This week on Featured Album Fridays, the 2009 album from the Generationals – Con Law.
Indie pop with distorted vocals, very happy music. Enjoy!
Jan 24, 2010
Soulful Sundays / Woodblue – North Letter (2007)
This week on Soulful Sundays, the 2007 album from Woodblue – North Letter.
Wonderful downtempo album, along the vein of the same kind of people I’ve been posting as of late – DJ Okawari, Nujabes, Michita, and the rest of them. Take a listen, and I’ll probably be posting North Source next week, which is the other half of this album. The stream is below, enjoy!
Jan 22, 2010
Featured Album Fridays / Electric President – The Violent Blue (2010)
This week on Featured Album Fridays, the 2010 album from Electric President – The Violent Blue.
Here is the description of Electric President from their Last.FM:
Electric President is made up of Ben Cooper and Alex Kane, both natives of Jacksonville, Florida. Ben is pretty awesome, but Alex is a piece of shit. He’s good at bass, though, so Ben puts up with him for that and that alone. Both of them are very fond of pizza, but Ben’s stomach is easily twice the size of Alex’s and he can eat much more of it per sitting. Alex also drinks Diet Coke due to having diabetes since he was a little kid, which is embarrassing (the Diet Coke … not the having diabetes part). Ben must have the patience of a Saint to put up with that guy.
They’ve recorded two albums and one EP under the Electric President moniker, all released under the German imprint Morr Music, with a third to be released this in early 2010, set to be released by Fake Four Inc. They’ve had songs on television (two on the OC, which was canceled shortly after – coincidence?) and in various short films. They both came from pretty DIY ideas of making music, and as such record all their music in a tool shed and a bedroom with a handful of recording gear. Apparently, this gives them cred.
They hope to one day be incredibly rich from their music so they can buy an airplane and set it on fire without ever using it. To burn that sucker simply because they can, and to stand by and drink expensive wine and laugh manically until it explodes.
This is a really chill album – I played it this morning while I was getting some work done and the CD finished before I even noticed. Check it out, the stream is below, enjoy!
Jan 17, 2010
Soulful Sundays / Uyama Hiroto – A Son of the Sun (2008)
This week on Soulful Sundays, I am showcasing the 2008 album from Uyama Hiroto – A Son of the Sun.
What an album. Uyama Hiroto does a lot of work with Nujabes and has a very similar style to him – therefore, I instantly loved it the minute I started listening to it. Give it a shot, let me know what you think in the comments, and as per usual, the stream is below. Enjoy!
Jan 15, 2010
Featured Album Fridays / The Besnard Lakes – Are The Roaring Night (2010)
This week on Featured Album Fridays, I’m showcasing the 2010 still unreleased album from The Besnard Lakes – Are The Roaring Night.
Here is the description of The Besnard Lakes from their Last.FM:
The Besnard Lakes are a progressive rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Formed by the husband and wife team of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas.
The band are currently a six-piece centered around the atmospheric songs of Lasek and Goreas, whose expansive sound culls from numerous aspects of rock ‘n’ roll history. It is completed by Kevin Laing, Steve Raegele, Nicole Lizee and Richard White.
Their debut album, Volume I, was released in a limited 1000 copies edition in 2003 and later rereleased in October 2007.
Their sophomore album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse, was recorded at Lasek’s own Breakglass Studios, with members of fellow canadian bands Stars, The Dears and Godspeed You! Black Emperor/A Silver Mt. Zion making guest appearances.
The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse was on the shortlist for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize.
The album is yet to be released (with a March 10, 2010 release date!) but it’s a great album nonetheless. They’re a Canadian act (From Montreal, Quebec!) so definitely check out their album once it drops into stores and iTunes. For now, the stream is below, enjoy!
Jan 10, 2010
Soulful Sundays / Michita – Three (2009)
This week on Soulful Sundays, I am showcasing the 2009 album from super awesome hip hop producer Michita – Three.
Wonderful album, along the same vein as DJ Okawari, Nujabes, and Smooth J. I’m totally loving all these Japanese producers who create these crazy Jazz hip-hop albums. As usual, the stream is below, hope you enjoy!
Jan 8, 2010
Featured Album Fridays / Destry – It Goes On (2009)
Happy new year, all! This week on Featured Album Fridays, the first one for 2010, I am showcasing the 2009 album from Destry – It Goes On.
Here is the description of Destry from their Last.FM:
Destry is an indie/pop/rock band centered around Michelle (Nolan) DaRosa. Formerly a vocalist for Straylight Run, on June 3, 2008, Michelle left the group on friendly terms to pursue a solo career, beginning Destry soon after.
Destry’s current work currently consists of collaborations between DaRosa and four other artists, Sam Means (formerly of The Format), drummer Nico Childrey and Tyler Odom who played together in Cassino, and bassist Shaun Cooper of Straylight Run.
DaRosa said all five have collaborated, but have never been in the same room together. She also says the only members of a possible tour would be herself, Nico, and Shaun.
Great indie pop album to start off Featured Album Fridays for 2010. The stream is below, enjoy!
