confused about the large hadron collider? this rap video explains it all

built over 14 years, costing about 5 billion euros, so large that it spans two countries - the large hadron collider is quite a feat of human engineering. i mean, it might even destroy the solar system!

the power switch will be turned on in september... but what does it actually DO? and WHY?

naturally, there's a rap video that explains everything.



the independent has an in depth interview with the co-star of the video, 23 year old kate macalpine, and while the tune is pretty accurate, she admits the video got one thing wrong:

The dancing and rapping segments were filmed on location at the lab, in the LHC's tunnels and the cavernous underground halls that contain the detectors, the "eyes" of the machine that look at the fallout of particle collisions.

"We got some strange looks. I mean you get a strange look just walking around CERN in a lab coat," says McAlpine. "Nobody wears lab coats."

its goofy, somewhat cliche, but fun and informative.

diy ableton live control surface looks, works awesome, is open source

for those who like to tinker, like to assemble their own gear, and love dance music. the aurora 224 gives you 24 knobs, eight buttons and three faders in a kit that is mounted on light-catching plexiglass. designed for ableton live users, the layout lets you map the effects and samples needed for your late night dance party. looks like a lot of fun.

createdigitalmusic.com has a great writeup and review:

The Aurora really is something special; you can tell that it’s not the typical store-bought controller and people do respond very well to it. Also, while there are control surfaces with cross-faders like Novation’s adorable Nocturn, I can’t think of anything (amazingly) with this particular, balanced layout of effects controls and two-channel mixing. And it really is open source: the enclosure specs, schematics, firmware, and computer software are all available for editing.

kit prices start at $270.

new chad vangaalen record

one of my faves, chad vangaalen, has a new record coming out. here's a vid from it. sad and fantastic.


support chad and buy his music.

songblitz - fun music trivia game kills hours of time

think you're a music master? put it to the test with the online music trivia game songblitz. match the album cover with the song clip that is playing and you earn points. then brag to your friends, assuming you truly do know your stuff...

nikon's new d90 camera - first dslr with hd video mode

after a few weeks of rumors, nikon has officially announced their newest digital slr camera, the d90. photography and video forums have been buzzing about this camera not because of a new set of photographic features (which are, as usual, very cool) but because of reports that the camera would have a high-def video mode, complete with sound.

it seems that many purists hate that. but they are being drowned out by the excitement of many others who welcome a fun (and useful) additional feature.

for someone like myself who regularly carries around a second camera (even if it is just a tiny canon elph) only for the option of shooting short video to accompany my photos, this is a very exciting new tool. first, the image quality will be a marked improvement. 720p at 24fps means you have HD quality video being recorded at a frame rate that is the same as film (giving a warm, soft effect to the video), rather than video (which always seemed to have a cheapish 80s feel, although better for capturing fast action).

add to that the option to use a bag full of great lenses, from fisheyes to zooms to fast lenses with very narrow depth of field, and you can become a proper cinematographer, controlling the viewer's eye with your creative and stylistic choices.

with companies like red pushing the envelope of digital filmmaking, it is not too shocking to see nikon put their toes in the water too. my guess, the next five years will bring some major changes to those who make film.

and finally, after weeks of wondering, you can now check out nikon's sample movie page to see the variety of videos this camera can generate.


of course, you can also pre-order it from amazon already.

mmc's "we blame you" ep is out now

our real good amigos in meanest man contest have a new digital ep called we blame you out now on gold robot records. it's an odds-and-ends collection featuring a new song; remixes by débruit, mochipet (with scratches by dj lion), and multi-panel (winner of the "they do" remix contest); and a cover from roman ruins (which he made by spiffing up his "they do" remix and swapping the original acapella out with his own vocals - cool!). the ep's kick-ass cover art was designed by hunter mack, who runs gold robot. you can see more of hunter's work on his site.

here's the track list:

1. we wouldn't want it any other way (débruit remix)
2. throwing away broken electronics (mochipet remix f/ dj lion)
3. you're right. it's ballin'.
4. they do (multi-panel remix)
5. they do (roman ruins version)

there were lots of other great "they do" remix contest entries. we'll do a post soon with some of our favorites.

but right now, let's check out one of the tracks from we blame you, shall we?

meanest man contest - "throwing away broken electronics" (mochipet remix f/ dj lion)

from the inbox: persian/german trance-rap with FILTHY english interludes

here at sneakmove, we get a lot of new music sent to us by publicists. most of it is very bland, but once in a while we get a track that can only be described as u-fucking-nique. pr reps: y'all need to keep it interesting and send us more wild shit like this!

