Tera Melos Releases Remixable EP: Drugs To The Dear Youth

Tera Melos is now offering their Drugs to the Dear Youth EP as a “pay-what-you-want” download, where the minimum payable is five dollars. In addition, they are releasing the separate bass, drum and guitar tracks of the EP, for those who are inclined to remix, also for a minimum $5. From their statement:

“It seemed like a fun idea. Do whatever you want with [the songs]. Remix them, re-record parts, point out all the mistakes, download the tracks and burn them to a CD-R and then break it in half. Whatever is cool. Curious to see what people come up with.”

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Sound Design: IDM Music Video With Fractals

Video Jockeys, those who combine audio and visuals in real-time, are an integral part of music culture, by using coordinated media in unique ways to form impressions. Lasal based the video above on the Aristid Lindenmayer L-system, used for plant modeling, and synchronized it to his own sound design.

The fractal he generated seems to augment the complexity of the audio, and yet its reactions to the sounds allow us to grasp the sum of the creation’s parts. There’s another video after the cut, this time with geometric figures to a slow downtempo: Read more...

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Brütal Legend: Jack Black Stars in Heavy Metal Game

EA Games and Double Fine Productions will release Brütal Legend on October 13, starring Jack Black as the voice of Eddie Riggs, an experienced roadie who’s transported into the legendary “Age of Rock” to fight evil. The game is designed by Tim Schafer, who you might recall from the Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango, and Psychonauts.

Eddie recruits an army of headbangers, and fights to save the alternate world from demons. The main enemy is a glam rocker, called General Lionwhyte, whose shining, enormous hair allows him to fly. Tenacious D has teamed up with Gamestop to offer an in-game guitar to those who pre-order the game, check it out after the jump: Continue reading...

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Pro-Copyright Curriculum Taught In US Classrooms

The Copyright Alliance has launched the Copyright Alliance Education Foundation that will develop educational programs, and has already distributed a “copyright curriculum” for educators at the West Potomac Academy in Virginia. From the Alliance’s web site:

“Our nation has reaped the rewards both culturally and economically of the principle and practice of copyright,” said Patrick Ross, Copyright Alliance Executive Director. “This system has served us well for centuries - so much so, that it has become an invisible underpinning in our country’s prosperity. Now, as a new generation of creators populates today’s classrooms, we must ensure that principle is not taken for granted and continues to be a foundation for creative success.”

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Hulu to Live-Stream Dave Matthews Concert for Free

Online video site Hulu will live-stream the Dave Matthews Band performance at the Beacon Theatre in New York on June 1. From the DMB web site:

“We are excited to announce that Dave Matthews Band and Hulu are teaming up to present Hulu’s first-ever live concert stream. Beginning at 9:00 p.m. EST on June 1st, Hulu will bring the intimate Beacon Theatre show to fans for free via a live stream at Hulu.com.”

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TuneCore, Amazon Partner To Publish And Distribute CDs

Amazon is partnering with Tunecore to provide any artist with on-demand CD printing and distribution for $31 a year. For that lowly sum, they will handle the creation of a 10-track album, passing all other costs to the buyer.

Finally, a service that will remove the middle-man and make it easier for artists to provide albums for fans on Amazon and iTunes, without the exorbitant cost normally associated with CD manufacturing. Continue reading...

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Deerhoof Animation: ‘This is God Speaking’ Music Video

Kill Rock Stars released a new video for Deerhoof’s This is God Speaking, done completely in flash animation by Akiko Carver. Ryan Catbird of MBV puts it best: “A short, unusual video for a short, unusual song.”

Read the director’s comments and watch the video after the: Continue reading...

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New Music Search Engine: Queen And Led Zeppelin Segmented

At the 2009 International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) in Taiwan, UC San Diego electrical engineering Ph.D. student Luke Barrington presented a new model for music analysis (pdf) that can capture both the sound of a song and how it changes over time. The system is being used for a new search engine, dubbed Google for Music, and users would search for descriptive words, like “mellow jazz”, instead of song titles, album names or artist names. Read more...

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ReverbNation Pays Musicians To Release Free Music Downloads

ReverbNation announced today that 1000 of its 400,000 artist members will be able to participate in a new revenue generating Sponsored Songs program, reports Hypebot. The program will pay participating musicians $0.50 per free download. In essence, they will be paying musicians to release their music for free.

ReverbNation’s plan is to embed small advertisements within the digital cover art that is displayed every time a given song is played, and thus, spread ads virally, like the music itself, over file sharing platforms and social networks. Continue reading...

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Sony To Offer Music Downloads On PlayStation Network

Sony is jumping into the online music distribution market, as sources told CNET that Sony is attempting to deal with other major recording companies to provide music downloads through the PlayStation Network.

This comes after Sir Howard Stringer, Sony Chairman, President and CEO, said that the company can compete with iTunes by providing “something that Apple can’t” and will “grab that opportunity before Apple begins to provide support for other hardware and blocks [Sony] out.” Digital music served on the Playstation Network seems to be the answer. Read more...

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