Ryuichi goes laptop

Have you heard the new Ryuichi Sakamoto album ? it's almost 200% laptop glitch/digital noise !! crazy.
The first single undercool is a strange mix of classic Sakamoto sounds and J-Rap, with guests such as Keigo Oyamada and Sketch Show... and it works. Strange. The rest of the album is good, from the digital hardcore (ATR is not far!) of Coro to the quiet Lamento everything seems so PowerBookish / MAX MSP'd it's really funny :)

SMiLE

Brian Wilson world premiere performance of the lost Beach Boys album SMiLE last friday in London was, from what I read and what I heard, absolutely brilliant. I can't wait for the official release (37 years later!) of what could be another masterpiece a la Pet Sounds. Or maybe it will be another let's go digital! remaster crappy mix? Remi asks the question.

Speaking of smile, sunny days etc (well, now it's not too sunny in Paris, but anyway...) I love the EP from Domotic (can't find any link to them ...) released on (guess what! them again!) Active Suspension, called Smile Again a long (20 minutes+) piece with a great progression till the end. Maybe I mentioned this one before ? who cares, it's good, please buy it (and by the way, I keep talking about Active Suspension releases or records from friends, but yes, I do buy them). My father (not Momus, the real one) like this Domotic EP it reminds him of some Silver Mt Zion records (good, if you ask me).

Oh, and Toog started a rumor that Momus is my father. Well, fortunately (or unfortunately, your choice) he is not.

Birthday

Yesterday I went to Kumi Okamoto's cute birthday party. It almost looked like a French avant garde reunion with The Konki Duet, Fabrique de Couleurs, Olivier Lamm, Minifer, Shinsei, Toog, etc. I was the outsider, as usual. I received the ritual question: 'sooo, what are you doing ?' and, as usual, I felt uncomfortable and drank to forget that I am, sometimes, recording sounds.

Comfortable or not, it was a great party, and anyway, there's more to life than this.

Rad

Robert Duckworth is my bitch,
West coast style.

During a conference call, no one can tell you're drawing a dog.

Split it, baby

It's splitsville for Barbie and Ken
WHAAAT?! nobody told me !

Yet another positive market message...

Wired News: RIAA's New Seal of Disapproval: "It is our hope that when consumers see the new FBI warning on the music they purchase, both physically and online, they will take the time to learn the dos and don'ts of copying and uploading to the Internet"

Once again the RIAA scorns its markets and its consumers. Very clever.
I wonder how long it will take the recording industry to disappear. The RIAA is turning music into a product that no one wants to buy anymore.

Humidify

The Beastie Boys are back (well almost): from their newsletter:


"I know, you're like "what's up fool? where's the record!!??!!?........."
well, we are in the studio finishing it now, so ease up already and don't call me fool, fool.
we're putting the final touches on the mixes right now and it will be out beginning of june.
so we'll be seeing you in a hot new york minute......
until then cool your jets, step back, relax and ease off the throttle. the shit's on it's way, no delay.....
and always remember when things get hot -- it's not the heat, it's the humidity......."

Death of an anthropologist

Jean Rouch is dead. shit.

I have no ideas.

A message from Steve

Team,

Today is a historic day of sorts for our company. When I arrived back at Apple in mid-1997, the company was burdened with $1 billion of debt. Through everyone's hard work we turned Apple around, paid off the majority of our debt and began to amass a war chest of cash in the bank which has grown to about $4.8 billion! But there was still $300 million of remaining debt, which we decided to hold to maturity.

Today we used $300 million of our cash to pay off this remaining debt.

Apple is now a debt-free company – for the first time in over a decade!

It sure feels good.

Steve

A little help from my friends

Social networking is the new big thing in 2004: an interesting view on its business side here. I'm using Friendster and enjoying it, come join the fun !
Will Google buy Friendster (rumors...) or will Apple buy both ? (idea...)

Interview

An interesting interview here with Toog (you know, this guy I produced :) Lovely !

Big bucks

"The hostile bid, coupled with board dissent and the collapse of the Pixar deal, are clear indicators that Eisner's grip over the company he's run for the past 20 years may be weakening. "

If you know me you know that I'm not only interested in sound works but also in business related subjects. I know this blog is not the place to discuss such subjects but I found this collection of news on the Comcast-Disney situation quite interesting.

A DJette, a Hypo at Estienne

I spent most of the day with Kumi of The Konki Duet (and also Crazy Curl!) selecting tracks for her DJ set today - she's now a DJette in her own words, and as a former DJ she thought I could help.
In the beginning we had a hard time finding pop tracks from my mp3 collection as only electronic/noise/exp stuff seemed to appear...on a closer look we finally found some pop things in my 2001 compilations... times they R a changin' I guess. Anyway, a great discovery from Kumi's CDs is the original version of Jenny is in a bad mood by Juicy Fruit Orchestra, later covered by Hi Posi.
After this DJ session we went to l'Ecole Superieure Estienne des Arts et D'industries Graphiques near Place d'Italie for a special event of Event10, the great graphic design team (think: many sleeve design for Active Suspension and Tsunami, design for Readymade FC limited edition records for Dior Homme etc) with the usual suspects - JCDC, Boulder Dash, Reiko, Hypo - it's a community baby !
Hypo has completed his new record called Random Veneziano (great name!), out in april and it's very good. It's 100% pure Hypo (yeah) but at the same time it's a great evolution from his previous Karaoke Accapela (great name too) album. I think it gives me confidence (like the Konki Duet album): good music is still possible, and at the same time, even if I love this album I realize that there's still some room to try something else. I used to hate my own stuff because such artists are doing far more interesting stuff. Now maybe I would say: it's not better, it's good of course, but it's different. That's it. Different. And Hypo live perfomance (perfect in term of volume: not like the usual 'let's break all speakers in the room' thing) was great, and at the same time very different from other performances I saw before (no laptop: great!). New ways, new ideas: a perfect afternoon :)

Various stuff

Florian Perret (who did the artwork for Oskar by Momus) has quietly launched his own blog.

