If anyone wants to make a gif out of that I’d love to see it.

Programmer/ blogger Andre Michelle developed the audio flash application after messing around with the Yamaha Tenori ON, which is a combination of a lite brite and synthesizer.  The tonematrix uses “simple sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer. Each triggered step causes a force on the underlaying wave map, which makes it more cute.”

An incredibly fun application to play with you can come at it from a visual or audio perspective.  Some may choose to draw pictures and see what sound comes of it or some might choose to compose beautiful tones aurally.

Do a search on youtube for tonematrix and you can check out compositions that users have created.

Perhaps the best function built into Tonematrix is the clipboard ability to copy and paste your composition’s mathematical matrix so you can share with friends.  Just right click on the board and copy/paste.

A few of mine:

32776,32,65664,2178,384,65664,16512,4112,66564,768,192,33800,384,8208,4352,4656

65536,36864,51200,32800,69648,34816,118792,124944,115720,108544,103428,103424,102916,107520,116896,98304

66576,32768,16512,8704,16536,32768,65536,33792,16416,8448,16400,32928,66304,35844,17552,8192

This record crept up on me and punched me in the back of my knees.  Talk about a great summer record that I can’t stop listening to as winter approaches.  The band comes from Alabama and I had absolutely no idea these songs could come from that state.  It’s like the guys in Thomas Function found a box full of long lost hit songs from the 1960′s, and made a covers record in their garage.

The album belts out catchy tune one after another.  Chock full of wind-you-up drum beats and a bright bouncy organ and that voice… kind of punky but there is that Alabama twang thrown in there sometimes.  The records skips across a list of genres without consciously trying to cram too much into it.

“Conspiracy of Praise” has me shouting out ‘to the bus stop bus stop bus stop’ repeatedly everytime even though those aren’t really the lyrics.  ”2012 Blues” sounds like a lost cut from Let it Bleed.  ”Swimming Through a Sea of Broken Glass” has the best call and response chorus.  Nary a bad apple in the bunch.  Dig in to Celebration.

Thomas Function – Celebration

1. This was definitely not true yet very few people disputed my claim.
2. I can only barely segue this fact into the rest of this post.

The Tallest Man on Earth is not to be confused with the Tallest Tree-Planter in BC.  He is a man from Sweden who plays guitar and sings songs.  His driver’s license has him as Kristian Matsson and from a picture i found on the internet he has a moustache.  Usually the songs have more than one guitar on them, but I imagine he probably played both of them; although not at the same time I am sure.  When he sings there is something familiar about it.  It sounds like you have heard it before.

There is no getting around the fact that his voice has that same rasp as Mr. Dylan.  Compound that with the folk guitar instrumentation and you are headed for an unavoidable collision that ends in Dylan comparisons.  Now that that is on the table you can move on.  After listening to the Tallest Man on Earth you will understand that is not just derivitave Dylan.  Wearing his influences on his sleeve, way up there on the tallest shoulder on earth, Kristian Matsson delivers one of the best albums of 2008.

Highlights include ‘The Gardener’, with its simple love story lyrics gives insight into his nom de tune in the line “So I can stay the tallest man in your eyes, babe”.  It’s rowdily-strummed guitar comes to a peak 2:37-2:47 to create my favourite 10 seconds of music of the year.  

Album closer “The Wind” rounds out the record.   Sort through a series of animal themed verses including: “Like a fox on the run from the well-informed son/With the bearin’s for cannonball love/Just like nobody said where that eagle was fed” to find a picture perfect folk song that would fit into your most emotional Wes Anderson film father-son moment.

Buy it here online.

Tallest Man on Earth – Shallow Grave

Web cam Puppies!!!!

Broadcasting 24 hrs a day from parts unknown a box full of 6 Shiba Inu puppies.  All of them are same colour and look identical except for their different coloured collars.  Check it

•   Autumn (Purple collar)
•  Ayumi (Yellow collar)
•  Amaya (Red collar)
•  Aki (Green collar)
• Akoni (Black collar)
•  Ando (Blue collar)

From what I have seen so far Aki likes to bite everyone and walk on them while they sleep and Autumn is the laziest.  I am guessing this web cam will be up for a limited time only because, at the time of writing, these puppies are already 4 weeks old.  I am not sure how old breeders keep puppies before handing them out to their new owners but my guess is that this we’ll only be able to watch this 6 headed pile of unbearable adorability for another few weeks.

No matter how shitty your day is or how much you hate your job, spending 5 minutes of your time watching puppies crawl all over each other is bound to improve your quality of life.

Enjoy.

So you can imagine my surprise when I finally stumble upon the most jaw dropping video by hitmakers Hall and Oates.  Behold the most amazing clip put to videotape (and you can tell it’s videotape because whoever upped the video to youtube obviously doesnt know how to adjust their tracking): She’s Gone.

While on first look it seems like they rolled in Daryl and John for one take and sent them on their way, something tells me that there was serious planning involved here.  It just didn’t turn out exactly as planned.

Here are the wtfs that I can see:

00:05 – green screen shot of abandoned house and camera pulls out.  Perhaps the empty house is a metaphor to tell us that “She’s Gone”????

00:25 – Hall has his Bowie look and Oates is costumed as the future Ted “Million Dollar Man” Dibiase.  They are on the set of some local cable talk show.

1:00 – 1st guest appearance with amazing strut.

1:05- 2nd guest appearance.  What does Hall toss in the air?  I cant tell either.  Oates forgets to do this and can’t grab his paper off the table quick enough so just heads into verse 2.

1:35 – Hall is so cool that he decides to blow off his lines and just looked cool with his cigarette.  Huh?

1:58 – Close up of table to show us what they’ve been throwing in the air.  Oh, monopoly money.

2:45 – Oates makes his move.  PENGUIN GUITAR SOLO.

3:10 -Hall forgets his lines again.

3:28 – Zoom in to devil who hasn’t replaced her like the song said but has replaced Hall in his chair.  and SCENE.

Obviously a high concept video that predates most high concept video.  You have characters in costume, props, and performers who don’t really even perform the song.  Amazing.

link

or you can download it in high resolution mp4

Lions is Jonquil’s second record but the first one we’ve ever heard around here. It’s a beautiful collection of folk/ experimental/ add another genre here music that rolls along beautifully. If you can’t get excited about this collection of instruments used on the album then you have little soul:

double bass, electric guitar, trumpet, flugelhorn, piano, voice, accordian, bassoon, glockenspiel, computer, drums, percussion, bowed kit, violin, melodica, organ, acoustic guitar, bouzouki, ukulele, whistles, flute

I’ll be honest and say I had to google bouzouki .

“Sudden Sun” sets into Animal Collectivesque campfire sing a long territory. “Lions” uses a Parisian waltzy accordian to step us into the second half of the record. First single “Whistle Low” is a tight little ditty propelled by adorable keyboards.

All in all it is an excellent late night album that clatters and wheezes and swoons all at once.

Lions it out now on Try Harder records.

Test it out here.

Scrolling down that page was more euphoric than my first porno mag.