Dolmot

I received some new and newish releases from Zion 604 this week. The process as a whole took over five weeks. According to my calculations, I could cover that distance faster by bicycle. On top of that, they were delivered to a wrong post office. (The address was entirely correct. Our local post just fucked up that part. Fortunately there was tracking.) But whatever, they're here now. Let's start checking the goods.

Everything that starts with "Simon said" must be true.

Please do. I'd appreciate it.

Voodoof - Thru?

That's a lot of Gangguru...compared to the roughly three tracks officially released as Gangguru until now.

Hm... Maybe?

Complimentary acid?

Sigh... *unzips wallet* (Well technically...um...it's past midnight so I won't start arguing. )

I would actually be mildly surprised if a 3D tour turned out to be very flat.

Fixing my headphones. The pads are attached with goddamn flimsy plastic pegs, which have broken several times for various reasons. Two-part epoxy works for a while, but the pegs are so small that some random knock will eventually break them again. Now I drilled metal pins through them. Seems to work. It took a while to get this done. Definitely an improvement over constant fear of something falling off. Makes listening to ambient more relaxing...

I bought stuff from Ultimae. It's been a while. There was the glitchcore period which wasn't exactly my cup of tea. Then there was the period of not releasing much at all. (In 2015 only 1 album, 1 comp, 1 EP, some re-releases?) Then I was just too busy myself to browse all the stores. Now there seems to be a lot of dub techno, but it's pretty good dub techno so no major complaints there. There's also good stuff on the distro side. For a bitter twist, when I was placing the order on the last day of their winter sale, I read that their office had been burgled. I guess all burglaries are pretty low, but somehow it feels even lower to burgle an independent ambient label. Boo. Well, I added some extra items to my order and they still delivered promptly. Now I have incense sticks and postcards and bookmarks and whatnot, just like in the good old days. Oh, and discs too, some new and some a bit older but missed until now: James Murray - Eyes to the Height Focal - Polarity Mizoo - Greenosophy Chapter II Martin Nonstatic ‎- Ligand James Murray - Floods Returned Oophoi & Tau Ceti - Penumbra Recollected 4 Robert Rich - Temple of the Invisible Robert Rich - Calling down the Sky Maybe a bit basic choices because I had to make a quick pick, but I think I'll go back for more whenever I've managed to check these properly and find some time to listen to 1000+ samples...

Tales of the Inexpressible is up now, this time "only" double vinyl. Also the batch is 1400 copies, compared to AYS's 500+400 or something. £54 + shipping. https://shponglemusic.bandcamp.com/album/tales-of-the-inexpressible-remastered

It's always in movies. (And there's still some true underground music but I'm not allowed to talk about it. )

It sounds like AP.

Hi Looks like I was away for a while too. Now I'm trying to make up something fast to finish this before the year changes (in this time zone) so that my end-of-year post count won't be zero. Well, yeah, it was an interesting year, quite hectic too. Last winter I had just finished my house move to another city. Thereafter I've been trying to settle in. There was also loads of events and travelling. I went to ZNA after a long break from festivals. A lot happened before/during/after that trip. As soon as I got back home, ready to share my stories, I was kind of thrown in to new preparations, which resulted in landing in Bali. I spent most of November there. It was a memorable but also partially taxing trip. Didn't do much trance stuff there, although I did listen to Virtuart's "L'Arôme de la Solitude (Batur Mix)" while trekking around the rim of Mt. Batur. Heh. I was also watching Mt. Agung from there when it was on red alert, while not exactly erupting. That happened a few days later. By sheer luck I got back home as most of the flights were cancelled. Now I've been just catching up with things here, wrapping up the work year, getting some rest and so on. I'd like to post here more, but so many times things just got crazy and my combined inbox (not this forum's, to clarify) was basically exploding. Clearing the queue has taken ages. I have so much unlistened music too. Right, it's midnight. Cheers and happy new year!

You had covers? Luxury! We had to browse thrice-xeroxed mail order catalogues, text only, 6 pt font. Then you made a lucky guess based on whether the name sounded promising and started waiting for a couple of weeks while the postman was wrestling bears and wolves! Anyway...I managed to collect my copy too, just in time for the holidays. Buying this one was a real no-brainer. Globular has repeatedly found his way to my downtempo sets, and often uptempo too. I just checked and indeed, "The Continuum Process" was the opening track of my "best of 2010" mix. Now it's the opening track of this box set. Heh. I got the files earlier, but I haven't really listened to them, either due to work schedules or maybe to keep some excitement for this moment. Now I have various indoor activities planned for this weekend and I think I know what's on the playlist...

