Epic Knowledge transfer! Computer vision and geo media in 2008

There is a new media technology convergence going on right now that is so epic in scale, I figured I would blog it. Perhaps only to track this strange realm of hyper learning and research I'm experiencing. Seriously, the knowledge gained in the past few days is astonishing.
But let me start with a simple test of my Google Earth casting system...

Powered by Google Earth Hacks | Map Details | Create your own!
Minneapolis City Hall.

If you hadn't much experience with Google Earth, you've been missing some fun! But I can understand. After all, it's only 3.5 years old.
Well just recently, they made it possible to embed a Google Earth window, right inside a browser. SO wow!~ Very cool. You can show people 3d places, just as you would show a photo. And the program itself is not required to load. It's just a super fast plug-in. Great!
(I'm still learning how to use the api, so thanks to GoogleEarthHacks, for enabling the code)

Street View is also able to be embedded in a page. They made this available last Chistmas. I really should have been doing cool stuff with it all summer, but other work was being done. Anyhow, you're getting neat directory type sites showing you all sorts of list of Street View locations, as follows...

There was something very interesting we Minnesotans found when street view came out. We found that the Google Driver had been mapping before and after the I35w Bridge collapse. The the extent that you can simulate a drive over the bridge the day before it fell. Apparently, they were spraying chem trails that day too, but thats another post.

View Larger Map
Click the arrows and pan to navigate across the old bridge. Notice all the construction vehicles and process.

So I'll put up more posts exploring other new visualizations and media tech with I'm finding amazing. Check back. In the mean time, Don't let the packs of "entertainment" robots hunt you down!
PEACE.

THE WHITE STRIPES "Icky Thump" CD

Okay-wow. This album is a giant steaming pile of derivative shit. I feel completely let down and am floored by the lack of a single memorable riff on this piece of trash. What the hell was Jack White thinking? For all the talk i heard about this being a return to rocking form, with some hints even of thrash metal being included as well as some serious soloing, this thing is beyond bland. It's like Jack and Meg sacrificed a rib each to the great god of stagnancy in return for the inspiration to churn out some worthless, grating bore-o-riffs. Not much there, John-not much there. I'm not really angry here, more confused, because the Stripes have long been a fave of mine (as well as many others) and to the day i day i will still say that "Expecting" is one of the greatest, toughest, most primeval guitar riffs that i have ever laid ears on-i'm left perpelexed and just trying to figure out where the way, the path, the noble road to rock ecstasy, was lost by Jack and Meg. It certainly wasn't on their last record-even throughout its deviations from the formula, it contained some of their best stuff, including the massive juggernaut "Instinct Blues" (which i have recently given thought to covering in Yog-Sothoth, which would be our 2nd Stripes cover.) So i guess somewhere between punching out worthless goons from lesser bands and getting married to forgettable "supermodels" and signing to a major major label, Jack just gave up. Decided to phone one in. Hell, he interviewed Jimmie Page in Guitar World- looks like he's really made it. The need to write quality material must have evaporated like so much dignity back when he was laying carpet for a living. So i would skip this one, really. Forgettable through and through. And one more thing-using an octave on every guitar solo gets really annoying. It's about as predictable as Meg's drumming has gotten. A horrible misstep.

FEAR FALLS BURNING "The Infinite Sea of Sustain" Audio DVD

Another project that is becoming far too prolific for me to keep up with but is way too good to fall behind on. This one was a no-brainer...six live concerts captured in crystalline audio over the course of FFB's European tour from 2005, all loaded on to one audio dvd for seriously extended play, along with a few mysterious photographs of the man in action as the music drifts by. And i really think drift is the most appropriate word here, as all of these pieces enswirl you in their narcoleptic hypnogogy and pull you deep down into a lovely little aura of relaxation and meditation. Listening to this album has actually eased my recents stresses as of late and not much else ahs been able to, aside from the outings with friends and games of "Settlers of catan" that i have recently been involved in. So yes, i really really like this record. But you may be wondering just who the hell FFB is and why i'm so down with his stuff. FFB is the new project begun a few years ago by the dude who was known as Projekt/Release recording artist vidnaObmana-FFB was born of a desire to revert back to guitar playing and live performance. Every FFB piece is a live real time composition, with the sounds fed through walls of pedals, loops and delays until they endlessly recycle and form new walls of sound of their own accord, more or less. It's a master class in layering and improvised composition and due to the ease of the way this music is presented, recordings are multitudinous-i have a good portion of what FFB has done thus far but some i've just missed out on due to financial constraint and lazing up on the output watching. This one is well worth your dollars, though, and is still available, and the packaging is pretty damn exquisite-it's like a velour wood case-you have to really caress it to see what i'm saying, but it's nice. The sound is towering and monolithic, the drones warm and inviting and so so comforting once you slip into them. It's very much in the vein of other soundlords like Troum, Nadja/Aidan Baker, Final, etc...hazy sounscapes blurred with melancholy and yearning, a reaching for something more, a desire to connect. I love this band, i really do, rapidly becoming a fave in my assemblage of drone albums and requisite late night listening when i'm feeling lonely or upset (which is a lot right now.) I would love to see FFB live, hopefully they'll get to the states soon so i can witness the haze in all it's volume drenched glory, but until then these live shows will have to suffice...arriving soon at my door will be the equally massive (and i mean it) 5LP set on tonefloat records, where FFB is remixed/reprocessed by such greats as Nadja, Final, Birchville Cat Motel, Stefano Pilia, et al. Probably will be the release of the year, in my humble opinion. Awesome and beautiful....

