Chime

Here at Playtherecords we like video games. And music. And when you mix the two together just right, we usually love that.

Chime - Place blocks, build quads, get coverage, make music



It is a bit like Lumines, but with an all star soundtrack composed by big names like Moby and Paul Hartnoll from Orbital.

An exclusive Zoë Mode production for OneBigGame, the videogames industry-wide charity initiative, Chime pits gamers against the melody in this all-new puzzle experience: Players place blocks against the clock, remix famous artists’ music tracks and contribute to children’s charities around the world. More than 60 percent of the purchase price of Chime will be donated to charities around the world, helping those who need it the most.

PRODUCT FEATURES

• Addictive block puzzler: Rotate and place shapes to form quads of 3×3 or more to fill your grid before the time runs out
• Music tracks from world-renowned musicians: Featuring music by Moby, Paul Hartnoll (Orbital) and more
• Remix music tracks: Fill the grid to alter the track loop, place pieces to play notes, and create quads to trigger a range of song samples
• Unlimited replay value: Keep reaching 100% and resetting the grid to continue playing and beat your high score
• Five unique levels: Each level is made up of its own music, grid, and shape-sets
• Time mode: Choose between three different levels of difficulty, based on time limit
• Free-play mode: Play for the sake of making music with no time pressure
• Charitable donation: All Zoë Mode’s services are provided at no cost to OneBigGame, and all Zoë Modes royalties (a minimum of 60 percent of the purchase price) are donated to the OneBigGame charity initiative. OneBigGame always aims to donate a minimum of 80% of all donations to its charity partners Save the Children and Starlight Children’s foundation.

Check it out:

Chime

Die Antwoord

Afrikaans Rap:





(from boingboing)

Write an Album in a Month. This February.

Get your studios geared up, blow the dust out of your keyboards, tune your guitars and oil your mic stands... the RPM Challenge is about to start full force:

This is The Challenge - Record an album in 28 days, just because you can.

That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material recorded during the month of February. Go ahead… put it to tape.

It’s a little like National Novel Writing Month, (NaNoWriMo.org) where writers challenge each other to write 1,700 words a day for 30 days, or the great folks over at February Album Writing Month (fawm.org), who encourage artists to write 14 new songs in February. Maybe they don’t have “Grapes of Wrath” or “Abbey Road” at the end of the month, or maybe they do—but that’s not the point. The point is they get busy and stop waiting around for the muse to appear. Get the gears moving. Do something. You can’t write 1,700 words a day and not get better.

Don't wait for inspiration - taking action puts you in a position to get inspired. You'll stumble across ideas you would have never come up with otherwise, and maybe only because you were trying to meet a day’s quota of (song)writing. Show up and get something done, and invest in yourself and each other.

Anyone can come up with an excuse to say “no,” so don’t. Many of you are thinking “But, I can’t do that! I don’t have any songs/recording gear/money/blah blah blah...” But this doesn’t have to be the album, it’s just an album. Remember, this is an artistic exercise. Just do your best using what you have in order to get it done. If you have a four-track, become a four-track badass! A mini disc, a pro-tools rig, a Walkman, an 80’s tape recorder – use it. Do your best. Use the limitations of time and gear as an opportunity to explore things you might not try otherwise. If you can afford studio time in a “real” studio, fine, but let’s be completely free of any lingering idea that “good” records can only be made in a studio. If that were so, then all the old scratchy blues records or Alan Lomax field recordings that have changed our culture – the world’s culture – wouldn’t still resonate with us today as they do. Springsteen’s haunting classic “Nebraska” was a demo he did at home on a crappy machine. That album is fricking awesome. What label would put those recordings out now? (See: who cares) There are a million examples of this kind of stuff, but the fact will always be: Well written, honest music is compelling and undeniable no matter what it was recorded on. So put it to tape.

February will come and go whether you’ve joined in or not, but do you really want to be left out?

Who's in? Sign up!

M.I.A. - Space Odyssey

M.I.A. leaked a pre-release version of a song form her new album to twitter, along with a lofi but strangely hypnotizing video:



(from slate)

Techno Made With Cars

(from autoblog)

NIN: "Cars" with Gary Numan, London 7.15.09 [HD]

What is interesting about this is how much its a straight up version of the original:



I suppose they thought the best way to pay tribute to someone who was obviously a huge influence was to play the song as originally envisioned with the man himself. I still mark the original video as one of my all time favorites.

(thanks robert)

Rick Astley vs Nirvava - Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit up

This works way better than it should:



(thanks chantal)