Writing about music may indeed be like dancing about architecture, so why not give music a listen?

If you’re not already familiar with the terrific Los Angeles label Brainfeeder, founded by Flying Lotus, now’s the time to discover its artists. If you are familiar with them, you barely need read this blurb before skipping ahead to a lovely compilation.

Onboard: Thundercat, Martyn, Samiyam, Tokimonsta, The Gaslamp Killer, Jeremiah Jae, Taylor McFerrin, Teebs, Austin Peralta, Matthewdavid, Mono/Poly (the artist, not the synth, but we can love both), plus (exclusive) Lapalux.

BRAINFEEDER SAMPLER [Download, info]
Brainfeeder Label Site

And the timing is fitting: Brainfeeder has won well-deserved recognition in the Gilles Peterson Worldwide Awards 2012. (Other fine labels in the runners-up — Numbers, Hotep, R&S, Young Turks.) These awards dig through our world’s plentiful quality music to find things that are really special; you can check out some of their picks in the award setting in London in the short film below. It was also gratifying to see Machinedrum (Travis Stewart, also of Sepalcure) take home the “John Peel Play More Jazz Award,” as one of our favorite musicians of 2011.

More:
Worldwide Awards 2012 – The Winners [Gilles Peterson Worldwide blog]

If you can find a spot in the rotation with your Mannheim Steamroller collection for something a bit different, CDM reader Leigh Walsh of Cork, Ireland sends in her work. She describes it as “punky gothy electronic … for Christmas,” with any proceeds benefiting Autism research. The single sounds crazy, but for me, things get good with the game world-like, shimmering “Secret Inside the Ice Level” and “Melody for the Sewn Princess” tracks.

I can find myself mentally wandering an 8-bit ice cave level right now…

Loving her work, hoping to here more, hoping not to get folks’ genders wrong next time… oops.

Heck, let’s take this playlist a little further out.

One darned trippy Christmas: HAPPY XMAS PEBBLES LAILA ROCKET YUSUF! By London-based artist Affie Yusuf, via SoundCloud:

HAPPY XMAS PEBBLES LAILA ROCKET YUSUF by AFFIE YUSUF

Thanks, Laila!

If that doesn’t cleanse your palette after hearing too many of the Christmas standards on repeat, I just can’t help you.

Now, go and use this to freak out your families and friends.

The first rule of giving is that you need to make sure that the entity to which you’re giving is actually asking for support. In the wake of a devastating fire started during London’s rioting that wiped out a Sony warehouse, indie labels are indeed asking for such support, says a representative of fundraising efforts. Sony’s facility housed, under contract, massive stocks belonging to UK distributor PIAS, representing in some cases the majority or entirety of inventory of dozens of independent record labels. For smaller organizations, insurance funds may not arrive in time to continue day-to-day operation, at a time when small labels are often on the brink of being able to operate from one day to the next.

That’s the picture painted by Dan Salter, who tells CDM about the effort Label Love, which in the immediate aftermath of the fire was already communicating with labels and beginning organizing efforts. Along with Hannah Morgan, Dan is leading efforts to help keep the lights on at labels, and to communicate with the rest of us about what’s going on.

Note that this is not organized by PIAS; you can read their official statements by following the distributor’s official site. (PIAS say they are also working on cleanup and efforts to benefit labels, but no official statement has yet requested funds; they’ve mainly thus far clarified what’s happened and how they’re responding but stopped short of asking for donations, beyond volunteers to help cleanup the site.)

Updated: An official PIAS-organized fund is detailed below. In addition to providing loans to labels, a statement by PIAS and the Association for Independent Music suggests that the effort will also help coordinate third-party drives like Label Love.

If you’re not up to speed with what’s happened, see yesterday’s post:
150 Indie Labels Lose Stock as London Warehouse Burns; Details Emerging, Reports, and Benefits

CDM: First, who are you? Whom do you represent?

Dan: We’re not actually affiliated to PIAS, we are a little group of bloggers & music fans that wanted to do something to help.

Have you communicated directly with any labels? What have they told you, if so?

We’ve been in touch with a number of the labels. We write & run a number of music blogs so we already knew quite a few people involved but many more have got in touch since Monday. Some of the stories are heart wrenching, people’s whole livelihoods have been put at risk by what’s happened.