LUNAR AURORA "Andacht" CD

Holy shit. This album absolutely fucking slays. Amazing. Lunara Aurora are one of the more mysterious black metal entities lurking around (and alas they will lurk no more, as they have stated that this record will be their last in a long while) and have more or less eschewed any sort of spotlight that's been cast their way, presumably more concerned with creating beyond EPIC black metal with a fucking freezing cold atmosphere and gorgeously melodic, devastating riffs. This album serves as an amalgamation of everything they've done honed into a knife of deadly precision. The disc starts off furiously and pretty much never lets up-sounds well up and fill the space you're listening to it in-this is a sonic masterwork compared to anything that any band has done, ever. It's like the sound glut of Mogwai filtered through black metal-everything is here-massive crunchy/fuzz guitars, ambient soundscaping keyboards that encompass the entire compositions, freezing them with mooncrust and glacier shine, heavily delyaed and chorused guitars that bleed into the keyboards and add to the majesty, choral vocals that sound as cavernous as if they were recorded in the Sistine Chapel, and of course screechy reverb-laden vocals that echo of despairs unknown...it's a thick, dense mix of true blackened art and i am hard pressed to think of any band that has gone to this level. Xasthur's layering technique comes to mind but his sound is far too lofi to butt heads with this epoch-there's a definite Burzum influence at work here too but rather than go in the buzzing, torturous direction that more of Varg's disiciples choose Lunar Aurora crafts grandiose swaths of music that could be the national anthems of some weird black metal universe. I really can't go on-just know that this is triumphant, masterful music of the highest order regardless of genre.

SHINING "V:Halmstad" CD

At long last it has arrived at my door, after months of trying to find someone in the US who was distributing it. Upon me at last is the fifth monumnetal effort from Sweden's Shining, the "suicide squadron of Sweden." Shining is the black metal project of Niklas Kvarforth, started in 1996 to help him deal with the agonies and hurts he was struggling with in his life. Shining pretty much invented the "suicidal" black metal genre and this new recording cements their position as one of its reigning practitioners. Of course the big claim to fame was that Hellhammer of Mayhem used to drum in Shining-apparently those days are gone now, as Niklas has replaced everyone with some weird backing band called "The toolbox." Shining is only Kvarforth-everyone else is relegated to backing band status. So why do i love Shining so? They are one of the few bands who actually convey a true, frightening and real sense of depression, hurt, torment, sorrow, agony...and this has to be the result of Kvarforth's own suicide attempts (three times) and resulting hospitalizations in Swedish mental facilities. Now i know what you're thinking, and i agree-if he really wanted to kill himself, he'd just do like the girl in this fantastic album cover and eat a muzzle. So i guess there's something he's clinging to, some reason he's still here, but i don't think that his suicidal failures at all dimish the power or command over my emotions that his music has. There is no vocalist i have ever heard in all of black metal that sounds more tortured-when i listen to Kvarforth let out an out of tune wail and hear his voice break and crack, i can feel what he must be feeling. He can project and draw you into what he's feeling, the hurt that's inside. Secondly, he's an absolutely amazning guitarist and songwriter. Shining is midpaced for the most part but extremely technical-they come up with riffs and counterpoints that are rooted in the basics of black metal but they take them to a far more progressive place and create an altogether eerie and disconcerting pummel of atmosphere by way of weirdly dissonant passages and and depressing samples lifted from films along with devastating metal riffs and incredibly impressive and well planned guitar solos. A lot of time and effort goes into a Shining record and it's obvious to me that this record came at great personal expense and emotional devastation to Kvarforth. Comprised of six tracks (one is an interlude by way of Beethoven, so really only five) the record takes you down a very dark road where the sorrow and regret wells up in a massive pool, the waves getting deeper and deeper until eventually you're drowning in the total choking mass of desperation that the band has built up. The songs almost all feature haunting acoustic guitar figures and majestic and melodic solos that give instant goosebumps (and a few rock and rollisms don't hurt either.) Amazingly well recorded and totally crushing in sound, the guitars and drums will flatten you. Kvarforth's voice is getting even more torn and ragged, if that's possible-his vocals have become a choking hoarse bark that breaks consatnly and send shudders through your body-by the time you reach the final track, where a gorgeous chord progression of fuzzy guitars pulls you down down down and Kvarforth's clean (!!!) sung vocals lull you into his near suicide vigil, you will feel like there is no hope, no escape, no light, no love, nothing-nothing coming ever but an endless parade of defeats and hurt, piled higher and higher until you're buried under their collective and suffocating weight. This record is completely amazing, beautiful and fucking scary. Another masterpiece from Shining.

