en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 Thu, 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 60 http://www.audioscrobbler.net/data/webservices http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal The Last.fm journal for stevekeiretsu. Last.fm journals are a place to talk about all things music. http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2008/03/31/9t9mh_graphs Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:28:11 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2008/03/31/9t9mh_graphs





Seen it all before?

Have got python, pycairo, and graphication - and am now experimenting with building my own new and hopefully interesting graphic representations of my last.fm data...

Nothing worth showing publicly yet, I'm a complete novice in python :)]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/05/08/9t9ks_my_first_six_months_on_last.fm Tue, 8 May 2007 20:35:03 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/05/08/9t9ks_my_first_six_months_on_last.fm or, how I prove I am a geek the like of which you've never seen)

So, I signed up after work on Nov 8. I've just got back from work on May 8. Which, by my reckoning, is exactly six months - so what have I learnt about my music listening habits given this first half a year's worth of data?

Total tracks:
5779

Mainstreamness rating (as of time of writing):
3.22% mainstream
(link to script)

Eclectic taste rating:
95/100
(link to script)

Most played artist:
Shpongle (171)

Most played track:
Burial - U Hurt Me (34)

Total scrobbles per week:
Min. - 87
Max. - 412
Mean - 213

Unique artists per week:
Min. - 33
Max. - 111
Mean - 63

Unique tracks per week:
Min. - 85
Max. - 314
Mean - 183

% of reloads per week:
Min. - 2.3%
Max. - 28.9%
Mean - 14.4%

ie, (total tracks - unique tracks) as a % of total tracks. Interestingly (or not), this seems to sit consistently close to 15%, regardless of big variations in the (unique/total) tracks scrobbled.

Scrobbles of #1 artist in weekly chart:
Min. - 9
Max. - 53 (War)

Scrobbles needed to get 10th in weekly artist chart:
Min. - 2
Max. - 11

Most appearances in weekly artist top 10:
Shpongle - 11
Seth Lakeman - 10
Ozric Tentacles - 9
keiretsu - 9
Fanu - 8

Scrobbles needed to bag a place in the overall artist...:
Top 10 - 107
Top 20 - 72
Top 50 - 35
Top 100 - 13


Is there a way to persuade last.fm to tell you your total number of different artists scrobbled? That's about the only glaringly obvious stat I can think of that I'm missing...


Anyway, I did warn you this was going to be geeky. Just be grateful I didn't start with the graphs as well - I'll save that for my first birthday ;-)]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/05/05/9t9h8_april_purchases_reviewed Sat, 5 May 2007 19:12:43 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/05/05/9t9h8_april_purchases_reviewed
Anyway, here's what I made of my purchases...


Kryptic Minds & Leon Switch - Lost All Faith

Excellent release from these guys, showing there are still people who know how to make a real artist album in drum'n'bass. Packed with musical bedroom-listening goodness, and some tracks that would go down heavy on the floor as well. Hallelujah.

Standout tune for me is Dark Flower Remedy, a somewhat D-Bridge style deep male vocal roller. Licks of tech bass growl, the snappy beats remind me of vintage BC... plenty of reloads for this one. But the album has a nice coherency overall, which I guess is essentially that deep-but-techy Headz/Tactile/Pacific/Teebee vibe, mixed with haunting neo-classical melodic touches that reach their peak in the solely piano + strings workout Opus Dei. I get the impression if these guys were on last fm, Hans Zimmer would be in their top 50.



BT - This Binary Universe

As I somewhat facetiously remarked on a forum, both the track titles and their musical contents go some way of confirming my perception of BT as a smug, pretensious git, and as such it's somewhat annoying that it's so undeniably, eye-openingly bloody amazing that you've just got to hand it to him.

I like the ambition, the way it disregards modern conventions of genre (and even dynamic range!) to present a unique and detailed combination of composition and sound design. The mixture of deep electronic ambient, acoustic instruments/vocals, and glitchy edits, inevitably reminds me of recent Tipper and Shpongle output, but it's obviously very much BT's own thing.

Trackmarking with ten-minute-plus divisions doesn't do his last.fm rankings any favours though... ;)


Michel Petrucciani - Promenade With Duke

This is one of those albums I've had and loved since I copied it off a mate at school. (This member of the C90 generation finds the industry's panic over digital filesharing rather amusing, back when my computer couldn't even play an mp3 I had a music collection 95% consisting of copied cassettes.) Saw it on the cheap and thought it was about time I bought a proper copy.

It's solo jazz piano versions of standards by or associated with Duke Ellington. Very nice, calming, dare I say "smooth" (but not in a pejorative sense)... I really like this guy's style. Must get some more.


Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against the Machine

Another 'favourite for over a decade which I unaccountably never bought until now', as above. I don't really need to tell you anything about this album, surely?


Tinariwen - Amassakoul

Introduced to these guys by James Sax from keiretsu. Desert blues - good stuff.


Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power

Getting back in touch with stuff I listened to on tape when I was about 13, but have totally lost track with a decade or so. Metal is causing me issues at the moment: I'm so in love with the huge guitar riff thing and even more so with the metal drumming thing. But I can't enjoy blokes screaming hoarsely for very long, and so much of it seems light on bass (especially when you spend a lot of time listening to dnb and dubstep).

Anyway, this album is pretty much in line with all of that. Some sick tracks and it's good to have in the bank again, but I can't really listen to it in full album chunks.


Apocalyptica - Amplified: a Decade of Reinventing the Cello

My ex-flatmate Rux0r introduced me to these guys. Cellos through fuzzboxes shredding out metal tunes - what's not to love? They didn't have the album Rux did, so I just got this best of, which probably wasn't the greatest move. The Metallica covers range between cute and genuine class, and I love all those Metallica albums to pieces; the other covers, I don't know the originals, so I don't much get into; of the originals, I prefer the newer stuff with added drums, but don't like the guest vocal stuff on CD2 much. So I should have got the Metallica CD and a newer album. No matter. Anyway. Some gems in here so I can't complain.



Omni Trio - Rogue Satellite

I got this because I was on a forum praising Byte Size Life as a masterpiece album of detroit-influenced ambient breakbeat, and was informed this was a reliable package of 'more of the same'. Well... it's really not, in my opinion. Universal is exactly that, it's divine, and instantly one of my favourite Omni Trio tracks. High Noon is another gem, and some of the other tracks, like Red Shift, are in the same sort of ballpark, and they're ok-nice-ish, might well grow on me more. But some of the tracks are the sort of tepid "jazzy" stuff that I've always tried to mentally filter out from his back catalogue. Overall, in my book not an outstanding album to match the brilliance of Byte Size Life, but the high points make it worth picking up nonetheless.


Sasha - Involver

an intriguing prospect - a big name 'ableton mix cd' project, with unusual packaging to match. it's hard for me to judge how much he ableton'd things, because Dorset Perception is the only one where I know the original to compare. overall it's "nice" - the opening track has hooked into me a lot, the shpongle remix doesn't ruin it (high praise with shpongle, tbh), and from there on it rolls out very nicely for listening to at work or on public transport, but probably erring too much towards bland/forgettable, and occasionally cheesy, to become a big listening favourite at home.


Afro Celt Sound System - Pod

much the same as their normal albums, this remix collection is consistently
hit and miss. tracks 8, 9 and especially 10 are strongest - in fact 10, Éireann (Remix by Mass), is perhaps afro celt sound system's single most "on the mark" effort I've heard yet. plenty of reloads for that one. Sadly some of the others are a bit lame imho.


Courtney Pine - Underground

more catching up with my teenage years. Courtney Pine opened at the first real gig I went to (Incognito) so I've always kept an eye on his career, yet never got around to buying any of his CDs. I don't think this was the best to opt for, as it seemed to have quite a high level of the nineties lukewarm acid jazz naffness about it, which impedes my ability to appreciate the jazz value of the soloing. More renegade dnb experiments please. I'm probably being harsh, I haven't really given it a proper thorough listen.


Green Day - American Idiot

Green Day were big when I was at school - Dookie and all that. I really didn't like them at all. I had no time for their punk pop thing then than I did for blink 182 (ironically their top similar artist, apparently) in more recent years. So when my ex landlady/colleague, who used to give me a ride to work, put a new Green Day album on in the car, I braced myself to hate it. But I didn't. Far from: it's really rather good. So much so that when I moved away I found I missed the songs, three years later, they're still still popping into my head; I figured that buying it was overdue.


Ludwig van Beethoven - piano sonatas

My classical listening is so sorely lacking it's unbelievable, so here begins the mission to sort it out. I have always avoided buying classical because I'm put off by not knowing which soloist's/orchestra's/conductor's/etc version is "best". Decided to stop caring and buy any old version. Got this collection of piano sonatas 8, 14, 21 and 23 by Wilhelm Kempff, because I used to play most of the 8th and 14th (badly).


Claude Debussy - piano works

As above - this collection is performed by Pascal Rogé, which means nothing much to me, and I got it because I used to play a few of the pieces included.