The Konki Duet debut album is called Il fait tout gris and features a cover of Visage Fade to grey.

A very special evening with Jacques Tati

Last friday I went to a special event around Jacques Tati work at the great Forum des images. Tati made one of the most important movie of the 20th century (yes, it's that important) with Playtime, his masterpiece, far, far more important than his most famous films Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, Mon oncle and Jour de Fete. I'm not going to list all the elements in Playtime that mean so much to me - the unique sense of graphic design and architecture, his view of a futuristic parisian lifestyle -, you should get this book - everything is here, and the movie is on DVD. No, I'll instead focus on that Friday evening because in many ways what we saw was quite unique.
Introduced by one of the Playtime book author, and presented by french film director Bruno Podalydes we witnessed the first ever lecture of Tati's last (and lost) project, Confusion (1982), and what we heard (and almost, saw) is a beautiful movie.

Tati describes in Confusion the same world as in Playtime, a futuristic city (Paris) where activity is centered around pictures and communication - advertising and television. Monsieur Hulot is gone, and a young man is starting his job at La Com, working on ads and TV programs to modify them, enhance their message. It's a visionary project, and like Playtime it shows a mature author: his goal is not to make us laugh like in his early works, but to make us think about our obsessions with (moving) pictures, office work, television, communication and political messages. This could have been his greatest movie, but already, in this script form it's an amazingly creative and fascinating project. Tati was a visionary: 20 years after, his vision is our reality, the world we are living in. People are trying hard to understand and use technologies, and as with every Tati film, they fail, provoking mistakes, errors and unexpected consequences. This is also why Tati is important, for this right to make mistakes, a right to divert technology. We miss his vision.

I still like Blur Think tank a lot.
OK, it's commercial pop and so what ? It's their best work so far.

Show me the way

I bought so many DVDs, you shouldn't expect any new sound from me for quite some time...unless I start micro-sampling movies, that is.

I'm very excited about many new projects, talks, ideas, possibilities, that may (or may not) happen this year, but at the same time I'm scared about my inability to express any new sound, elements, starting point, for 2004. So far... well, so far, I haven't done much, except planning things, filling gaps on a schedule etc. OK, that's cool and interesting, but then: what's the big idea ? where is Digiki going ? any idea ?
I think I've been lost at sea (don't bother me) for a long, long time. Since Kitchen I think. I don't know where I'm going, it's exciting of course, but it's very frightening at the same time. I'm at a moment where I start to like my past works (I like my re-mixes, Kitchen is not 100% crap in the end etc), I have a wonderful dreamlist of collaborations coming, but I'm really afraid of what I might do now. And do I need to do more? People expect something, but is it useful ? Is Digiki useful ? I don't want to sound too negative about it, but it's an important question. I have a strong respect for the people I might work with in the future, and this is the key element why I'll keep going on.
Provide me with stimulating new elements, and I will believe in what I'm doing ! should I say.


Today the weather was wonderful in Paris, not as cold as the previous weeks. A perfect weather to spend the day with Monsieur Darsh. We talked about the old time, how much we like video game systems, and of course we talk about that idea of doing a new record together. Ah, a new record...we've been discussing this for years now, but nobody knows when it's going to happen...things have changed so much, as they already did between the debut Darsh release Poochie All Stars and its remixed version. Where are we going ? Romain talked about mixing rock clichés and micro samples in a 'pop' way. Why not ? That was just another sunny afternoon discussion.

I've been thinking of Tokyo a lot recently, and it's strange, usually I'm more a Kansai kind of guy...I want to be in Tokyo now, doing silly things, shopping, drinking & talking with Robert, Jean and Patrick, partying with Tomoyuki Tanaka or doing more silly (but cool) things with Midori. Ahh Tokyo...my Tokyo, not the Lost in Translation point of view...we all have our very own perception of (urban) space. where am I going ?

In another strange connection, I have to say that I'm a big fan of Kumi Okamoto's diary. It's cute and so naive...I'm in love.

People asked me recently what is my favourite music...My favourite music ever is Brazilian music, from pre-bossa to political pop à la Chico Buarque. I love portugese/brazilian vocals, and the song/sound structures are amazing: what else could you ask for ? The fact that my mother was born in Brazil might have an influence here.
In yet another entry on my I would love to hear / do that list, a micro-sounds meets bossa kind of sound would be interesting. Maybe a bit like Ryuichi Sakamoto/Morelenbaum vs. Alva Noto version of Insensatez... yeah, maybe.

I still don't like mixing

ahh it's good sometimes to pretend to be a DJ, just for one day ;)
I'm working on yet another DIGIKI 'super limited you should buy several copies and sell them on Ebay' mix CD to be release in Japan (Osaka) soon as a promotional thing for the upcoming Castellane japanese releases (more on this soon). What should you expect this time ? well, the last (un-)mixed CD I did was I don't like mixing which was well-received I guess, maybe because I didn't care at all about 'DJ' tastes, mixing techniques and 'make the crown happy' tricks. So this new (and so far untitled) CD is full of sounds I like, from obscure 70 disco to Outkast to some early Oval and cool japanese songs etc and as usual, don't expect any tracklist: I don't like mixing, I don't like easy namedropping tracklist, I just care about the sound selection. Coming soon in a record store near you (yeah, right).