Insurance will presumably be distributed through SONY. That said, do we know if stocks were covered by insurance? I know that Sony had told PIAS they’re working on keeping stocks flowing.

We’re not totally clear on the insurance situation, as you say it might be a question for PIAS, but I do know that even if insurance is paid it may come too late for many of the smaller labels. These companies run on a day-to-day basis and this kind of break in their cash flow could be terminal.

What do we know at this point about losses that may be suffered by labels? How are they coping?

I’m not sure of the overall situation but we’ve been contacted by a number of labels who have lost pretty much everything & have said it’s very touch and go as to whether they can survive this.

Who made the decision to begin fundraising? Was this something that came up via fans of the labels, or that the labels asked for? What’s their response?

A lot of these people affected are people know personally and are friends with when we heard the news we responded by thinking about what we could offer as gig promoters and the idea of benefit shows was born.

How will funds be distributed once collected?

100% of money donated through PayPal will go to the labels affected. Money raised from the events less costs will also be distributed to the labels.

Ideally we want to distribute the money in relation to the percentage of stock lost by each label. If we can’t get the relevant information to do that then we will split it evenly between the PIAS clients.

If people want to help now, what are some ways they might do so? How can they give or volunteer?

They can either donate through our PayPal account, link is on http://cognitivedissonancerecords.com/labellove/ or if they want to offer their services they can mail us at labellovebenefit (at) gmail (dot) com

Some people were circulating the idea of buying downloads from their favorite labels who have been affected. Would you encourage that, as well?

It’s a great idea but we would encourage people to use independent sites like Rough Trade rather than iTunes or Amazon as they take a far smaller cut & the labels will benefit more.

And more broadly, can you tell us a bit about yourself and how everybody’s doing over there? Much appreciated!

To be frank, our minds are a little bit blown by the scale of the response to our suggestion. We initially envisaged doing a few small gigs around London, we never expected to be dealing with the sheer volume of offers & support that we have, it’s been amazing & humbling. Right now there’s only a couple of us at the core of this and we work full time as well but we’re hoping to have a team together soon to help us cope with what’s happened!

Updated: an official PIAS and Association of Independent Music (AIM) fund has been announced.

This morning, we are announcing the creation of a fund to help independents affected by the catastrophe. They will be able to draw upon the fund to help cover the interruption to their business and the cost of getting back onto their feet.

The fund is being provided by some of AIM’s larger member labels, other well wishers and from AIM’s reserves, and will be made available to affected smaller labels pro-rata to labels’ [PIAS] turnover this year, as required.



Funds will be made available as interest-free and security-free loans repayable within a year. 



Total initial funds available are £250,000.



[PIAS] are first and foremost focused on supporting their labels. AIM will be coordinating the fund, and also other offers of help in the form of promotions and benefit gigs.



Source: AIM, via their site musicindie.com.

The likes of Mute and Beggars Group also repeat what Label Love are arguing: that smaller and emerging labels may not yet be prepared to whether the immediate aftermath of these events without additional help. The fund would appear to help the cash flow problem.

As has been widely reported, the UK’s largest independent entertainment distributor, PIAS, suffered the complete loss of stock in an enormous warehouse in North London amidst rioting in the neighborhood. Impacted is stock not only in music, but independent film, too. The warehouse is owned by Sony DADC, but the impacted stock is owned by distributor PIAS and covers some 150 record labels (see list below), from big names to tiny – and more vulnerable – outlets.

While details on insurance coverage and timing are largely forthcoming, the more urgent problem is that – insurance payments or no – the loss of significant portions or even all stock for many smaller record labels impacts their ability to operate. Because producing something like a CD or vinyl requires manufacturing, lead time, and shipping logistics, the event could have a devastatingly constraining effect on the ability of these labels to sell physical music.

Some relevant coverage:

Independent music labels left ‘devastated’ by riot fire [BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat]

Sony/PIAS Warehouse Burnt Down in UK Riots [Pitchfork]

Sony: London warehouse fire may affect UK deliveries [Reuters]

Independent record labels fear ruinous stock loss in London riots fire [The Guardian]

On the film side: British film distributors left reeling by financial impact of Sony/PIAS warehouse fire [The Guardian]

Via Twitter, Rough Trade Shops are following events and encouraging volunteers to work on cleanup and fundraising efforts. The focus remains on the immediate safety of artists and staff, naturally, for all London’s arts institutions, and thankfully, while the loss of physical music was devastating, no injuries were reported.