"Need for A Crossing: A New New Zealand Vol. I" CD

Aaah, a glorious return to the noise stomping grounds of olde. It's no secret that New Zealand is home to some of the greatest weirdo/narcoleptic/stumbling/damaged noise guitar bands out there-this disc is packed with big names for those in the know-but what's amazing to me is how serene this new compilation is, and despite the number of artists involved, how well the entire set flows together. The lead off track is by Birchville Cat Motel, one of my all time faves and more or less the reason i threw down $21 for this disc (Table of the Elements schwag does not come cheap!) and it's a destroyer-"Skies Crimson Tears" is the name of the track and sure enough it makes good on the Slayer reference by using the backing track of "Raining Blood" as it's palette, upon which Campbell Kneale drops all manner of droney guitar lightning bolts. Alas it's only six minutes, as it's fading out you feel like he was really only just getting started, but hey, a good track is a good track and this one is a pretty great little fix of BCM. Blowfly Saint appears next, turning in some damaged electro folk that sounds like a field recording from the sixties, or maybe a more straightforward version of the Dead C (and where the hell are they on this comp?) if they played lullabies. Not as entrancing or destructive as the BCM track but just as lulling. Greg Malcolm appears next, with one of his two tracks that appear on the set, and both are pretty indicative of what he does-a lot like a really stripped down version of the mighty Pelt, using guitars to make a background of cosmic drone over which he fingerpicks/strums/improvs raga-esque figures, just with a more psychedelic/outsider lean. It's liquefying stuff, just check out some of the records he did for Celebrate Psi Phenomena and let yr head get free (i have a bunch of his records laying around here somewhere...). Pumice turn in two tracks back to back next and it's about as close to real actual pop songcraft as anyone on this collection can get, although by Pumice standards these tracks are on the quieter side of things-but still two gorgeous, fractured pieces of heartache full of razor sharp jarring guitar squiggles and a cloud of murk spread over the top. Gfrenzy turns things around in another direction with their short contribution, which sounds like some sort of weird trip hop filtered through a drip press of folk music, like a cup of coffee made thick and sludgy with sawdust. Probably the track that's furthest out as the source isn't really guitars as much as it is cut/paste computer work and a personal take on US hip-hop. Leighton Craig pulls us under next with his piece for droney keyboards, another track that is far too short in my humble opinion. Extremely gorgeous and soothing pulse tones strung together to create a hymne that's not entirely mournful but not very happy either, almost reminiscent of the stuff Tim Hecker did on his Alien8 recording (i forget the title right now, sorry.) Anthony Milton and Peter Wright close the disc out with a lengthy piece each of good old fashioned New Zealand guitar skronk and drone, as feedback piles on top of itself and makes a thick fat cloud of buzzy hissing drone, each artist seemingly out to prove that they can do what the Dead C do just as well as the masters themselves-i like that the disc closes out this way because even though this collection strives to be a documentation of what's going on in New Zealand right now, the influence of what's been happening there for years is obviously felt by everyone involved on the comp. Great stuff all in all and a good introduction for someone just getting into New Zealand noise (although it's got enough appeal to have completists like me drooling all over it, too!)

ATAVIST/NADJA "12012291920/1414101" CD

Maybe it's the tense, nervous weird moods i've been in lately, but this ambient styled heartbreak shit is really sitting well with me right now. And Nadja is so fucking good at it that i can't really give this album anything less than a "jesus christ go buy it right now" sort of assessment. That being said i was actually pretty taken aback by this record's direction. Being that this was a collaboration between Atavist and Nadja, i was expecting some pretty heavy, in fact damn heavy, guitar sludge. Certainly not the misanthropic hate gobs that Atavist toss out on their own record but something veering more towards the doom side of things, with Nadja's fluttering melodicisms and ultra heavy ambience sprinkled on top. Instead we get a very very tranquil, peaceful, quietly gorgeous album packed with little flourishes of sound and whispers that caress your ears and lull you off to some sort of mournful place-but it's not sad, no, it's rather that sort of triumphant melancholy practiced by the likes of Mogwai, Jesu, Final, etc-stuff that makes you feel happy for every experience, be it good or bad. It's the musical personifiication of the cliche "it's better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all.." And even further indicative of the weird moods i've been having is the fact that i attach feelings of love or romance or whatever sort of heart fucked-upedness to this record. I have no idea if that was the mood they wanted to convey with this one, it's just what i get out of it. although Nadja tends to take me to that place every time anyways. Weirdest thing about this record-no drums. Everyone is playing guitars or basses or synths and the whole record is a thick marsh of warm, sweet pillowy drone hum. tons of things going on all around your ears. A record for the headphones, absolutely. It's hard to keep up with Aidan Baker and Nadja-i have to be really selective about which of seemingly endless records i'll shell out for-but i'm glad i picked up this one, even though it was a little pricier (plus Atavist and Nadja together??? it's gotta be pretty damn cool.) So yeah-highest recommendation.