===

From: ahoora mazda
Date: Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 1:29 AM
Subject: (song of year) the best new rap song of ali tanha(alone) feat tricky-m
To: sneakmove

hi im ziba karson one of the fan of your site
this is the best rap song of rap-trance style's
ali tanha feat tricky-m this song have 3 part
enlish german and persian so ali tanha sing enlish and persian
and tricky-m sing german rap. this song wanna candid for geramy award
and so may be it be the song of year plz insert it in your site
p.s.
thank alot:ziba karson
the name of song:beauty





ali tanha feat. tricky-m - "beauty"

nick lowe

nick lowe is great example of unpretentious authentic rock. straight ahead, fun songs. his 1978 jesus of cool lp is solid. check a track.

nick lowe "i love the sound of breaking glass"

thou art infinite; infinite art thou

into infinity is an art and music exhibition i've been working on over the past few months with the good people at dublab via my job at creative commons. the project is based on the idea of creative reuse and is made up of 12-inch circular artworks and eight-second audio loops. we launched into infinity's online component a couple of weeks ago and are now planning a number of physical installations.



the exhibition includes pieces by kofie, dntel, odd nosdam, flying lotus, omid, lucky dragons, and a bunch of other great artists and musicians. all of the works are published under a creative commons by-nc copyright license, which lets people download, share, and remix them for noncommercial purposes. we'll add new submissions regularly, and we'll eventually invite the public to submit their remixes of the pieces for possible inclusion in the exhibition.

i've currently got two loops in the mix. you can listen to my loops by visiting the artist index and clicking "eriksolo mmc." the site's programmed to pair a random audio loop with a random visual piece every time you navigate to the next display. play around with it for a bit and you'll come up with all sorts of cool combinations.

=====



abstract rude has not contributed any artwork or loops to into infinity (if you read this, abbey, holler at us and submit something!), but he did do a track with abstract tribe unique several years back called "blast off into infinity," and it would make a great theme song for the project, so i shall post it here.

abstract tribe unique - blast off into infinity

ryuichi sakamoto

i ran across the trailer for the 2004 film tony takitani the other day. i haven't seen it, but it looks great. it's based on a story by the great novelist haruki murakami. the music in the trailer moved me the most, so i looked it up and of course it was by one of my faves, ryuichi sakamoto. i had to buy the soundtrack. it's pretty darn amazing. somber solo piano pieces.

ryuichi sakamoto "dna intro"

here's the trailer:

and inside that bong is a baby bong!

i've posted about the hawd gankstuh rappuhs mc's wid ghatz before. there's not a lot of info about the group out there, but i've pieced together that it was made up of three guys who went to risd in the mid-'90s. they hooked up with wordsound to put out a few records, then capped their discography with an album on load.

the first hawd gankstuh rappuhs album, 2 hype 2 wype is awesomely bizarre (an amazon user review puts it pretty well: "some people say that it sounds like the beasties retaded cuzins, a battle between 3 flava flavs, or nwa meets the butthole serfers, or the beatnuts after they got pushed off a subway platform in front of a moving train."). the second one, wake up and smell the piss, isn't quite as good, but still has some great moments.



my favorite track on wake up … is "the bong (get in the)," which parodies cypress hill's laser-like focus on rapping about marijuana. (did you know that b-real smokes pot? it's true, he does! in fact, it makes him very stoned.)

these days, devin flynn, aka guy albino, is in the band pixeltan and is an animator who has worked on wonder showzen and the aqua teen hunger force movie. there's an interview with him from earlier this year up on the vice blog. he also has his own series, y'all so stupid (the title refers to this obscure (but great) dallas austin-related hip-hop group). the show is disgusting and weird in much the same way that the hawd gankstuh rappuhs music is. RAD!

here's my favorite episode:



from what i understand, seth cooper, aka flybot van damn, makes some of the music for y'all so stupid. cooper also helms an experimental electronic music project called libythth. his new album, upside down helicoptor is available to purchase directly from the phthalo label.

hawd gankstuh rappuhs mc's wid ghatz - "the bong (get in the)"

the whatnauts

i grabbed this whatnauts lp over at funk my soul. i really enjoyed the um... funky soul sound of it. then i noticed this track which was sampled by mf doom for the king geedorah album. check it.