Here’s the latest update from PIAS, as of Tuesday pm:

Latest update – Sony DADC have actioned their Business Continuity Plan and are back up and running from a new control room in Enfield. PIAS continue to work with them to minimise the impact on the business, a number one priority for all our labels and clients. Sony DADC have identified a temporary distribution partner and it is envisaged that they will be in a position to pick, pack and ship orders in the course of next week.

This follows an earlier statement regarding a fire last night at the SonyDADC warehouse, which services the physical distribution for PIAS in the UK and Ireland. PIAS’s UK offices in London and all other areas of our business are unaffected.

Further details will follow tomorrow morning, Wednesday.

We wish to thank everyone for the overwhelming messages of support.

Follow PIAS directly for the latest official statements:
http://www.pias.com/pias/

Benefit plans are thus far mostly at a placeholder status, but there’s reason to believe that the future of a number of the UK’s record labels could be endangered by events.

In addition to a direct fund, simply buying digital releases from these labels could help – and illustrates that having digital revenues can be a way to resist catastrophic problems elsewhere.
AIM urges fans to buy digital and help out indies affected by warehouse fire [MusicWeek]

Our friend TRICIL is already using the Topspin platform in order to give away his entire 47-track discography in exchange for a donation that will support the recovery of these labels.

http://tricil.net/

Some of those record labels:

LABEL NAME
[PIAS] Recordings
[PIAS] Recordings Belgium
4AD
A Camp
Absynthe Minded
Accidental
AEI Music
Air Recordings
ALC Music
Alsation
Ambush Reality
Ancient & Modern
Angular Recording Corporation
Arcady Records
Ark Recordings
Asthmatic Kitty Records
Atlantic Jaxx Recordings
Bad Magic
Balling The Jack
Banquet Records
Battered Ornaments Records
Beggars Banquet
Best Before
Big Brother
Big Dada
Bird Records
blackmaps
Bloody Chamber
Blowout Music
Blue Chopsticks
Border Community
Borstal Beats
Boysnoize Records
BPM
Brainfeeder
Brassland
Bright Star Recordings
Brille
Broken Sound Music
Bronzerat
Brothers and Sisters
Brownswood Recordings
Buzzin’ Fly
Cache Cache
Cadenza Records
Celluloid Records
Chalkmark / IE
Chemikal Underground Records
Cocoon
Control Tower
Counter Records
Dance To The Radio
Dead Oceans
Deceptive
Defenders Ent UK
DESOLAT
Dessous
Different
Dirtee Stank
Divine Comedy Records
Domino Records
Double Six Records
Drag City
Dreambrother
Drive Thru Records
Drowned In Sound
Dummy Records
Duophonic
Eat Sleep Records
Fabric Worldwide
Fake Diamonds
FantasyTrashcan
Fatcat Records
Fence
Feraltone
Finders Keepers Records
Flock Music
Flying Circus
Freerange Records
Friends Vs Records
Full Pupp
Full Time Hobby
Gang Of Four Recordings
Geographic
Ghost Ship
Glaze Recordings
Groenland Records
G-Unit
Hardly Art
Hassle Records
Helpless
Hem Hem Records
HFN Music
Immune
Independiente
Infant
Infectious
Jagjaguwar
Kartel
Kitchenware
Kitsune
KMS Records / Fabric
Laughing Stock
Lex Records
Lipservice
Little Sister Recordings
LO-MAX Records
Loose Music
Lovepump United
Low Life Records
Lucky Number Music
Lucky Seven Records
Mantra
Matador
Memphis Industries
Merok
Metric Music International
Metroline Limited
Model Citizen
Moikai
Motion Audio
MyMajorLabel Ltd
Nation
Ninja Tune
No Quarter
NovaMute
Nusic Sounds
One Four Seven Records Ltd
One Little Indian
Organs
Outcaste
OVNI
P.I.L.
Peartree Records
PeMa
People In The Sky
People Tree
Pirates Blend Records Inc
Planet Function
Play It Again Sam
Playlouder
Poker Flat
Polyvinyl Records
Poseidon Records
Post Present
Pschent
Raw Canvas
Red Cord Records
REK’D
Rekids
Rekords Rekords
Renaissance
Reveal Records
Riverman Records
Rock Action Records
Roots Records
Rough Trade Records
Rubyworks
Sea Note
Search and Destroy
Secretly Canadian
Setanta
Shape
SideOneDummy Records
Silva Screen
Slam Dunk Records
Smekkleysa
Soma
Sonic Cathedral
Soul Jazz Records
South Paw
Southern Fried Records
Stereo Bang Media
Stolen Recordings
Stranger Records
Streamline
Sub Pop
Suicide Squeeze
Sunday Best
Thrill Jockey
Tirk
Too Pure
Torque Records
Touch & Go Records
Transmission Recordings
Tri Tone
Trouble Records
True Panther
Try Harder
Turnstile
Twisted Nerve Recordings
Universal Sound
Victory Records
Wagram
Wall of Sound
Warp
Watergate
We Love You
Wiiija
Willkommen Records Ltd
Wonderfulsound
XL
Xtra Mile Recordings
Yaala Yaala
Young Turks

