mr Motivator style, to teach the listener/gig-goer how to rap. The lyrics were projected at the back of the stage, but alas they were a few seconds behind the lyrics. Rather than take away from their show, it only added to the cozy charm of this bizarre ensemble. I was so taken with them that I bought a tee shirt, and even managed to get hold of their CD, Good Morning South Africa. While this kind of music might not stick around forever, it’s great to know that there will always be someone to make chirpy, upbeat music for kids to dance to at raves and house parties. At the end of this performance I felt the same sort of excitement I felt the first time I saw Bonde do Rolê. If only MaxNormal.tv had someone like Diplo behind them, who knows how far they could go.

I have been meaning to post something up about the Reactable since I first heard rumour of its use throughout Bjork’s ‘Volta’ tour. I guess now is as good a time as any though, seeing as the team behind it are due to pick up an award in September at the ARS Electronica Festival for its production.

The instrument is according to it’s developers a ‘tabletop tangible multi-touch interface’ onto which a variety of objects can be placed in different orientations to produce sounds and loops. A projector below the table allows you to visually relate the sound to its tempo, pitch or one of the many other characteristics which you can alter, on your own or as part of a collaborative ensemble, as shown below -

It has been used by LFO’s Mark Bell while he was touring with Bjork and has been doing the rounds at a variety of music festivals around the world. One of these, Barcelona’s Sonar Festival in 2007 was where Kieran Hebden of Fourtet first got a chance to play around on it.
Robert Moog (inventor of the Moog synthesizer) also got a chance to try out an early prototype of the Reactable a year before his death at the NIME conference in Japan in 2004. Interestingly this prototype was developed in Dublin 8, in the Europe Media Lab, home to research and innovation in the digital field until its closure in January 2005 due to disputes over funding.

Most of the Reactable’s demonstrations seem pretty intricate and difficult to source out patterns behind the sounds, but if you watch a few of the more simple demonstrations you can see that it’s a lot more accessible and a lot more fun than you would think. And the best thing is it doesn’t come with a manual or instructions so you’re forced to learn as you go along.
Apparently it will be brought forth to the market at the end of this year.
Just think of all the hours and hours of incredibly expensive fun you could be having this Christmas!

The pitched fork has pronged another prize with the fantastic documentary, Reformat the Planet on the emerging Chiptune scene. Chiptune (as distinct from 8bit music per say) has been around for about a decade, and is finally garnering some critical acclaim. Not content with inventing punk music, Malcolm McLaren hopped on the bandwagon early, writing an hilarious piece for Wired in 2003 claiming the birth of a new scene, ‘Chipmusic’. In the article McLaren is escorted my mysterious French underground electronic musicians to a dingy factory where credibility and curry powder mix in malodorous clouds, and odd young hips with blackened teeth play unironic retro-future music on outdated consoles and computers. Since those halcyon days chiptune has conspicuously failed to set the world alight - though it has had an ‘influence’ on mainstream hiphop and indie acts, on underground scenes like nerdcore and laterly on art and fashion [1] [2]; ultimately achieving the honour of being featured in the latest issue of Analogue. Reformat the Planet is only available for four more days, so check it out!

Update: For an Irish take on 8bit, check out the hyperkinetic 0010100, who mercifully avoid the europop chinz of much euro chiptune.

Update 2: If you’re in the UK or can get your clogs on and hop on a ferry, there’s a Chiptune Alliance tour on right now in Scotland and England, featuring some of the artists featured in Reformat the Planet including Anamanaguchi, Sabrepulse, and Random.

Ronnie Drew passed away yesterday afternoon. Believe it or not, this was one of the first tapes I ever bought. We’ve got roots in the West, us Malones, and for me, Drew’s voice (along with Luke Kelly) is synonymous with long long drives across the country, my head dozing against the car window, the lights of Dublin behind me, and the waves of Connemara in front.

I could quote Bono’s typically bombastic praise of Drew, and leave it at that:

“Ronnie is like the King of Ireland, and we are his subjects.”

But I don’t really like Bono, and I’d rather let Drew do the talking himself.

The announcement that Times New Viking, No Age and Los! Campesinos will be playing in Whelans this October 17th for the ridonculously cheap price of €15.45, is causing no end of excitement over on On The Record. And rightly so. Let’s just look at price tag again…€15.45. The best bit about it is the 45 cent. I love that 45 cent.

Okay we all know that the aforementioned ‘Viking specialize in a very abrasive sound. But have you ever wondered what it sounds like all cleaned up? Here is a clip from their recent appearance at the Pitchfork Festival playing the stonking ‘Teen Drama’. The scrubbed off fuzz reveals a melody I barely knew existed when Beth sings “get in line you pretty people/ we are coming in for the kill.” It still rocks nicely but, hopefully, in Dublin it will be wearing a fresh coat of rust and limescale ‘cos that’s why we love ‘em.

Saturdays line up explained, through a MySpace linkaggedon….

[Previously - Friday's acts]

Also- I’m fairly sure this is the first site map to go up on the web, over one the bodytonic site.

P.S. The Bodytonic acts are not in the list below- they may get their own post, depending on timings.

SATURDAY 30th

A Trak; Everything that can be said, is said here. Myspace, ahoy!

Antibalas; Afro Beat orchestra, heavily influenced by ska, Cuban jazz and fun. They are available for weddings, birthdays...

Arno Carstens; he would like to Brian Adam’s.

Black Acid; listened to a lot of the Strokes and liked what they heard, but thought- hey we can do this, but less interesting and with a more distorted vocal…

Boss Volenti; Ireland’s very own boring Queens of the Stone Age. Well done, lads.

Cathy Davey; media darling and decent singer.

Crash Ensemble; Exciting modern classical ensemble.

