Here’s a simple idea perfectly executed. Tracklib’s Sample Breakdown video series visualises for us the art of sampling — where they’re from, and how they’re combined.
Sample Breakdowns of Kanye West, DJ Premier, Nujabes, J.Dilla, 9th Wonder & more – Tracklib Blog
For his biggest hit to date, Moby reversed the order of four chords of the epic battle cry “Fight For Survival” from the 1960 film Exodus. At first, the producer/singer didn’t really think the outcome of ‘Porcelain’ was quite, well, epic, at all… “I actually had to be talked into including it,” he told Rolling Stone 10 years after its release. “When I first recorded it, I thought it was average. I didn’t like the way I produced it, I thought it sounded mushy, I thought my vocals sounded really weak. I couldn’t imagine anyone else wanting to listen to it. When the tour for Play started, ‘Porcelain’ was the song during the set where most people would get a drink.”
Years ago (ten?!) I found an online recreation of an iPod, complete with click wheel. But let’s go back further with this, an interactive turntable interface for playing music on YouTube. A Radiohead album is cued up initially, but use the link to point it wherever you like.
Needledrop: A turntable interface for music playback – Thomas Park
With Needledrop, I went for the Dieter Rams school of design. It’s inspired by unapologetically skeuomorphic interfaces like Apple’s original Podcasts app, which featured a reel-to-reel tape machine. While I preferred the digitally native approach of Overcast for day-to-day use, Apple’s approach was visually striking. Podcast’s interface wasn’t just veneer; the reels would progress as the podcast did, providing a subtle visual cue alongside the progress bar. Likewise in Needledrop, the tone arm travels across the record. But Needledrop takes the interactivity one step further. Drop the needle and find your favorite track, more or less. It’s fuzzy and inexact, and emphasizes the continuous listening experience an album can be.
Here’s another way of visualising music, reminiscent of those synchronised Line Rider videos.
That’s pretty cool. But do you know what’s cooler? This.
Playing it cool: these artists make music with ice – National Geographic
Brittle bursts that mimic cymbals. Deep hollowed notes reminiscent of metal drums. These are some of the surprising sounds that Siberian percussion group Ethnobeat created from Russia’s frozen Lake Baikal in a 2012 viral video that introduced millions around the globe to ice music.
But similarly haunting melodies had been filling dark Arctic nights across Norway and Sweden for several years. In 2000 Norwegian composer and percussionist Terje Isungset performed the world’s first ice music concert inside a frozen waterfall in Lillehammer.
Six years later Isungset founded the annual Ice Music Festival Norway, drawing curious adventurers willing to brave subzero temperatures in order to experience this unique way of bonding with nature through music.
Speaking of cool …
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