From New York based photographer, author and filmmaker Andrew Zuckerman comes a new book which attempts to demystify the process behind our favorite subject, music. The book entitled, appropriately, Music, a follow-up to his acclaimed Creature and Wisdom. Music explores the the process of making music, the power of music and the experience of writing, producing and performing through interviews with fifty musicians, artists, composers and producers whose genre range from rock ‘n’ roll to jazz. The list of interview subjects include: Laurie Anderson, Fiona Apple, Afrika Bambaataa, Clint Black, Dave Brubeck, Common, Billy Corgan, David Crosby, Ani DiFranco, Danny Elfman, Ben Gibbard, Philip Glass, Herbie Hancock, Karen O, Kid Rock, Lenny Kravitz, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Ziggy Marley, Ozzy Osbourne, Yoko Ono, Itzhak Perlman, Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, Ravi Shankar, John Williams, and several other international music icons.
In addition to each contributor being photographed, their interviews were also made into a film (preview above) which comes as a free download with the book.
Antony and the Johnsons is the type of band you want to see in a spectacular setting, with fanfare and billowing fabric. So if they are going to play only one venue in North America this year, Alice Tully Hall in New York City is as good a place as any.
Set for October 30th, the band will be performing with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Chiaki Nagano’s film “Mr. O’s Book of the Dead” starring Kazuo Ohno will be featured during the performance. The show is a part of Lincoln Center’s White Light Fest and tickets can be purchased here.
Antony and the Johnsons newest album Swanlights will be released on October 12th in the US on the label Secretly Canadian. And for super fans, Abrams Image will simultaneously release a special edition of “Swanlights” which will include the CD inside a 144-page hard cover book containing Antony’s paintings, collages, photography and writing. “The album only version of “Swanlights” on Secretly Canadian will also include the song “Flétta”, a duet with Björk. The album and book are a continuation of Antony’s work exploring his connection to the natural world.”
The follow up to 2009’s superb debut Until the Earth Begins to Part will be out on 25th October 2010 on 4AD. Titled Let Me Come Home and produced by Tony Doogan, if this is anything like the first record, then it’s sure to be something special.
Björk is basically a genius in all things and “The Comet Song” is no different. This song, inspired by traditional Japanese music, was composed by Björk for the upcoming Finnish stop motion 3D movie Moomins and the Comet Chase and will be released exclusively on iTunes September 7 by Nonesuch Records. The music for the song was written by Björk with the lyrics come from the author and poet Sjón. Watch a video for the song, which includes animation from the film, here.
Wondering what exactly are Moomins? They are trolls created in the 1940s by Swedish-Finnish illustrator and author Tove Jansson and are one of the most enduring subjects in Scandinavian culture.
All proceeds from the single will be donated to the children’s charity UNICEF to support the flood victims of Pakistan- a great and in many ways, forgotten cause.
Yesterday, Blogger, the blogging arm of Google, wiped, without notice, a mounting number of music bloggers whom have had various notices from the DMCA regarding “illegal” music on their site. Bill of I Rock Cleveland has detailed his fight against Google’s actions and fought his case on their support forum.
Back in May of last year, we ourselves received a takedown notice from the DMCA regarding a Little Boots track that her American label’s publicist had sent us to post the January before. GoDaddy, our hosting company, received the initial notice and pulled our site for an agonizing few hours as we scrambled to remove what was once a cleared track from the site. We wrote Little Boot’s manager, her labels, her publicists, everyone we could think of and no one had sent the DMCA after us. Apparently, the DMCA plays by their own mysterious and unscrupulous rules. But Google, as much as we do have an undying love for them, is not without fault for failing to report this problem to the blogs which have called them home for years. We found an interesting post from Nashville Scene regarding the takedowns which links to an LA Weekly article from Feb 5th warning that Google will now be hitting delete on blogs instead of giving them notice. Apparently there was some notice that this new policy would be instated but not to the bloggers themselves.
Music blogs and music lovers have gathered on Twitter to discuss the issue, hashtagging posts #musicblogocide2k10. The Music Slut is about to celebrate its 5th year anniversary, we can’t imagine 5 years of our work being gone in a matter of moments. Those sites gone and attempting to rebuild are: Pop Tarts Suck Toasted; Living Ears; It’s a Rap-Rogo; Masalacism; I Rock Cleveland