Crystal Castles; Bleepie pop. A favourite of Bren’s, and all that implies- hip, shallow and very, very good.

Cut Copy; Nu-rave drivel.

Dan Deacon; Electro genius, truly exciting, innovative and fun.

Digital Mystikz; English dj/producer. Laidback, bass heavy ambience, with a garage flavour.

Duffy; one of the least interesting Winehouse clones doing the rounds. Laughable fashion sense.

Elbow; Andy’s perfect festival band. Brilliant.

Franz Ferdinand; Glasgow based rockers Ferdinand return with material off their third album, and the “hits” from their back catalogue. Ought to get the office crowd jumping.

George Clinton; Mad funkaholic Clinton will be one of the festivals highlights.

Grace Jones; Serious lunatic Grace Jones is a late addition to the Picnic and might well be the most memorable act of the whole weekend.

Halves; This Dublin band has been recommended to Gareth. Might be good. Hard to judge.

Havana Son; Cuban big band jazz.

Josh Ritter; Fair singer song-writer, despite dreadful last two albums. Always good live. Worth a tinkle.

Juana Molina; Cooky nonsense, sang in Spanish. Quite quiet good.

Kormac feat BS Quartet; Dublin based dj Kormac (swing/hip hop beats, lots of drum and bass).

La Rocca; Irish, but LA based. On the One Tree Hill soundtrack. Weak voiced lead singer and bit Keane like. Probably be huge in a few years.

Large Mound; boring songs about doing drugs and shit cars. Sound Irish, early 90’s Dudley Corporation. In a good way.

Laura Izibor; Singer song-writer, used on the soundtrack of Grey’s Anatomy.

Liam O’Maonlai; Irish singer, sings in Irish, of all things. Bit’s of traditional African chanting.

Lisa Hannigan; Surprisingly good Dublin based singer song-writer, quiet and beautiful.

Mercedes Peon Tambourine playing world music brilliance.

Midnight Juggernauts Australian aural engineers Midnight Juggernauts specialize in throbbing sound gardens, dance-able funky forrests. Not as good as it sounds. All a bit Jamiroquai.

Mornington Singers; Heroically middle class Irish chamber choir. I have no idea what their set will be like, hey might do covers or stick with Mozart, either way it’ll be a change.

Msg; Not sure I can find these guys website. I hope like hell they’re anything like the Chinese American comedy rap group Notorious MSG. Links in comments if you know more than me.

New York Fund; From London, as the name suggests, New York Fund are a solid little outfit, capable of tunes and commercialism.

Oppenheimer; Belfast based tweecore (thanks Gareth) cuteness, with noisy bits.

Ra Ra Riot; Interesting percussion and muted guitar riffs, strong vocals and restrained strings. Might well be good. Might be Coldplay. Who know’s?

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset; This years folky curve ball for the Mercury Music Prize, sound a bit like Joanna Newsom would if she grew up on Dartmouth. Bit annoying, bit ace.

Santogold; Current Darling of many in the Analogue offices, Santogold will be were the dayglo crowd will be at. Diplo- who’s excellent mixtape of Santogold created the stir is also on tonight, over on the Bodytonic stage.

Silver Apples;Fighting the fight against fake myspace clones, the Silver Apples are continuing their brand of psychedelic lunacy. Definitely one of the highlights for me.

Soha; Slightly euphoric dance.

Super Extra Bonus Party; So you book one of Ireland’s more exciting dance acts. Good. You put them on a big enough stage. Fair enough. At 1pm. Fail.

Teitur; Scandinavian singer. Sings in English, considerately. Sounds a bit David Kitt.

That Petrol Emotion; Once of Derry City, now of London, That Petrol Emotion evolved out of the Undertones. A favorite of John Peel, the patron saint of fair to middling punky guitar pop.

The Breeders; All Boston Girl Super Group… no longer really describes the Breeders, but after seminal album after seminal album they will still be a highlight of the Picnic.

The Faint; Electro Punk out fit from Nebraska.

The Flaws; From Monaghan and Dundalk, the Flaws are guitar booze/office rock.

The Herbaliser; Its getting to the stage where by one could describe Herbaliser as legends. Seemingly around for ever, they keep on producing funky hip hop and mixtapes.

The Kills; Like the White Stripes but without the tunes, the voices or the swagger. Lo fi stripped back songs.

The Radio; Irish band with a half broken MySpace. One of them plays a moog. Musics is periodically interesting.

Tindersticks; Cult heroes Tindersticks are still going, producing minor masterpieces. Thick multi layered sound, with Love like use of guitars, and Stuarts voice.

Tobias Froberg; Brilliant Swedish artist, interesting instrumentation, definite pop sensibilities. Part time writer and producer, according to MySpace.

Ulrich Schnauss; Ambient electro at its best.

Underworld; UK dance trio Underworld’s breakthrough and highest point was the use of Born Slippy on the Trainspotting soundtrack. Other than that, they produce euphoria soaked early nineties house, with edges of panic and darkness. (Note, the video below is a remix with a loon dancing. Its not the video. But it is a video.)

Wilco Alt-country. A dirty term. But it fits Wilco perfectly, and it doesn’t tarnish their brilliance. Plus they recorded one of my favourite albums with Billy Bragg.

Yurodny; Strong folksters- with Balkan, Irish, English and gypsy traditions sat easily along side more Moorish sounds. Surprisingly successful and playful.

Friday. Saturday. Sunday.

We pride ourselves on our tremendous nowness here at Analogue towers. Finally our credibility has been recognised; several prominent young hips associated with the magazine have been featured on Fashion Filosofy, Ireland’s first street style fashion blog. Congrats guys!

Update: More sightings of Dan - My New Muse, Bluebirds are so natural.