Knuckledragger

U Mad, Bro?

Holy balls. So the second greatest ambient album of the 1990s (Woob's 1194) just got a vinyl release. Any HC vinyl snobs who have an even remote interest in this, do NOT sleep. There are people who have been waiting 28 years for a vinyl release.

Heyoka - Marklar (2010) This is an odd "post dubstep" album that absolutely CANED a dozen years ago. I haven't listened to it since 2013. Revisting it, it's ...alright, but very much of its era. TBH it's more "dubstep" than "post." Heyoka does keep things varied enough that his music never gets monotonously boring like so much dubstep does. He also varies the tempo all over the place so it's not just a 70 bpm snoozefest. Where he's really lacking is in synthesis. I've been spoiled by listening to some of the best sound synthesists artists ...ever (from Geir Jenssen to Oliver Lieb to Boards of Canada). Heyoka is a softsynth preset patch compared to any of them. Overall his music is amusing, but there's a reason I don't play much of it on my show.

Putin's Health Questioned After Video of Him Gripping Table Circulates. My initial reaction:

Russia's biggest chemical plant burns down in second mystery fire in a day. Glorious new tractor factory part II.

Absolute savagery.

Just watch the first ~3 minutes.

Me before coughing up to bankroll the continued misadventures of the Commonwealth of Taxachusetts: Ulrich Schnuass - A Strangely Isolated Place (2003). The stunning followup to the brilliant Far Away Trains Passing By. Ulrich managed to outdo himself and that was no mean feat. Probably the greatest IDM/downtempo/call it what you will album of the Aughts. I remember when this album came out and I played tracks off it, I'd have (otherwise incredibly narrow minded) drum n bass heads come up to me and ask me "what IS this music?" Me AFTER the fine state of Taxachusetts is done with me: The Misfits - Walk Among Us (1982). As close to a perfect punk rock record as they ever did. Marred only by an inferior live version of "Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?" vs the much better studio version (which is on Earth A.D.) Walk Among Us is peak Misfits. It's the best distillation of Glenn's savant-like ability to take trash 50s and 60s horror and sci-fi and make it iconic. His unique Demon Elvis bellow is cleaner and more emotive than on Earth A.D. The production on this album is actually remarkably solid, especially for an early 80s punk album recorded on a shoestring. There's some clever automatic double tracking on songs like "Devil's Whorehouse" that lend Glenn's vocals this amazing lo-fi psychedelic feel. The Misfits - Earth A.D. (1982). While inferior to Walk Among Us in nearly every way (except for the previously mentioned "Mommy") this is still a brilliant release. It's both faster and darker than its predecessor. There is less of a catchy horror punk sound and more of a metal influence throughout it. I first got Earth A.D. on cassette at the tender age of 12, during the Reagan years. That re-issue and most later pressings include "Die, Die My Darling" and "We Bite." The former is one of the best songs by the Misfits, so to me the album is incompletew without it. I didn't get a copy of Walk Among Us until '89 when the vinyl got re-issued. I quickly realized that it was the superior album. That said Earth A.D. has always held a special place in my heart because it was my introduction to the Misfits.

I've never heard of "Ambient Coconut" before. I've had Tricky's Ambient Pumpkin in my record bag since 1995.

Cramped temporary setup. 19" rack mixer hanging precariously off the table.

Test Tone @ Home live right now: https://mixlr.com/illuminator/

I've been neck deep in tax hell this week, so I've regressed to the mid 1990s: White Zombie - La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One (1992) White Zombie - Astro Creep 2000. (1995) Rob Zombie: Hellbilly Deluxe (1998) I've noticed that it's become very popular among current metalheads to hate on groove metal. For the life of me, I don't understand why. I'm not huge on the genre, but I do love me some vintage WZ and Pantera. Dimebag Darrell was a better guitarist than ...well, nearly anybody but certainly anyone who played in Zombie. His riffs were on another planet in their ferocity. The key difference between the bands is that Rob Zombie is a decent frontman and Phil Anselmo is a cancerous growth. This translates to me listening to a lot more Zombie than Pantera in my senior years.

Related.

Russian warship Moskva has sunk - defence ministry.

Everyone's favorite high pitched, hyperactive Canadian tech dropper does a deep dive on the guts of the Mac Studio. It turns out that with considerable work, it is possible to user service the SSD. Much more interesting to me: there are at least two different PSU designs for the Studio, and they are interchangeable.

A couple shots of Paul Lawler's studio.

Russia has defaulted on its foreign debt, says S&P.

Oh hells bells. Those of you who have been around here ...since I created this thread in 2008 may remember I used to do a lot of mucking about in HDR with a small army of apps. The one that I used the most was Photomatix. At first I pirated it, but liked it so much I paid for it not long after. I don't remember the price anymore, but I think it was around $25 in early 2006. For that sum I got the app as well as a Photoshop plugin (which I found to be of limited use, but sometimes handy.) My license got me through many upgrades of Photomatix, to the point in time that I stopped using it. To be fair, this was several laptops ago. Tonight, while editing some photos I took in 2006 (more on that later) remembered Photomatix and decided I wanted to give it bash again. Well, there is a current version, which is nice. It's native to M1/Monterey, which is essential. Also my serial is ancient and no longer valid for the new version. Understandible. I have paid for an upgrade for Little Snitch at least 3 times in the last dozen+ years. LS's devs give me a discount because I have an older license and (this is the key part) I can still run the old version on my other, older Macs (I maintain a number of Minis, which I find to be insanely useful.) By the by, any HCers out there using Macs, I cannot recommend Little Snitch enough. It's my favorite firewall app. As I was saying... I get no discount for owning an old version of Photomatix and CRIKEY have their prices gone up. $99 for the base app and more on top for the PS plugin. Naturally my serial still works on old versions, but they won't run on Monterey (or any other recent version of MacOS.) That's ...more than I'm willing to pay to re-up a program I previous purchased just to futz with it for a bit. So... Yarr har fiddle dee dee! 🏴‍☠️

Kyiv region: police confirm deaths of 1,222 people killed by the occupying forces.

Related:

OWC makes a nice Thunderbolt 4 dock. It's unobtanium. "Ships in 98 Days." The CalDigit TS3 dock, which is built like a brick scheisshaus, is now OOP and going up in price on the used market. It's only Thunderbolt 3 (meaning it works fine with Macs, but will have weird incompatibility issues with Winders laptops) but it has an optical digitial audio output (which is appealing to an incredibly narrow demographic that includes me.)