Review: Cold Cave--Cherish the Light Years

This is quite an old piece, a year or more old. It was written at a time when I was really trying to translate the feeling of listening to music and craft my informational writing to cram in a lot of detail. At the moment I’m trying to write shorter paragraphs to break things open better. Note, as I have written elsewhere that I failed to pick up on the over compression that was found by Pitchfork. With that said, listening again I still enjoy the music.

CD Report and Mono vs. Stereo

I just wanted to recount some thoughts on CDs and some (rare) issues that have cropped up recently. Remarks on Sugar's recent Copper Blue reissue and The Sonics on the 2003Psycho-Sonic compilation after the jump. Apologies in advance for any moaning. Another tiny item of news is that I've decided to start compiling a discography for music you absolutely have to listen to in mono (vinyl or CD), head-on. The first entry will be Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. The intial entries are going to be largely Psychedelic and Garage rock, I hope to branch out after that.

My Bloody Valentine: Gender Theory and Cyberpunk

I was originally writing this as part of the second instalment of the My Bloody Valentine: EPs 1988-91 review but decided it would make sense to spin it out as it is more of an artistic profile than a part of the track by track review. I decided I wanted to break away from the dynamics of gender and sex for a moment when describing My Bloody Valentine, because despite the theory often sounding reasonable it just does not seem pertinent half the time. This came up in conversation yesterday when I was watching footage of one of Primal Scream's Screamadelica gigs. For all the rock'n'roll clichés, gender seemed the last thing worth discussing. Certainly not from the standpoint of diagnosing patriarchal societies or something like that. Reading this blog post about Oneohtrix Point Never inspired me a little. More after the jump.

Cracking HDCDs

HDCD stands for High Definition Compatible Digital not, as it would first appear, High Definition CD. If you have a middling to substantial collection of CDs (or lossless rips) the odds of you having one are quite high. If one of your CDs bears the logo, then good news. First of all, it means that the analog to digital converter employed in creating the digital signal on your CD is either the Pacific Microsystems Model One or Model Two, reputed to be some of the best converters ever made. From that standpoint, HDCD is a mark of quality.

Second, it means that on your disc or lossless file there may be features which have remained hidden. The most notable of these features is Peak Extension: a way of increasing the dynamic range of the recording by making the bulk of it quieter, increasing the bit depth (so that there is more room for different gradations of loudness), and then reversing the compression of some of the music's peaks.

More after the jump.

Comics Round-Up and the Uncanny Valley

Hello, thought I would write a fairly quick round-up of the comics I've been reading and also have a bit of an opine on DC Comics' newly announced Watchmen prequel series, where I ask: Have comics hit Uncanny Valley?