To be honest I was a bit surprised/disappointed with this, I guess I didn't really know Debussy as well as I thought! I kinda wanted some more of the "oops, you've invented jazz" calm watercolour sixths and major sevenths and whatnot that I remembered from the premier arabesque. But a lot of this was sort of.. er... swirly and intense. That must sound idiotic to any big classical buffs who read this.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/04/15/9t96e_so%2C_this_mainstream-ness_thing_doing_the_rounds_%5Bupdated%5D Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:06:36 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/04/15/9t96e_so%2C_this_mainstream-ness_thing_doing_the_rounds_%5Bupdated%5D http://mainstream.freevicente.com/

1 Shpongle 8.08 100 %
2 Seth Lakeman 0.67 90 %
3 keiretsu 0.02 87 %
4 Hybrid 6.55 75 %
5 Beamer Grande 0.00 73 %
6 The Herbaliser 12.47 71 %
7 Ozric Tentacles 2.64 67 %
8 Ojos de Brujo 1.85 66 %
9 War 5.71 63 %
10 Fanu 0.31 60 %
11 Burial 1.70 57 %
12 Teebee 2.14 54 %
13 Underworld & Gabriel Yared 22.38 51 %
14 Easy Star All-Stars 4.69 47 %
15 Distance 0.31 47 %
16 Solar Fields 0.99 44 %
17 Intex Systems 0.03 43 %
18 The WBC 0.02 42 %
19 Sasha 8.09 36 %
20 Deviant Electronics 0.09 36 %

Rock 'n Roll! You are 4.02 % mainstream!


OK, great, but that raises one big question for me.

Why on earth does Underworld & Gabriel Yared come up as 22% mainstream? At the time of writing, they've only got 6,597 plays scrobbled and 208 listeners total.

This must be a bug, surely?

I mean, compare to Teebee just above it, for example - sixty five times more listeners, twenty times more scrobbles, and only 2% mainstream.

And yes, I read the blog post about the new algorhythm, but I didn't really understand it to be honest (possibly because I've been drinking jack and cokes all day).

I'm guessing it's choking on the "&" and pulling the stats for Underworld (140,000 listeners)...


Updated 2007-04-29. It's been fixed. Nice work! :)

1 Shpongle 8.25 100 %
2 Seth Lakeman 0.67 85 %
3 keiretsu 0.02 78 %
4 Beamer Grande 0.00 74 %
5 Hybrid 6.63 71 %
6 Ozric Tentacles 2.61 69 %
7 The Herbaliser 12.76 69 %
8 Ojos de Brujo 1.94 67 %
9 War 5.70 64 %
10 Teebee 2.20 61 %
11 Burial 1.79 58 %
12 Fanu 0.33 56 %
13 Easy Star All-Stars 4.75 50 %
14 The WBC 0.02 47 %
15 Underworld & Gabriel Yared 0.03 47 %
16 Distance 0.32 44 %
17 Solar Fields 1.03 40 %
18 Intex Systems 0.03 40 %
19 Kryptic Minds & Leon Switch 0.64 37 %
20 Kaya Project 0.77 37 %
21 Omni Trio 2.67 36 %
22 Sasha 8.18 35 %
23 Deviant Electronics 0.08 34 %
24 Average White Band 3.08 34 %
25 King Curtis 0.92 31 %
26 Hallucinogen 4.09 31 %
27 Minnie Riperton 4.40 30 %
28 Afro Celts 3.26 29 %
29 The Cinematic Orchestra 14.79 29 %
30 Breakage 0.83 29 %

Rock 'n Roll! You are 3.20 % mainstream!]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/03/30/9t93f_wow%2C_just_how_much_have_i_liked_the_herbaliser_lately%3F Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:58:10 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/03/30/9t93f_wow%2C_just_how_much_have_i_liked_the_herbaliser_lately%3F
Now the Herbaliser has 3 consecutive weeks at #1, the third of which being a total of 42 (despite that being a week where last.fm dropped a bunch of scrobbles).

I got Take London and gave it a pretty good hammering. In particular, Song for Mary picked up a lot of reloads at first, before I moved my obsession to More Tea, More Beer.

At the same time, it made me dig out the previous album Something Wicked This Way Comes, especially for the instrumentals Mr Holmes, Worldwide Connected and The Turnaround.

Now, I've come to the conclusion that on these last two albums, the Herbaliser have officially become "next level". I think it's because they've maintained a steady relationship with the horn section and other 'session' players of Session One - although they're not badging the albums as "band albums", you can see them picking up songwriting credits all the same.