There's now a second batch on clear vinyl, 400 copies. I bought that one, for reasons. Sorry for not supporting scalpers this time. https://shponglemusic.bandcamp.com/album/are-you-shpongled-remastered

Has anyone received the discs? Or even a shipping notification? Or any information whatsoever since the Oct27 update which said "You will be notified via email once your Vinyl is shipped"? I'd really need this information due to current circumstances, but it's been quiet on all fronts...

Well, this one has both, more or less (depending on the mix)... https://www.discogs.com/DJ-Eevil-Cum-On/release/294454 https://www.discogs.com/Tekno-2-Cum-On/release/200365

I'm not sure if I'm ready for that. No, wait. On the forum?

Alright, let's see... $ youtube-dl --list-formats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ44v2fln_w [youtube] AJ44v2fln_w: Downloading webpage [youtube] AJ44v2fln_w: Downloading video info webpage [youtube] AJ44v2fln_w: Extracting video information WARNING: unable to extract uploader nickname [youtube] AJ44v2fln_w: Downloading MPD manifest [info] Available formats for AJ44v2fln_w: format code extension resolution note 139 m4a audio only DASH audio 66k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.5@ 48k (22050Hz) 140 m4a audio only DASH audio 145k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k (44100Hz) 160 mp4 192x144 DASH video 108k , avc1.4d400b, 30fps, video only 134 mp4 480x360 DASH video 112k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only 133 mp4 320x240 DASH video 242k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only 137 mp4 1440x1080 DASH video 752k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only 135 mp4 640x480 DASH video 1155k , avc1.4d4014, 30fps, video only 136 mp4 960x720 DASH video 2310k , avc1.4d4016, 30fps, video only 17 3gp 176x144 small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2@ 24k 36 3gp 320x240 small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2 18 mp4 480x360 medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k 43 webm 640x360 medium , vp8.0, vorbis@128k 22 mp4 960x720 hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best) $ youtube-dl -f 22 -x --audio-format best https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ44v2fln_w [youtube] AJ44v2fln_w: Downloading webpage [youtube] AJ44v2fln_w: Downloading video info webpage [youtube] AJ44v2fln_w: Extracting video information WARNING: unable to extract uploader nickname [youtube] AJ44v2fln_w: Downloading MPD manifest [download] Destination: Butterfly Witchcraft (mixed by ake)-AJ44v2fln_w.mp4 [download] 100% of 479.18MiB in 02:33 [ffmpeg] Destination: Butterfly Witchcraft (mixed by ake)-AJ44v2fln_w.m4a $ ls -la 108500367 Jan 23 2017 Butterfly Witchcraft (mixed by ake)-AJ44v2fln_w.m4a $ ffprobe Butterfly\ Witchcraft\ \(mixed\ by\ ake\)-AJ44v2fln_w.m4a ffprobe version 3.2.2 Copyright (c) 2007-2016 the FFmpeg developers Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'Butterfly Witchcraft (mixed by ake)-AJ44v2fln_w.m4a': Metadata: major_brand : M4A minor_version : 512 compatible_brands: isomiso2 creation_time : 2017-01-23T15:37:25.000000Z encoder : Lavf56.1.0 Duration: 01:14:16.84, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 194 kb/s Stream #0:0(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 191 kb/s (default) Metadata: creation_time : 2017-01-23T15:37:25.000000Z handler_name : SoundHandler Short version: apparently you can dump a 194 kbps m4a, and there's no need to pay $9 for it. However, recently there's been some talk about YouTube auto-applying dynamics processing and re-encoding so I cannot guarantee that the quality is really the same as in the original mp4. And as this is m4a, it won't be the same as the original mp3 that was used as the source for the video. At least one re-encoding has taken place in any case. Anyway, should be better than 95 kbps mp3.

It's a tricky question. Without going into details, can you just send me a link and I'll check it?

It's close! Let's have a Psynews camp! And party like 1999 never happened! And wear Doof t-shirts!

He is. After all, it's slightly better than the debut.

Sigh...I guess, even though the recent travelling and shopping spree is murdering my credit card...