the whatnauts "message from a black man"
king geedorah "anti matter"

ain't no other kind of music in the world that makes me feel quite as chill

growing up, i had a few friends whose moms were very strict christians and wouldn't let them listen to rap music because it is dirty and corrupting. then dc talk came around in the early '90s and offered respectable beats and rhymes that even the blessed virgin mary could get loose to. thank goodness! too bad the group's songs sucked.



there are many cornball rap tracks in the dc talk discography, but 1991's "i luv rap music" epitomizes why the group was never able to connect with real hip-hop audiences (despite being HUGE stars on the christian music scene). the song is a hamfisted rip-off of a variety of popular secular tracks of the era, with lyrics that are delivered in a way that recalls a junior high principal reaching out to students on their level to communicate the virtuous joys of recycling … via rap!

the group's lead vocalist, toby mckeehan, had clearly been listening to a lot of fresh prince around the time this song was recorded (check out the part where he does a squeaky, silly impersonation of his mom - it's a move jacked straight from the "parents just don't understand"/"fresh prince of bel-air theme" playbook). meanwhile, the intro is clearly intended to invoke the same sort of apocalyptic superseriousness that leads off several public enemy songs. in his deepest and most earnest rap voice, mckeehan hilariously bellows "some people out there givin' rap a bad name!". suffice it to say, he is no professor griff, and this song is no "bring the noise."

dc talk - "i luv rap music"

another cool music app for the iphone: nois.io synthesizer

noise.io, a synthesizer app for the iphone, is to be released next week. it comes with 81 editable presets and a load of parameters you can tweak. not sure how this holds up against a real synth, or if you can sequence anything on it, but for just $7 you can kill a few hours on the airplane coming up with some great 80s pop tunes.

noise.io site. more on macnn.

richard schneider jr.

check out this spacey jazz funk track i grabbed from the growing bin. 1977. great stuff.

richard schneider jr. "samba trip"

lips are in motion

i was going through some records i have tucked away in a closet and found the 45 for debbie harry's "french kissin'," which was also released as "french kissin' in the usa." i bought the record when it came out in 1986 because i'd heard the song on the radio and the drum sounds at the very beginning reminded me of the beastie boys' "paul revere." (i even made a very clumsy pause tape-like mix that included bits of both tracks - if that sucker turns up in further closet searchin', i'll mosdef post audio from it here).



i forgot how great this song is. i searched hype machine, and it looks like no one's posted it before, which surprises me because (a) it's from the '80s, (b) it's by debbie harry, (c) it's got the word "french" in it.

debbie harry - "french kissin'" (aka "french kissin' in the usa")

the bones brigade video tunes on cd

powell peralta's "the search for animal chin" is still the best skate movie i've ever seen. i recently played it for my nephew (age 7) and he was completely consumed by it. afterwards i tried to show him another skate movie but he didn't care for it - saying "i like the music a lot better in animal chin."

which led me to discover this great cd: the bones brigade video tunes. all the great songs from the classic bones brigade movies! just $10! i'm buying two - one for my nephew and one for me.

here's an mp3 from the movie, the news segment at the start and then johnny rad singing "raddy daddy."

also, enjoy the trailer from the recently released animal chin special edition dvd.

bohemian vendetta

there are a bunch of cool blogs that post old albums. stuff on vinyl that's rare. it's been great following these sites and getting familiar with tons of music i didn't know about. check out this late 60s new york psych song that i got at hippy dj-kit.

bohemian vendetta "all kinds of highs"

all about: current tv

last night i was treated to a great presentation by current tv's creative strategist robin sloan. he explained a lot about their vision of the future of video, and how we all have a part in it.

current tv is a television/media network that also has a fantastic online presence, with a wide-range of user created videos. they have a cool system - videos get voted on and the ones with the most votes rise to the front page of the site. on that page, a timer is counting down. when it hits zero, the top video on the site is rushed to the network producers and edited into current news, an on-air TV segment. fun!

you can choose to upload your own video content, or take on an assignment from their request list (news, viewer ads, or commentary). and, it can be lucrative.

beyond that, there's about a million other things you can do with their site. good place to start: their faq.

here's a video upload about a solar car on a 10k mile journey.

diy electric car conversion article on cnn

electric car converting is going mainstream: cnn.com has a piece today profiling two people who have converted their own cars (actually, one is a pickup) to run on battery power. and both people encourage everyone to do it too. inspiring!

