A month or so ago, David Lynch announced a video contest on Genero.tv for two new songs he’d recently released. (I so want to enter one of these someday – eventually I’ll get the needed equipment, software & time…).

Well, fast forward to January 3rd and the winners have been announced. Both the videos are ‘really’ impressive, especially given the relatively short timeframe. I’m sure anyone who’s a fan of Mr. Lynch already has some quirky visual ideas in their head, but both the winning videos (in their own way) capture both the mood of the chosen song as well as meshing nicely with the style and mood we all expect for anything related to Lynch’s creative body of work… I had some trouble getting the genero.tv video embeds to work, so you’ll have to click the images below to view the videos (and I highly recommend you do… I mean, it’s 9 minutes total that will enrich your day, that can’t be bad, right?)

GOOD DAY TODAY – David Lynch

Directed by Arnold de Parscau, this video is simply described as “A little boy is having dinner with his family.” Of course, there’s much more than that here. I love the slow paced shots and the transitions into the mind/imagination of the boy was very well done. The settings/environments are smothered in a beautiful darkness. The ending (I won’t spoil) felt a little forced but still works well.

I KNOW – David Lynch

Directed by Tamar Drachli (and shot solely on a Canon 7D!), this video is my favorite of the two. The story is a little more subtle (listed as “A man obsessed by the woman that left him tries to bring her back through the remote control”), but is still very captivating. Great use of natural lighting, nice cuts and shadows, striking close-ups and compelling pace.

All in all it looks like this was a successful venture for Genero.tv, and it looks like they’ve already got some new video contests running (for Duran Duran & OMD to name a few). A nice way to generate some stunning user content. I hope to get the chance later to browse some of the other contest submission and this will definitely be a site I’ll keep my eye on…

                          

spipmusic

Just in case it slipped through the cracks last night, I launched my new music blog. I’m hoping a blog with a sense of focus (the thing spipasucci.com is seriously lacking) will help me generate better and more interesting content…

The impetus for the site is to bring back that sense of music sharing/discussion I used to have all the time in High School & College with friends… We’re all still connected through the interwebz, so hopefully this will bring some of that back… Anyone else who wants to follow along however, please feel free!

I hope this will give some friends some new stuff to listen to and will spur those friends and others to send stuff my way as well!

                          

Decided a mix was needed to round out what became a Nostalgia-day (what with the reissued remastered Pretty Hate Machine disk and all…). Bookended by two tracks off said Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine remastered CD, there’s plenty of 90′s fun contained here… A little local flair with Urban Needle, Gone Daddy Finch & The Backmonkeys. Grabbed a few other 90′s favorites (The Pixies, Throwing Muses, Babes In Toyland…) and mixed in a few deep cuts for good measure (Babyland, Acid Horse, Tsunami…). So sit back and enjoy the Clam Chowder….
—————————————————————————–
Sancified (Remastered) – Nine Inch Nails
460 – Tsunami
Cop Out – Babyland
Caroline – Concrete Blonde
Matter Of Degrees – Throwing Muses
Wish You Dead – Urban Needle
I Against I – Bad Brains
Is She Weird – The Pixies
Barknuckle – Die Monster Die
So Low – Self
Bruise Violet – Babes In Toyland
Grey Cell Green – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin
Killer Inside Me – MC 900 Ft. Jesus
I Like My Little Girl – Gone Daddy Finch
My Lighter – Backmonkeys
No Name, No Slogan – Acid Horse
Ringfinger (Remastered) – Nine Inch Nails

                          

Head Like A Hole: Fuller, more bass (in a good way). The mid section breakdown has a tighter feel through the percussion with more pop and separation in the bass drum. The guitars have lost that ‘tinny’ feel. Nothing sounds “redone” (because it’s not), but its definitely richer…

Terrible Lie: The whispered “Hey God” mixed into the percussive beats in the intro can now be picked out much better. There’s some rolling percussive sound in the second verse that although I hear it now in the original, I never noticed till the remaster. It’s that separation again. The mid “Don’t take it away from me” (2:10) building portion is much more powerful (building sounds I don’t recall at all can be heard…).

Down In It: I expected the bass to be what impressed me on this one, but it’s really how much better the high’s float above everything.. There’s a subtle snap to the kick, and and the keyboard melts nicely into the full pounding bass. There’s an overall sense of stereo playfulness but just enough to have you on your toes without feeling like the song is trying too hard to swirl around your head… The last 20 seconds tighten up that stereo range in a growing peak.

