Wolves of the dark, cold North

The Norwegian trio Ulver (Wolves), signed on Jester & The End Records, has made a long way since their first recorded demo in 1993.

Breaking away from their black metal roots around 2000 after being heavily inspired by Coil, Ulver covered genres like neofolk, avant-garde rock, even chamber music, and today is mostly renowned for experimental music and a handfull of soundtracks.


From the 'black metal era':
Bergtatt (1994)
Nattens Madrigal (1996)

More in an avant-garde direction, they start blending metal with electronic and ambient passages:
Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven And Hell (1998)

Even more experimental, heavily Coil-inspired, minimal, and first soundtracks:
Perdition City (2000)
Teachings In Silence (EP, consisting of the EPs Silence Teaches You How to Sing & Silencing the Singing; 2002)
Lyckantropen Themes (soundtrack; 2002)
1993-2003 1st Decade in the Machines (2003)

Second decade in the machines - more symphonic approaches and drone:
A Quick Fix of Melancholy (EP; 2003)
Svidd Neger (soundtrack; 2003)
Blood Inside (2005)
CUT WOODeD (a 15min track from Ulver's appearance on WHITEbox by Sunn O))); 2006)
Shadows Of The Sun (2007)

Ulver will be playing at the Mollafestival 2009.

Sir Tralala release show

"Gebt mir ein richtiges Studio und ich geb euch den Wahnsinn."
-- Sir Tralala


On the occasion of a most awesome gig of the amazing Sir Tralala (also to be found here) which, in fact, was his second release party, I acquired a delicious new album which I therefore now happen to have the honor to be able to share with you:

Sir Tralala - Escaping Dystopia (2009)

But since I may also call myself the proud owner of some older tunes of this Carinthian genius, I was tempted to let you have a little insight of his earlier works, and assembled a few additional mp3s to lay at your feet:

The Sir's early years collection

Of course, the only correct action to take at this point (that I expect from you, dearest reader) is to F*ING RUN OUT AND BUY THIS GORGEOUS RECORD!
Yes. Yours Truly said it. Pirates of this world, unite.




Picture on top: Sir Tralala at Fluc Wanne, 07|30|08 by davnull.

Pure breathtaking sorrow

After a blogging pause of almost exactly one full year (not counting my beloved soup, of course), out of a special request I'll add one more post to my music (upload) category, however for this one time not dealing with the new hot shit in terms of noisecore and consortia, but rather some more classic tunes.

YT's quick tip: The following mp3s are best savored alone with a bottle of delicious red wine.


Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) - one of the most influential (German) composers of all time. The saddest and possibly most well-known fact about this outstanding character of the Classic - Romantic era is his tinnitus and resulting loss of his hearing during his 30ies. He died at the age of 56, leaving 138 (numbered) opi behind - the last one of these being published 20 full years before his death (besides this, 205 additional composings where discovered, not numbered by the composer).
Out of this wonderful spectrum of some of the best music ever written, surely the 2nd movement (Allegretto) of his Symphony No. 7 in A Major, op. 92 is simply heartbreaking.

Let me therefore provide you with this wonderful piece of art:
Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, performed by the New York Philharmonic, conducted by the great Leonard Bernstein
d/l from mediafire

Also, let me bring the 2nd part of this recording to your ears: his
Symphony No. 1 in C Major, op. 21
d/l from mediafire


Another work I'd consider one of the most important ones, or even more so, its composer who certainly was a main influence in his era and leader of the scene of Romantic composers and musicians, is Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) and his 'Ein deutsches Requiem' (A German Requiem) - unlike other missae pro defunctis written to texts from the Lutheran bible (in German), picked by Brahms himself. Of all the requiems I know and ever heard of, this *one* example does not pity the death of the deceased, but tries to alleviate the sorrow and buoy up the bereaved. It is not only from a musical standpoint, but also judging by its theological views, a true masterpiece.

So here it is, Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, Philharmonia Chorus & Orchestra, conducted by Otto Klemperer:
d/l from mediafire


In case none of these works made you turn off your stereo drowned in tears or choke by the sheer overwhelmingly breathtaking delight brought to your ears yet, I will now break my secret of the most depressing, eyewatering piece of music ever:
Gustav Mahler's (1860 - 1911) Adagietto (4th movement, 'Sehr langsam') from his arguably most famous piece, the Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp Minor.
If you have ever seen Death in Venice, the 1971 film adaption of Thomas Mann's homonymous book directed by Luchino Visconti, you know what I'm talking about.

Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 5, New York Philharmonic, conducted (once again) by Leonard Bernstein (and please, please note his unequaled expressiveness in the Adagietto)
d/l from mediafire

If this wasn't all way too sad already, I would've stated I'd go listen to Linkin Park now.

LOL-CV

I just wrote my very own LOL-curriculum vitae today, after being asked to describe my person in one 'longer' sentence. Or what I'm actually doing. Or whatever.
WTF people? You talked to me any longer than 5 min and actually imagine I could describe my life in ONE fucking phrase? LOL. Srsly.


