fumi

Not a fan of these long, drawn-out build ups. Always too much hype.

Prince just announced his new album will debut as an exclusive on Tidal.

Yeah but the problem for Tidal was Jay-Z himself. If you were to ask people now about Tidal, most of them would not be able to tell you what benefits it offered. The only image they would remember would be of Jay-Z lifting a champagne glass. I think it was the 'Jay-Z factor' that turned people off.

I wonder if it ever occurs to Jay-Z that probably the biggest reason for all the negative publicity is the simple fact that so many people actually dislike him. He swaggers about, rapping about money and fame, totally disconnected from the real world, living in a kind of bubble. It's that disconnect that people don't like. That he only has a modicum of talent only makes it worse. Sure, there are lots of artists with millions in the bank but only someone with such a child-like perception of wealth and fame would keep rubbing it in people's faces.

I don't imagine there are many writers on a music forum. Anyway, I just finished my first fiction novel. You can pre-order it here if you're interested. Apologies for the shameless plug.

This is just about the best thing I've heard all year. The ghost of Bola seems to run through these pieces - that sense that the tracks are completely organic things with a dense and meticulous life of their own. No wonder it got picked up by Skam.

Hope an album drops at some point. Amazing stuff.

One of the few things I've enjoyed this year. All tracks are solid and memorable.

Two bonus tracks & 24bit goodness. Suck on that, Bleep. http://ototoy.jp/_/default/p/53702

Anyone notice they use Eno's 'Bloom' iOS app at 9:42 on the last track?

"You’ll probably have a dream about me tonight, man, and you’ll wonder where it all came from."

I really think Tidal had a good chance at making a name for itself if it hadn't been such a disaster at launch. Just making a video of Jay-Z and his rich pals hoisting champagne glasses and talking about 'Changing The Narrative' and 'Writing The Story' - wtf are these people talking about? Where were the details of Tidal? Nowhere. Jay-Z seemed to think that his celebrity status would somehow be enough to win people over when all it did was alienate everyone. It's a clear case of people with too much money showing no humility or understanding for their target market. Only a egocentric tool like Jay-Z could have fucked this up so bad.

I think 'Moonscapes' is the best track on the new LP. Anyone know where that absolutely beautiful loop at 12:40 on the final track comes from?

I'd put good money on Kanye West dumping Tidal and signing some exclusive album launch with Apple. Nobody can fight a company with that much marketing clout. Of course, wheeling out a bunch of millionaires to whine about not being paid fairly is where the trouble all stems from.

If Tidal wasn't already finished, it soon will be once Apple get rolling. That Taylor Swift nonsense... Apple must be the only company that can make an embarrassing u-turn look like great PR.

Actually a pretty influential album. Check out the latter half of OPN's 'Magnetic Rose'.

I see what you mean and of course, as a long time fan of The Orb and Fehlman, it's easy to tell that Fehlman has taken over the sound of The Orb at some point. This happens in most "bands" out there tho: there is one or two guy(s) composing mostly everything and the others will do their parts according to his/their vision. Nothing shocking here. That's how music is being made. You need a leader with a vision, you need a prime time composer. But what if Alex is sitting in the studio and commenting on what Thomas did? What if he is saying: Nah, I don't like how this part sounds, can you do this or that to it so that it sounds like that? Or nah, let's take this out and bring this back in. Etc. This is already collaboration. On a basic level, sure, but you would be surprised how many of the "big" names of music do just that. But I can't believe Alex is NEVER in the studio with Thomas when they're recording a new album. This whole discussion against Alex Patterson reminds me of how some people were saying to Steve Jobs that he can't code, that he's not an engineer. Who cares? That wasn't his job at Apple and yet, without him, there would have been no iPod, no iPhone, no iPad. In other words, without Alex, whatever he is doing in the studio, there would have been no The Orb albums. And the guy (ex-member) who is saying that Alex stole everything from him, never made another good album in his entire life. Weird. Yeah, that's true. I don't think the relationship is quite as straight forward as I said in an earlier post. Problem is, I just don't hear much of the Orb in their past few albums. But maybe that's more complicated too.

Alex did record the sounds of plants rustling for the Dave Gilmour collaboration album - so that's something.

He's probably collaborating because The Orb is a brand name. Guaranteed source of revenue outside of his own solo work. I reckon the relationship is Fehlman does pretty much everything but Alex owns the name. The last few albums have basically been Fehlman albums with a few cheesy samples (Alex).

Anyone ever heard the Transit Kings stuff? Love that synth at the end. Anyone know what is is?

I read Chris Weston's view of The Orb history, how he got screwed over; the bad decisions he made and deceitful people he got in evolved with. However, I get the feeling that quite a bit of this may have been all his own doing. Sounds like he spent most of the 90s completely out of his head. Probably not the best place to be when you're a professional musician. Just saying.

Last track is on Bleep now. Not so impressed. Just feel like I've heard it all many times before.

No matter how bad you mess something up, you’ll probably never screw up anything as badly as Jay Z and company have screwed up the launch of Tidal. Last week, we saw reports saying that Tidal was in danger of losing the rights to stream artists from Sony’s catalog — including the songs of Jay Z’s wife and flagship Tidal artist Beyoncé — unless it forked over a big advance that the company was having trouble finding money to pay. Music Business News has filled in some more of the details on this story and it looks like Tidal still hasn’t come up with the cash to pay off Sony. “Sources suggest that Tidal is now looking for a streaming partner to help lift some of the financial burden,” the publication reports. “An attempted get-together with Rhapsody earlier this year went nowhere, but the platform continues to search for the chance to buddy-up with one of the industry’s smaller players. The likes of Rdio could be an ideal option; bringing together an established player within the streaming world with Tidal’s editorial and brand power.” All the same, we have a hard time imagining that scrambling around to find another streaming service to help raise cash just months after its launch was what Jay Z had in mind when Tidal went live earlier this year. In other Tidal news, Business Insider brings us word that rapper 50 Cent has offered a very good explanation for why the service is likely doomed — as we’ve seen with Beyoncé, the artists involved in founding Tidal don’t control their own music. As long as their labels have the rights to put their music on Spotify, Pandora and other services that cost less money, it’s just not likely that Tidal will gain significant marketplace traction. “They probably could’ve did something more exciting if they reached out, because the people you saw there don’t even own the rights to their music,” said 50 Cent recently. “So they can’t say it’s gonna come out of Tidal. It has to go everywhere. So why would you actually buy Tidal to get something that would be everywhere else?”

I took this in Osaka about six years ago. Leica on small tripod.

Could it get any worse? Thanks for today's lol. Good work.