Sanctified: Here the new ‘fullness’ really comes into play. This song always seemed to be shallow to me (from a production sense), but the dancing keys, popping bass line and rolling swells now seem to create a fantastic swirl around your head. There’s lots of whispers and new noises here (again, I’m sure they were just more buried in the original)… The breakdown around 3:20 is now a robust basket of weird swells and sounds. Building through the third verse, these accent noises play an even stronger role. This song is now really way more powerful to me than it ever was… The transition into the next track is much more powerful as well…

Something I Can Never Have: Always was a powerful tune… Around the 2:40 mark more stuff I don’t recall (birds & airplane noises?)… But it works, real subtle… Reznor’s ability to truly spend the whole five minutes building the emotion is really accentuated here… There’s just a subtle increase in the soundscape, the level of the underlying bass, that really gives that emotional build… Again the third verse it feels like there’s extra attention to spatial separation of all these background elements… Fantastic…

Kinda I Want To: Feels again like the old version was mono compared to this… This song always kinda of jumped up and down sonically because of the drastically different samples in the verse portions. Now there is much more balance in the levels of these sections so it’s less distracting and more effective… The recall at 2:19 of sample bits from ‘Down In It’ seem to be much more active… Because of the more stereo feel, the break at 3:00 that basically goes mono is pretty impressive… Great cacophony of sounds to end the song leading into Sin…

Sin: Same as last song. The intro makes you feel like you always heard this through crap speakers before. You can now make out every element of all these intro samples… The verses sound fuller… More bass and I definitely find myself focusing much less on the vocal line because I’m caught up in all that’s going on in the stereo field… New clicks I never noticed in the ending…

That’s What I Get: Fuller, fatter right off the bat. This is really the first song where it seems some more attention might have been paid to the vocals. I don’t know if that’s because there’s a little less going on around the vocal lines in this song than others, but there seems to be a little more reverb maybe? Instrumental mid section (3:01) very clean… Ending instrumental build sounds great (key swells, percussive…).

The Only Time: The effect on the bass drum here in the intro sounds new? When the chorus kicks here, a change of pace where I’m not really bombarded with lots of stereo stuff happening and instead it’s very crisp but controlled… The bass feels to be more off to the left here than in the other songs where it filled the soundscape. Lots of push and pull between quiet and loud in this song and it’s much more effective with the remaster…

Ringfinger: Separation is the first word I think of here… The intro sounds like you’re in the room as it’s just Trent and the keyboard… Vocals dead center into second verse… Super bass thump and the key pattern hyper jumping between the ears… All the percussive effects are super tight contrasting the key/guitar/vocal reverb that can be heard real subtly… The whole break part following the ‘Jane’s sample is pretty sweet. The bass kinda sits behind your head while all the samples, keys and percussive effects jump around the sides and front…

Get Down Make Love: Tougher to compare because I didn’t listen to this song nearly as much as all the other tracks… First impression is this one almost seems extra loud and compressed. Kinda cleans back up after the sample intro… Vocals kinda swimming under all the heavy sounds… Second verse there’s some new samples introduced in there that are kind of cool… Second chorus more crunchy…

Overall: Right out of the gate, there’s a greater clarity… And as soon as Head Like A Hole kicks in, it’s clear, this is mastered at a higher volume. But it’s not purely a volume boost by any means. There’s an immediate sense of a greater spacial soundscape. It’s very natural and fluid, but things are definitely placed more precisely throughout the stereo range. It’s fuller, but clearer at the same time… Really exciting listening to this all the way through like this for the first time. I’ve never really paid enough attention to other remasters in this way before, but there is truly a significant difference. And it doesn’t feel forced or weird. This remaster doesn’t try to make you think this album wasn’t created 20 years ago (and that’s a good thing). It just gives a clear picture into what Reznor was probably really thinking with the extra bonus of 20 years experience under his belt… I HIGHLY recommend if you’re at all a NIN fan…

                          

NIN “Down In It” report on “Hard Copy,” March 3rd 1991 from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

I totally forgot about this but now I think it’s totally fascinating…
The whole world of “fanatical” journalism that now seems so commonplace, but it sure existed back then… This might be one of the most poorly researched and slanted news reports I’ve ever seen (granted it was on ‘Hard Copy’…). I forgot how “shocking”(haha) underground industrial and goth culture was 20 years ago as far as the mainstream was concerned…It’s crazy how much the world has changed as far as music and youth culture and the mainstream reaction to it… To have so much of this “news” piece focus on the fact that Trent Reznor had a nose piercing seems ridiculous now, but I remember those days… “Down In It” as a song and video seems so tame by today’s standards, but when it came out, wow did it feel underground and groundbreaking! This is such an entertaining 12 minute time machine….