Dec 27, 2009
WorldCard Mobile (Review)
Welp, I was recently given the chance to try out a great little application called WorldCard Mobile for the iPhone that uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to read pictures of business cards and export the information into an address book entry.
Now, I haven’t heard of many applications like this for the iPhone because I’m assuming the previous iterations of the iPhone (Pre-3GS) had such a terrible camera that it just wasn’t possible. Of course, with the 3GS, the camera received a much needed upgrade in both quality and clarity, so WorldCard Mobile was made possible. I know that while playing around with a Samsung Omnia, one of their heavily touted features was this very same concept: being able to take pictures of business cards and creating an address book entry. Of course, I personally hate the Omnia, so this feature alone wouldn’t have sold me on the phone.
So onto the actual application, how is it? Well, let’s just get technical details out of the way: it has seven (7) different languages that it can recognize, all of the information recognized is editable, and the full process can be as short as 20-30 seconds. But does it work well?
Surprisingly, yes, with a but. It works extremely well on traditional business cards with all of the information presented nicely on one side. I tested it out on both of my business cards – one for Up+Atom and one for LIVE Conference 2009. Here are pictures from both:
Up+Atom
LIVE Conference 2009
You can see, because my business card from Up+Atom is so unconventional, it has a bit of trouble recognizing most of the information, but you can hardly blame it on the application. With the LIVE Conference 2009 business card, it does a pretty fine job of recognizing everything, with a few minor glitches.
So, should you get it? Well, for a decent price of $9.99, you get a mobile app that utilizes great OCR technology and will probably save you quite a bit of time when you are out and about networking and you bring home a stack of new business cards to enter into your address book. There are definitely some issues that need to be addressed, like better recognition and/or maybe adding the ability to set certain regions in a picture for other address fields, but overall it is a solid app. Of course, all of these glitches and issues will slowly disappear as the proprietary OCR technology in the app continually improves, so definitely pick it up if this is something that can benefit you.
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App: WorldCard Mobile Author: Penpower Inc. Price: $5.99 |
Dec 22, 2009
Featured Album Fridays / Top 10 of 2009
With 2009 wrapping up, I figured now would be a good time to highlight and feature some of my favourite albums that I had featured on Featured Album Fridays. (Man, I use the word “feature” a lot.)
Anyhow, here is a quick and dirty list of my top 10 favourite Featured Album Fridays albums of 2009:
10. John Vanderslice – Romanian Names
Published: March 27, 2009
Favourite Songs: D.I.A.L.O., Too Much Time, Oblivion
9. Great Northern – Remind Me Where The Light Is
Published: April 24, 2009
Favourite Songs: Snakes, Mountain, Numbers
8. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
Published: October 9, 2009
Favourite Songs: The Ballad of the RAA, Frank AB, The Air
7. Everything All The Time – Everything All The Time
Published: July 3, 2009
Favourite Songs: The Only One You Love Is You, Lazy Days, Take Stock, Slowly Drowning
6. Grammatics – Grammatics
Published: June 5, 2009
Favourite Songs: Relentless Fours, Polar Swelling, Inkjet Lakes, Rosa Flood
5. Sarah Blasko – As Day Follows Night
Published: December 18, 2009
Favourite Songs: Down on Love, Hold On My Heart, Sleeper Awake, Over & Over, I Never Knew
4. Other Lives – Other Lives
Published: May 22, 2009
Favourite Songs: Speed Tape, Don’t Let Them, End of the Year, How Could This Be?, Epic
3. The Coast – Expatriate
Published: August 7, 2009
Favourite Songs: Nueva York, No Secret Why, Floodlights, Killing of Our Friends, Ceremony Guns, Pay Me The Apostle
2. The Most Serene Republic – …And The Ever Expanding Universe
Published: June 19, 2009
Favourite Songs: Bubble Reputation, Heavens to Purgatory, Phi, The Old Forever New Things, Patternicity, Four Humours, No One Likes a Nihilist
1. As Tall As Lions – You Can’t Take It With You
Published: August 21, 2009
Favourite Songs: Circles, Sixes & Sevens, You Can’t Take It With You, In Case of Rapture, We’s Been Waiting, Is This Tomorrow?, The Narrows, That’s What You Get
And that just about wraps it up for Featured Album Fridays for 2009, I hope you’ve enjoyed some of these albums that I’ve featured throughout the year.
If you have any suggestions on how I can improve what I do, or any bands you may have a lead on, definitely shoot me an e-mail or message me on Twitter! I’m always on the lookout for new, up-and-coming bands, especially Canadian ones, so give me a shout.
Cheers!
Dec 20, 2009
Soulful Sundays / DJ Okawari – Mirror (2009)
This week on Soulful Sundays, I am featuring the 2009 album from DJ Okawari – Mirror.
Because I’ve been feeling a whole lot of piano lately, you can see that I’m making quite a bit of a run with these fantastic Japanese hip-hop influenced DJs. DJ Okawari is no exception, definitely along the lines of Nujabes and Smooth J, I really hope you enjoy this. The stream is below!