I know it's sacrilegious to badmouth anything Ninja Tune, and many people have a great nostalgic fondness The Herbaliser's earlier albums, so I'm treading on toes, but they struck me as fundamentally a bit... lazy. Looped breakbeats and samples and the odd kitsch or "zany" vocal sample from old movies scratched in -- not really rocket science.

But these last two albums have taken the "hiphop versus movie soundtrack" concept and realised it on a fully musical level. With their instrumentals in particular, it's like they're actually scoring pieces of soundtrack to a non-existant film, sometimes Blaxploitation, sometimes Noir... In places it almost makes me think they're like a modern day Quincy Jones, which is not a comparison to make lightly!



And, just for good measure, "Worldwide Connected" was just my 4000th track scrobbled.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/03/17/9t90g_my_musical_life_has_been_ruined_--_and_fixed Sat, 17 Mar 2007 01:20:29 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/03/17/9t90g_my_musical_life_has_been_ruined_--_and_fixed
Disaster.

It was the first day of my all-new, already-crap extra 2hrs of daily commuting routine. So I was relying on that thing for sanity.

The worst thing? Warranty ran out March 3, drop the bastard thing on March 13.

GUTTED.

I'll just have to go out and buy another one and not eat very much for a couple of months *sigh*

--

Update (2007-03-23): I snapped. I bought another one. 60GB this time. Yay.]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/02/18/9t8yf_and_so_into_2007..._dubstep%2C_dnb%2C_things_to_look_forward_to... Sun, 18 Feb 2007 01:02:16 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2007/02/18/9t8yf_and_so_into_2007..._dubstep%2C_dnb%2C_things_to_look_forward_to...
To be honest, almost all of my new listening so far has been dubstep focussed. I had a miniature shopping spree at bleep.com - thank the lord for digital music purchasing done right, as opposed to the flash abomination that is beatport, or the DRM'd 128kbps nonsense at itunes (are they having a laugh?)

I love Loefah's stark, minimal, bass-weight-obsessed style, tunes like Mud and Root especially. Also a big fan of some Toasty tracks, especially Angel and Like Sun, for the way he seems to take the rudebwoy swagger and grimey rave noises of garage and knowingly filters them into something warm, musical and melodic. As far as I can tell from low quality radio sets, Skinny is perhaps better yet - it reminds me very much of the earlier Earth compils on Good Looking - a sweet sub and atmospheres as lush as you like. Shame it's not available to buy as an mp3.

Then of course there's the My Demons album from Distance. Last.fm is telling me the album doesn't exist, but the CD sat on my desk says otherwise... I've only listened a couple of times so far, so I can't really talk in detail, but I do think I would recommend it to anybody who enjoys a bit of chilled out dubstep. When I say chilled out - it's not as ambient as Burial - some of the tracks are pretty snarling and doubtless destroy a dancefloor - but it is still excellent moody, vibey chilling music when played at a low volume.

Unsurprisingly, I've also starting making some dubstep bits, but nothing finished as yet...

My other 'discovery' of 2007 was I Choose Noise, which I never gave a proper listen to last year. I heard the first four tracks round a mates, and since two of the four had appalling vocals, I didnt feel an urgent need to listen to the rest. Bit of a mistake - Last Man Standing is one of the best tracks they've ever done imho. Bloody incredible. Shame about the album overall, all the instrument parts seem to be of the usual peerless standard I expect from Hybrid, but apart from Kirsty Hawkshaw, all the vocal parts struck me as frankly pretty terrible. Bring back Julee Cruise...

Went to another Bassbin night last week, Alix Perez, Sabre and Commix all playing some heavy sets; there's some great stuff to look forward to from those three in 2007 I'm sure.

Speaking of looking forward to things - 4hero and The Cinematic Orchestra both have such outstanding track records that I'm excited about their 2007 releases without having heard a single snippet. On the other hand, I didn't really have a clue about Kryptic Minds and Leon Switch until I checked the previews of their album, but based on the clips this has the potential to be one of the best drum'n'bass albums in quite a while. Which reminds me - Klute has got a new one coming out imminently, and I still haven't checked any previews of that. Best get busy...]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2006/12/16/9t8rk_my_musical_2006 Sat, 16 Dec 2006 04:18:14 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2006/12/16/9t8rk_my_musical_2006
2006 saw me feel very "connected" to drumnbass, probably more so than ever, and immensely confident in its health.

Live, Andy C with Dynamite MC at Hospitality was an early highlight. I saw a great set from Klute in the summer, and rounded off the year with one of the best nights in years, Rohan Bassbin, Sabre, Martyn and Breakage all outstanding.

The latter was also responsible for my favourite dnb album of the year, This Too Shall Pass.