                          

Wow, what a crazy day!! Bernie Jantz and his antics…wow. Well how better to commemorate all of our memories of Bernie from back in High School than with a special mix of all of Bernie’s favorite tunes! Bernie was always rockin’ out in Colorado and his special work with Local Little Leagues & Book Clubs throughout greater Cherry Hill will not be forgotten. Someone is always keeping a close (though slightly gauze blurred) watch on Bernie….
—————————————————————————–
Immigrant Song (Live BBC) – Led Zeppelin
Rock Music – The Pixies
It’s Too Late – 7 Year Bitch
Das Schutzenfest – Faith No More
Under – Filter
Ujaku – Naked City
Have A Cigar – Primus
Sugar Kane – Sonic Youth
Check – Goose
Just Another Victim – Helmet & House Of Pain
Dive – Nirvana
I’ve Got You Under My Skin – Jawbox
Buzz – Baby Chaos
What The Fuck – Boss Hog
Holy Wars…The Punishment Due – Megadeth

                          

GIRL TALK – ALL DAY – ILLEGAL ART.

It’s been a while in the making but Girl Talk has just released his latest album… It’s a free (although tough to get because of server demand) download from the illegal art site…

So far (just a few tracks into it), it’s very much as expected… (and for the most part that’s a good thing…). A nice mash between hip-hop lyrics flying over 80′s and classic rock snippets and bits. I’d say so far it feels a little more subdued and a little less hectic than the past few albums…

Still worth a grab….

                          

Just in time for Halloween here’s an absolutely Halloween free mix… I was going to go all Halloweenish, but decided to instead go the usual groove & hang route… So a little bit about the tracks… Totally stuck on the leading Skrillex track when it’s loud in the headphones… Maybeshewill is some killer post rock to mix things up… There’s an insanely fascinating cover of Zeppelin’s Wanton Song by Remote Tree Children… Rounding things out is the main theme from Clint Mansell’s amazing Moon soundtrack. Enjoy!!
—————————————————————————–
Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites – Skrillex
Gazing At The Glare – Pretty Lights
Gaze – Suuns
Am I The Ghost – Styrofoam
Sweat Shop – Neon Neon
To The Skies From A Hillside – Maybeshewill
Moon – Lovelikefire
Always – In Gratitude
Skuff’d – Boxcutter
Come Back (Lorn Mix) – Eskmo
Wanton Song – Remote Tree Children
Fun Over 100 – The Gaslamp Killer
Powerstrip 66 (Feat. Doshy) – Robot Koch
All Medicated Geniuses – Pretty Girls Make Graves
Welcome To Lunar Industries – Clint Mansell

                          

OCTane What (Mix-a-saurus mix – hey dude, smell my head) (Click to Play/Download)

Okay, so maybe having Facebook friends name this one wasn’t the best idea, but thanks to Jen, Sean, Julie & Barb for my weirdest named mix yet… I was really geared up to give a nice blurb or two for each track, but maybe next time… Lot’s of good stuff in here tho’… This one is definitely an up-down-up sorta mix (not the usual roller coaster)…
—————————————————————————–
Dragonfly – Rustie
Neverland – Dirty Elegance
Anchor Steam – Daedelus & Teebs
Critical – Hot Toddy
A Familiar Taste – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
My KZ Yr BF – Everything Everything
Fix Up Look Sharp – Dizzee Rascal
Look Alike – Tokimonsta
Dsco – Sweet Trip
One – Anbb
Drive It Like You Stole It – The Glitch Mob
Snapshots On A Sunday Night – Swedeart
Don’t Hate On Tech Decks 1.2 – Juj
Dualistic – Amon Tobin
Martyrs – Veil Of Maya
Melted Hitchhiker – Tobacco
Eat Sun, Son – Gobble Gobble
Xxinfinity – Marty Party
Rabia 2nd Movement – Rob Swift

                          

92bpm: All City Presents: KALEIDOSCOPIC by mymanhenri [DWNLD].

Well worth checking out. Love the track by track explanation as well (something I’d like to try on a mix sometime…). Great flow…