david byrne and brian eno: strange overtones

the duo's collaborative album (everything that happens will happen today) comes on on tuesday, but in the meantime you can download the first single, "strange overtones" free off their site. it's catchy!

various fan videos using the track are showing up on youtube. here's one that i enjoyed.

fleet foxes performed on letterman last week

when quarby and photomike saw fleet foxes play their first show outside of their home state of washington at the end of this february, they knew the band was on to big things. and immediately after that, they were picked up by pitchfork, put on a nonstop tour, and groomed as the torchbearers for great new things in music.

but who would have expected they'd be playing on letterman just five months later?

New Gnarls Vid

i can't say i am a huge gnarls barkley fan, but this video is pretty solid. great concept, solid direction, oh, and did i mention awesome and gross? check it out from director chris milk

protools remote iphone app just $149

far out labs has created an iphone app that lets you control protools remotely. using wifi, you can tweak all the settings on up to 32 channels from anywhere you please, even on the other side of the planet. future versions will work with other digital audio workstations.

of course, if you want this you have to pay, $149.99 to be exact. ouch. an 8-channel version is available for "only" $39.99.

get it here: proremote.

here's a youtube clip to see it in full effect:

more than this, i'm looking forward to an officially sanctioned ableton live controller kinda like this one. anyone good at programming in cocoa?

top 20 ambient records

fact magazine put together a great list of the top twenty ambient records of all time. super list to use with pandora help you find some great new music.

here are their top three:
1. brian eno - music for airports (1978)
2. pole - pole 3 (2000)
3. william basinski - the disintegration loops (2002)

rock and roll acid test - season finale tonight

the team builds indestructible guitar cases, shows how quickly an std can spread, and checks if grungy rockers do it better than divas. rrat host/sneakmove pal mike senese says it was his favorite episode to film.

make sure to tune in!

channel: fuse
time: 11pm ET / 8pm PT

download remixed iphone ringtones - in iphone format!

in celebration of iphone 3g fever, we're releasing all the entries of our iphone ringtone remix/beat contest as free iphone ringtones, cropped and converted to the length and format that lets you install it automatically on your iphone and begin enjoying the tweaked marimba sounds. so easy, so fun, and so cool.

here's how to install them:
1. right click ("ctrl-click" on mac) the link to download the file.
2. open the ringtone file to save it to your itunes "ringtones" library (make sure you are on the current version of itunes)

3. with your iphone connected to itunes, select the "ringtones" tab under the iphone setting and enable ringtone syncing.

ready? here they are. the song titles are linked the the ringtone. the mp3 clip of the original song is also provided.

• pete leidy (japan) (link): i called you iphone remix (also: mp3)
  
• mike b a.k.a. turnhandle: ritual ringtone iphone remix (mp3)
  
• zephyr (madison, wi) (link): 1987 heavy marimba iphone remix (mp3)
  
• zephyr (madison, wi): 7 pixel donky kong barrel flying into steve jobs ear (mp3)
  
• zephyr (madison, wi): clinky childhood rhythms iphone remix (mp3)
  
• zephyr (madison, wi): jupiter bumps iphone remix (mp3)
  
• zephyr (madison, wi): too much mash iphone remix (mp3)
  
• ster (seattle) (link): iphone remix w/ aesop rock (mp3)
  
• martin van spanje (netherlands) (link): d'n'b iphone ringtone iphone remix (mp3)
  
• bomarr (oakland, ca): iphone track (mp3)
  
• quarterbar (san francisco) (link): quarbz iphone ringtone remix (mp3)
  
• gary tijuana (san francisco) (link): iphone mania mix (mp3)
  
• chester's kitchen (sweden) (link): iphony iphone remix (mp3)
  
• m.c. blastypants and the old fashioned space future crew (los angeles): quarterbar's iphone ringtone beat (stoylish's "very serious about reggae" remix) (mp3)
  

or, get the entire batch here in a zip file.

if you want to make your own, here's our original post with remix instructions. keep sending them and we'll keep posting 'em.

documentary: spending three years searching for old funk records in africa

frank, a brooklyn dj from germany, has spent over there years traveling around west africa in search of vinyl records of forgotten funk recordings. now he's making a documentary about his experiences, and from the preview, it looks fascinating.

check out his site here. lots of additional video clips and mp3 mixes.