Other stand-out dnb artists for me in 2006 were Silent Witness & Break, Fanu and Prode.

I pretty much entirely neglected psytrance this year, although I did belatedly discover the charms of Total Eclipse, a little slice of goa genius to rank alongside old favourites Cosmosis and the Green Nuns of the Revolution.

On the other hand, I did get Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost this year, and I pretty rapidly concluded it was my favourite album of the year (yes, I know it was released last year), possibly the best electronic album I've ever heard. Astonishing.

Otherwise my more ambient needs were met by Burial (a particularly evocative and resonant album when you live in south london), Intex Systems' Research and Development and Underworld & Gabriel Yared's Breaking and Entering OST. Ninja Tune filed as another (disgraceful) area of neglect. What gems did I miss?

Speaking of neglect, I really didn't check much hiphop this year, unless you count flamenco-hiphop crossover band Ojos de Brujo, who were one of my two "Exciting new discoveries of the year", the other being Seth Lakeman. In both cases I heard one of their 2004 and 2006 releases and almost immediately bought the other one too.

They, along with a mini-resurgence of Metallica in my listening habits, provided the bulk of my "song" fodder, until winter, when my soul and funk addiction resurfaced. War and Minnie Riperton were my favourite new buys, and I heavily rediscovered old favourites like Sly & The Family Stone, the Ohio Players and Average White Band.

Hmm... well... that's about the gist of it I suppose.

Between about 1994 and 2005 I always wished I could make music as a full time job. In 2006 I heard so much great stuff I started wishing I could afford to simply listen to music full time. Looking forward to 2007!]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2006/12/10/9t8mt_1000th_track_scrobbled. Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:55:20 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2006/12/10/9t8mt_1000th_track_scrobbled.
So, well, this was it. War - Nappy Head (Theme from 'Ghetto Man').]]> http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2006/12/03/9t8l2_ojos_de_brujo_live_in_brighton Sun, 3 Dec 2006 23:38:31 +0000 http://www.last.fm/user/stevekeiretsu/journal/2006/12/03/9t8l2_ojos_de_brujo_live_in_brighton Ojos de Brujo live, in one word: Wow.

It says something about how much I was looking forward to this that the hassle of having to take rail replacement busses instead of a fast train journey didn't dent my mood... Then again I knew what to expect having watched their live DVD last weekend.

I basically can't praise this band enough. Even if you're not enough of a muso-geek to care about the virtuosity of the individual instrumentalists or the band's tightness in complex and advanced arrangements, you can't fail to grin at the sheer energy and joie de vivre in the music.

color came fairly early on in the set, perhaps 2nd or 3rd, and to be honest wasn't quite as scarily tight as it is on record. I rather missed the horn section from the album version, too. But this wasn't a night to be disappointed; the band basically got better and better from here on.

From the catchy Indian flavour of Todo Tiende (rattled off rather faster than on CD!) to the heavy punk flamenco of Piedras VS Tanques, all of my favourites from Techari were present and correct, mixed up with a selection of older (and perhaps newer?) material.

One track I can't remember featured a rather splendid bass solo, tapping and all, whilst another provided a huge showcase for the tapping feet of their flamenco dancer. The best "show off" moment though was undoubtedly Acción Reacción Repercusión, an eye-wateringly polyrhythmic pure percussion composition between drummer Sergio and percussionists Max and Xavi. It's rather easy to "tune out of it" when listening on CD, but jaw-dropping and mesmerising in the flesh.

Also special mentions for Max's vocals which seemed to be (deservingly) used more extensively than on the records, and for the VJ(s), who provided absolutely top-notch visuals, intelligently incorporating live camera footage of the musicians to help us see more of the fingerwork with more abstract and political imagery in keeping with their artwork and videos.

Of course the irony is that this gig barely needed visuals with a dozen or more people bounding around the stage, whilst at most visually-boring DJ / club night events I go to, the VJing is mediocre and cliched!

The set "ended" with a phenomenally cooking rendition of one of my favourite OdB tracks, Zambra, recalling Shpongle in its psychedelic intensity. Of course this wasn't exactly the end, as they returned for an multi-song, instrument-swapping encore. This was actually a bit rambling; it might have been better showmanship to end with a bang, but you couldn't begrudge them their fun!

Marina apparently doesn't speak any English, or else simply chose to communicate between songs only in Spanish - which was understood by the large Spanish contingent in the audience, but not by me. Max and Panko translated it when they felt like it, but to be honest it didn't really matter - their enthusiasm was evident in any language.

Needless to say I will be attending any and all future gigs they do within striking distance of me!]]>