Rambling and blogging for over 8 years, from good food and drink around town, eclectic electronic music, absolutely anything to do with digital media, throw some sport (more than likely cricket) in and the odd personal experience — as seen through my viewfinder.
One of my favourite musicians, Daniel Bell, one of the forefeathers of minimal techno and composer of some of my favourite cuts under the DBX monicker including “Losing Control”, “Phreak” and “Electric Shock” and the wonderful Elevate guise on Harmonie Park is featured in Resident Advisor this week.
“Music has been a part of my life for 20 years,” he says. “I think as it’s maturing, it’s become even more inspirational, because there’s space for everything new. In previous years, there was always one sound that was really dominant. It was really hard to find space. But in the last couple years, it’s really opened up, and there’s lots of space for all the different approaches to this music. To me, it’s definitely as important as ever. Absolutely.”
Jamie Lidell – Another Day
Dr. Octagon – I Got to Tell You
Jamie Lidell – Wait For Me
Dr. Octagon – Bear Witness
Prince – Sign “O” the Times
Mike Dunn Presents MR 69 – Phreaky Motherfucker (Mike Dunns Original Phreak Mixx)
Jamie Lidell – Rope of Sand
Thom Yorke – And It Rained All Night (Burial Remix)
Holger Zilske – The Bees
Wareika Hill Sounds – Coconut Head Special
Mad flow from The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) is back with another marketing rap. This time he describes how web standards and proper design can affect the ranking and conversion of pages on your site.
Lyrics:
Your site design is the first thing people see
It should be reflective of you and the industry
Easy to look at with a nice navigation
When you can’t find what you want it causes frustration
A clear call to action to increase the temptation
Use appealing graphics they create motivation
If you have animation
Use with moderation
Cause search engines can’t index the information
Display the logos of all your associations
Highlight your contact info that’s an obligation
Create a clean design you can use some decoration
But to try to prevent any client hesitation
Every page that they click should provide an explanation
Should be easy to understand like having a conversation
When you design the style go ahead and use your imagination
But make sure you use correct color combinations
Do some investigation, look at other organizations
But don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
Design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction
Follow these instructions when you move into production
Your photoshop functions then slice that design
Do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned
Please don’t use tables even though they work fine
When it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
Make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
Remove font type, font color and font size
No background colors, keep your coding real neat,
Tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
Better results with xml and css
Now you making progress, a lil closer to success
Describe your doctype so the browser can relate
Make sure you do it great or it won’t validate
Check in all browsers, I do it directly
Gotta make sure that it renders correctly
Some use IE, some others use Flock
Some use AOL, I use Firefox
Title everything including links and images
Don’t use italics, use emphasis
Don’t use bold, please use strong
If you use bold that’s old and wrong
When you use CSS, you page will load quicker
Client satisfied like they eating on a Snickers
They stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
And then they convert now that’s the real kicker
Make you a lil’richer, your site a lil slicker
Design and code right man I hope you get the picture
What I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
If it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
Everyone will want to follow you like Twitter
Competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter
If you trying to grow your company will get bigger
Design and code right man can you get with it
A four day long weekend, and what better way to start it with some dark techno dancefloor action courtesy of Alex Smoke at Minimal Fuss.
I hadn’t heard any recent material from Smoke, in fact the most recent was his Paradolia album which I thoroughly enjoyed. Buoyed by positive reviews from a recent visit to Sydney when he played at Chinese Laundry, I was certainly keen to check him out.
I quite enjoyed his set, even if at first it felt a little stop start. A different sound to Paradolia - and I’m not going to use that much overused term “minimal”, he chugged along on his techno groove using Ableton Live and Logic Pro, a dancefloor most appreciative to his sounds.
Declan and Ben Korbel played in a tag-team style prior to Smoke. Perhaps Declan is going deaf as he absolutely murdered the mid and high ranges when was on with Korbel bringing them back to an acceptable level. Korbel’s sound has changed to contain much more techno these days, yet, it still contains the floaty remnants of his progressive headspace. Whilst not my bag, it was far from offensive.
Hats of to the Minimal Fuss crew for a solid party, and no, I didn’t make the dawn service.
I heard Ken Cloud play this last Saturday at Lost Baggage - the first time I had heard in it a club environment, the sort of track that’s even better when you’re watching the dancefloor jack to this monster. It’s a dirty, dirty, get your freak on kind of record, and what you’d be expecting from Mike Dunn. Could easily slide in to my top ten for 2008.
Another quality promo video for Minimal Fuss, featuring Alex Smoke this Thursday night at the Civic Underground, Sydney. See you there. Don’t forget Abe Duque on the Friday night, same location.
ADULT. – Kick in the Shin
Theo Parrish – Falling Up (Carl Craig Remix)
Theo Parrish – Falling Up
Alex Smoke – Persona
Phylyps – Untitled B
Alex Smoke – Never Want To See You Again
ADULT. – We Know How to Have Fun
ADULT. – Nervous (Wreck)
Ultramarine – Hooter (Carl Craig Remix)
Cesária Évora – Angola (Carl Craig remix)
Chrysanthemum - Kelley Polar (Check the beautiful video above!)
MK – Decay
Pegz – Two Sides of the Map (feat. Debaser)
Conrad Black – Greyscale for Slow Building
Spank Rock – Rick Rubin
Roisin Murphy – Sinking Feeling
Deep Chord – 5:58.60
Ricardo Villalobos & Jay Haze – Prefer Summer (Cabanne Remix)
Marc Houle – Has to Do
Farben – Alpin (Formatted)
