Here is the full 6 minute movie:

We just got accepted to the Lake Arrowhead Film Festival – which we’re pretty stoked about.

If you’d like to learn more about the movie – check out Last Chance – It’s About Hope

via AudioBoo

Posted via web from Andrew McCluskey

Bob speaks about the opportunities for – well – shit – the opportunities for just about anything that are now available for creatives that own their own shit. Cjheck out:

http://72musicians.com

I loved the movie.

Working through a number of things on how music2work2 relates to Kilted Chaos and how best to wor with all of that.

If you watched the Julian Treasure video on the power of sound, you’ll already know why listening to birdsong has a calming affect on us humans.  But I bet you didn’t know that there is an Internet Radio station that plays bird song 24/7!

powered by birdsong radio

The thinking goes that over the years humans have learned to relax when birds are singing – it’s when the birds stop singing that we need to worry.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and was about to start a piece of music that incorporated bird song along with a few other tricks when Charlotte discovered Birdsong Radio.  I couldn’t help but laugh on reading her write up:

Recently I have been listening to Internet Radio stations, looking for ones that play music that would be categorizable as music2work2.  Even though I listen for quite a while to get a good feel for the music they play, it seems that very few only play instrumental music.

I have also found that the name of a station or particular program does not necessarily indicate the type of music they play, except for that is, Birdsong Radio; I discovered that "bird songs," the sound of birds singing, is the only thing they play.  I really appreciate nature and animals & I love to sit on the porch, relax and listen to the birds chirping and singing in my yard.  But after a while, listening to only bird sounds directly through the radio starts to become annoying.  Julian reckons there is no maximum dose but to my ears it became an irritation and I had the change the channel.

I’ve been listening to Birdsong radio while I write this post and found it to be a great accompaniment, but I guess I can see where after a while your brain is looking for a different stimulus.  I think like most things in life it’s about balance – I’m certainly going to incorporate some birdsong in the next piece of music2work2 – along with a variation of the New York Jets fight song – but that’s a different kind of science all together.

As Charlotte and I expand our listening habits, it never ceases to amaze me just how much new music there is “out there,” and not just new music, but new and easy ways to listen to it.  This morning’s post is a little bit of cross pollination from Alex over on Kilted Chaos as he talks about Free Music Can Be The Greatest Marketing Tool You Have!

I’m listening to a perfect track called Natural Tune by Efterklang – it’s laid back – chilled and perfect stuff to write this post to.  Oh and you can listen to it too – go to 22tracks and select the Relax category – right here.

This is brilliant – it’s just like radio – if radio didn’t have the ads and was programmed by music lovers rather than accountants.  There are22 different playlists from Contemporary to Latin, Dubstep to Worldgrooves – each area has a curator who selects 22 tracks and you just click and listen.  Each track has a link out to the artist’s website and a purchase link – genius.

The more I look at this model the more it makes sense.  There’s been much discussion about having an algorithmic approach to music selection – one of my favorite music writers Bruce Warila, is at the forefront of that (to my ears) quixotic charge.  For me – I’d much rather have a human being act as my filter; someone who really is passionate about music – who lives and breathes it – who writes about it and works with it and who spends hours of their time listening to and feeling it.  I’m not saying that one day the Kurzweilian utopia won’t appear but I’m guessing it’s a while away – until then I’ll let Venz curate my relax music and my hip hop too!

If you’re an artist and you’re reading this and need a new website – check out the #FREECHAOS competition over at Kilted Chaos – 1 week left to enter.

We’re on a Celtic kick at the moment – not least ‘cos of the free website giveaway that a musician / band or artist can win over at Kilted Chaos – but specifically because this week we’ve been listening to the music of Sora.

Sora is a Canadian Celtic / World singer songwriter who’s new album Heartwood has just been released; you can hear it streaming on MySpace by clicking on the image below.

Immediate reference points are Enya & Loreena McKinnitt but Sora is all about the voice – and what a voice; it reminds me of the double edged broadsword that William Wallace wields in Braveheart – which could sound pretty scary but she has the control to harness its power & deliver some of the simplest and cleanest melodies I’ve heard in a long while. My mum would absolutely love this.

Sora’s music can be found on a number of web sites, but her MySpace page is probably the easiest – there are 10 tracks available for streaming from Heartwood and they’re all worth getting to know. Quick note on her production and the musicianship of her band – they’re great! You can buy Heartwood from CDbaby

One of the things that I think Sora does well is the use of her video blogs – she has an infectious personality and is clearly passionate about what she does – you can see them on her website and her facebook page. Her website looks as though it could use a hand as getting around is a little difficult – she should definitely enter this competition.

Sora’s official web site is www.soramusic.ca.

ReverbNation

Sigur Rós is a name I’ve been seeing for a while – immediate references would be Radiohead meets Enya but bands from many different genres reference them as influences. I’d made a mental note to check them out and found myself last week on youtube watching – Glósóli. If you’re not in a rush and you have 6 or 7 minutes to spare – check out the video below – I think the music and video are stunning.

If you want to put a huge smile on your face and you have another 5 minutes – check out Hoppipolla – it leaves me grinning and full of hope.

I believe that music is good for you; quite literally, that just having it on within earshot is like a primer that juices your brain and helps you do things. The most prevalent type of music in society today is a 3 or 4 minute long idea that is designed to catch and hold your attention, which is great a lot of the time, but not always.

One of the ideas behind music2work2 is that I can find song lyrics distracting when I’m reading or writing – not all the time, but when I am creating something new or absorbing a particular idea, it’s those words that I want to focus on – not the singer’s story. I like the idea of longer form music, of having a theme that is continuously developed, that changes dynamically and which evokes emotion. The beauty of Sigur Rós is that the lyric is in Icelandic, incomprehensible to me and therefore perfect music to work to.

Of course, up until recently it has been hard to learn about and find music like this – it’s not designed for the current music industry. But things have changed; my music discovery has little to do with radio, nothing to do with television and everything to do with my computer, the one radio show that I do listen to (WMBR’s ZoëRadio) I often end up catching the podcast. I get my music through email, from RSS, from websites and of course friends. If you dig Sigur Rós – tell someone about them – write your own post or tweet this one – you’ll be doing them a favor.

Taking a little side step from Music to comment on a recent movie that I had the pleasure of watching courtesy of Jason Calacanis and the team at Mahalo – a kick ass human powered search engine – algorithms don’t have feet!

“Let the Right One in” is a Swedish horror movie, it has a vampire in it – which helps – but it’s more about themes like: isolation, youth, men with beards and being very fucking cold – you can almost feel the chill coming through the screen.   There is one brief reference to Brezhnev which helps date the movie – but I’m guessing it was the General Secretary’s pre-Abba days – bleak would be a fair description of the world portrayed in the movie.

Check out the trailer below:

I dug it – but you really don’t want to be watching this movie in a hurry – it is paced as slow as a slow thing – the clip above probably contains 80% of the entire action in the movie – and the movie’s 2 hours long. If you dig the whole Bergman thing and enjoy intelligent movie making – then check it out – if you’re looking for mindless escapism then this is probably not for you.

…I’ve been hearing Dig Lazarus Dig by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and was totally digging the groove – and I was also listening to Top Man by Blur from The Great Escape – (many thanks go to Jon Ewing for that) – strangely enough Amazon don’t have this one available  for download – of course I could be blind! – but anyway – they have a jolly similar groove don’t they1

Bill Wither’s early insight into a Man’s heart sneaks up on you with it’s honesty and brilliance – you might even say: “It Rocks!” We’re covering this over at Kelli.com, it sounds amazing – but in the meantime – check out this great video of him introducing it on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1972.

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