The 50 most relevant facts about Esther Schneeweisz, randomly ordered:

Fact #01: Also known as: Astera / tgfkae (the girl formerly known as Esther) / Miss Snowwhite / Marzipanreeh / esc / Okapi / sweets.
Fact #02: Berliner-by-choice. At least for 50% of the year.
Fact #03: Founder of Team Dirty Chai, a.k.a. TDC, hashtagged #tdcag on Twitter. Taking care of press coverage, story-building, and a Flickr appreciation group.
Fact #04: Creator of several not-so-very wide-spread internet memes, and explaining them by conversions to mathematical formulas.
Fact #05: Never tested biological weapons on fellow teammates. Pretty constantly rickrolling them though, partly by accident.
Fact #06: Industrial designer stuck at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Fact #07: Working about 16 hours a day as a troublemaker and -shooter in only one person.
Fact #08: Start-up marketing consultant.
Fact #09: Account manager at a young & dynamic advertising and design agency.
Fact #10: Working on the Soviet Unterzoegersdorf Sector II adventure game (and several other projects for Monochrom).
Fact #11: Addicted to design, tech and aesthetics in general.
Fact #12: Photoshop wizard.
Fact #13: Geeky games concept consultant.
Fact #14: The personified feedback.
Fact #15: Part of the Metalab documentation e1337e.
Fact #16: Part time stylist.
Fact #17: Part-of-part time blogger.
Fact #18: Obsessed with language.
Fact #19: The one and only Suicide Girl riding a golden single speed racer.
Fact #20: Giving vegan cupcake baking workshops.
Fact #21: Involved in waaay too many projects.
Fact #22: Former assistant at the UoAA, institute for design; and studio manager of Kabiljo, Inc.
Fact #23: Has worked on various talks, exhibitions and fashion shows.
Fact #24: Said to be 'the super human motivator. Without black magic'.
Fact #25: Heavy conference crasher.
Fact #26: Currently aiming to incorporate sex, sheepy fluffiness and heavy alcoholic drinks to a robot engineering project.
Fact #27: Still working on an Apple-z life hack. Asked to invent motivation-out-of-the-bottle right afterwards.
Fact #28: Ruby coding n00b.
Fact #29: Easily gathering fancrowds, as, for example, Bunnie the Chumby hacker guy.
Fact #30: Feels attracted by nerds and geeks. Naturally, that is.
Fact #31: Is dating via Twitter only.
Fact #32: Was trying hardest to make peeps think she's emo. Epically failed.
Fact #33: Insulting the one human being on earth she's officially not a fan of by perpetually calling him sensitive.
Fact #34: Addicted to caffeine, as to be found in Club Mate, straight coffee and dirty soy chai mainly.
Fact #35: Can make one hell of a dirty chai latte.
Fact #36: Claims not to have a sleeping disorder, but being trapped in the wrong time zone.
Fact #37: Just about to replace her soul with caffeine and become immortal.
Fact #38: Has found a way to actively dream of ninja games against morphing super-evil killers and fighting them while flying.
Fact #39: Loves lock picking as a substitute for dumbing down with television.
Fact #40: Vinyl collector & 'weird' music addict.
Fact #41: Collector of sick tattoo ideas.
Fact #42: Has the skin tone of Pantone 475 c.
Fact #43: Was told never to have babies. Wouldn't even think about that being an option, anyway.
Fact #44: Said to be a postmodernist. Not confirmed. Yet.
Fact #45: Funnily and/or oddly enough, she's proud of being a geek while getting most het up when being called an artist.
Fact #46: Little Miss cynic herself.
Fact #47: Extreme skills in being cryptic in terms of all communication matters.
Fact #48: Makes noises.
Fact #49: Definitely not able to put her life into one single phrase, no matter in how many characters.
Fact #50: Won the internet on March 10th, 2008 01:49 am.

OMG, meh wantz!!!

Since most of you may've already heard, the amazing Portishead are just about to release their 3rd studio album (finally!), called Third.

You can check out some of the most notable reviews via the album's Wikipedia page links, or google them on blogsearch, so there's not really a need for me to elaborate on it.

The only thing I'm saying is:
It's awesome. Seriously.
I heart it.

Therefore, I provide you with a Mediafire d/l-link to the album even prior to its release - of course not to pirate it, but to give the whole thing a listen & agree with me that Third is one of the best albums to be released (so far) this year!
So if you like it, go buy it.


Also, talking about going crazy for records: There's a preorder for the Third limited edition box set, yay!


If ever I wished to put something on a wishlist - this box would definitely be on the very top of it! <3
Unfortunately, my birthday's only in late October, so I may not find someone to give a present like that to me...

Besides, I posted the YouTube video of Machine Gun, the - already released - 12" single featured on Third, on my brand new soup.io account - with which I'm pretty much in love with (the song as well as soup, that is).


In other, completely unrelated news:
I just can't fuckin wait to go back to Berlin for the ph-neutral in May!
And I'm even more excited about going to Los Angeles in early September, hanging out with the most lovely folks/friends/geeks/nerds (who are just about building a new hacker space called LAspace, woohoo!), flying over to San Francisco for monochrom's Arse Elektronika at the end of the month.


Take care!

As Hunger Rises

Via In These Times:

As Hunger Rises, Chew on This

By Terry J. Allen

A diet of bread and water used to be emblematic of poverty. Now a global food crisis is transforming that meager meal into a luxury for much of the world.

The prices of the world’s three main grains — corn, rice and wheat — more than doubled last year. The causes include poor harvests linked to climate change, diversion of cropland to biofuels, population increases, rising meat consumption, emerging diseases and soaring fuel prices.

In a globalized economy, issues of food scarcity and inflation should be a matter not only of humanitarian concern, but also of national security. A food crisis is exploding.


Another vast diversion of world grain is animal products. One pound of meat requires up to 40 pounds of grain input. Not only does the earth have more mouths to feed every second, but more of them are chewing meat as rising living standards in China and India make it affordable. China’s per capita meat consumption jumped from 44 pounds in 1980 to 110 pounds today — still half the U.S. average. According to the Sierra Club, “America could feed most of Africa with the grains we feed to livestock.”

Please go take a closer look at the full article over at In These Times.

How to win the internetz

/b/ is the premordial soup -
and ceiling cat is its collective subconscious.