more new music

There are some musicians who release recordings and you know that they're going to be worthwhile simply because of who's behind them. For me, Bruce Cockburn fits well in that category, if such a category for him can be found. With his latest release Life Short Call Now, the man again confounds expectations with a collection of songs that are rich, honest and at times beautifully awkward. I'm not totally into it yet, but it's early days. The Cockburn's 1991 Nothing But a Burning Light is one of my favourite CDs, but it took me nine years to get there.
Enough waxing lyrical. Does Life Short Call Now deliver? So far, there's a lot of promise. The distinctive Bruce guitar sound is there. He's got a string machine, and some fine brass, reminiscent of his 70s era. Humans find comfort in being able to compare things, to relativise things. In this album there are many traces of this artist's musical past. This CD pairs nicely with You've Never Seen Everything, with perhaps a slightly springier step. The opening, title track sticks in my head like My Beat, and Different When it Comes to You draws shades of the Trouble with Normal era. An early standout is the rarefied track 11 To Fit in My Heart, with a brass arrangement strangely reminiscent of I'm Gonna Fly Someday.

I do miss the spoken word pieces of recent past albums, but Bruce never stands still. There're more things to explore. This one's worth a listen. With a glass of red, perhaps. And a good stereo sound system. I've only given it three spins so far and there must be a lot more here to find.
More news at the excellent Cockburn Project website.


On the tech front, I've invested in a USB tv tuner. I've been eyeing one off for at least the past year, and the very latest one from Elgato looked like the go. Pretty similar to the Miglia one - like a big USB memory stick. They come with a small toy stubby antenna, and believe it when the literature recommends using a real rooftop aerial - the toy one didn't work at all, even when tested under the digital repeater at Como in South Yarra (although I'm sure an RF geek would have a dozen reasons why being too close to the transmitter is bad for reception).

good enough sound?

I remember having a discussion with a musician friend a couple of years ago, about DVD audio sound versus CD sound. I'm actually yet to sit down and do an AB test between identical material on CD and DVD-A, but in this conversation my friend was describing sense of space and relief that DVD-A sound quality offered over regular CD audio.
So with that back-drop, I'm thinking that my old iPod is decidedly ordinary in terms of audio quality. I've started listening to my CD Discman again, and the sense of space and relief is evident over the ripped versions sitting on my little white gadget. I think if it wasn't for the marvellous world of podcasts, I'd be tempted to ditch the iPod.
Ok. My iPod is old - 2nd generation. Maybe the newer ones are better. Maybe they've got an equaliser that is actually useable and beneficial to listening on high quality but bass-deficient in-ear phones. I'm not sure. I've played around with different bit-rates (unfortunately my model won't play Lossless Compressed formats) but my Discman still sounds better. Uncompressed music from the iPod is a slight improvement, but disk space and battery life becomes an concern pretty quick with this approach.
So where is all this going? I've noticed that the DVD-Audio versus Super Audio CD `battle' has given way to the HD-DVD versus Blu-Ray stouch. No one seems to be pushing any sound quality benefits, but the issues of copyright protection are never far from the spotlight.
Maybe sound quality is no longer an issue these days. Perhaps no-one cares: we're all busy listening to compressed music on one of those `iPod compatible' portable sound systems that seem to be populating the windows of home entertainment stores. I guess who's to argue...if the ear is the final judge.



And, in un-related matters, kudos to Bryce Amner for nicely integrating a session of MS Flight Simulator into a sermon on Revelation at Holy Trinity Port Melbourne on Sunday. And no...I don't believe The Rapture was even mentioned.

Liquid Architecture 7

I got along to the Friday evening program of this sound art festival. The gig was in the North Melbourne Town Hall, where Outlook Communications had set up a fine sounding Funktion-One surround system to act as canvas for the aural expositions on display. Julian Knowles and Donna Hewitt kicked things off, with visually engaging e-mic and guitar work. Dean Roberts followed with some guitar and vocal work, which struck as slightly in the `acquired taste' category. A short interval and it was time for the collaborative efforts of the Swiss Australian Collectibles. This combination of Speak Percussion's live instrumentation combined with computer audio modelling from Martin Baumgartner, Myles Mumford et.al utilising every size of aluminium Powerbook was most enjoyable.

Le Tour

Hooray for SBS and their live coverage of the Tour de France stages. Who cares if it's in the middle of the night? Aren't we already up watching the soccer?

There're some good things set up at the official Tour website, including the Tour on Google Earth.