PIAS also shares music on SoundCloud:

Latest tracks by PIAS Entertainment

Updated: Wednesday Statement from PIAS

Kenny Gates, PIAS’ Founder & CEO, posts an updated message today. He notes that all PIAS staff are okay, and reiterates that SONY DADC, not PIAS, actually owns the warehouse; PIAS contracts with SONY in order to house their product for distribution.

As you have noticed in our last note , Sony DADC have been remarkably quick and efficient to put together a contingency plan that should allow us to ship to stores sometime next week. We are impressed by their efficiency and that is good news.

These times are difficult for us, our artists, our labels and the whole indie sector which we vastly represent but we are determined to come out of this setback in the best way possible.

The PIAS team has been working around the clock to limit the damage . We know that the livelihood of many talented, passionate and hard working music people, artists and small and bigger labels is at stake and depend on our actions and those of Sony DADC.

We have been getting a lot of words of support and offers of help and that truly helps.

Thank you to everybody who cares and supports PIAS and the indie sector.

Read the full statement:
http://www.pias.com/pias/message-from-kenny-gates

CDM has gotten no further word on efforts to support the labels, so our view is that the best course of action is to wait on additional information.

Updated: Answers on Fundraising Efforts from Organizers

Representatives of Label Love have answered CDM questions and explained why labels are in need, how fundraising efforts are working, and what you might do to help:
In Wake of London Fire, Organizers Answers Questions About Supporting Indie Labels [CDM]

Music Hack Day from Your Neighbours on Vimeo.

Music Hack Day rolls into London September 4-5 with a huge lineup, ranging from Domino Records to Queen Mary, University of London, and I expect some real work on music creation hacking, not just the Web. If you want to register, time is short – registration closes this coming Friday August 6 (or, erm, 6 August).

Dave Haynes also reminds us that the Music Hack Day is looking for musical contributions to give the above promo video a soundtrack. If you’re looking for a chance to promote your sound skills, upload a minute of your Creative Commons-licensed music. As with registration, the deadline is this Friday.

Direct submission @ SoundCloud

If you plan to attend or send your music, do let us know about it.

The Music Bore – Video 2 from Nicholas Humfrey on Vimeo.

“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t allow you to listen to Coldplay.”

What would radio be like if playlists were not only robotic, but had robot DJs pulling information from the Interwebs dynamically? That’s the question asked by the winning team at London’s Music Hackday last weekend, which created an epic mashup of data sources to produce a voice-synthesized IRC chatbot that researches and plays music for you.

Music Bore

Music Bore was just one of a number of projects developed in the weekend of musical hacking, some for listening, and at least one (a fantastic and free synth plug-in) for what we really like – production. With some of the world’s top musical coders in attendance, the results were amazing, even if not all projects were entirely finished. (Hey, that’s why they call it hacking.)

You can check out the full list on the wiki, but here are some favorites — and if you were there, do shout out to us as you put more documentation up of the event and projects.

Harmony Box by Dave and Mike is a synth plug-in for Mac (AU/VST) and Windows (VST, thus also Linux) that quickly creates lovely chords. I love the simplicity of the instrument – really lovely work, gents – and I think I may actually use it on a project. They accept donations if you’d like to see this instrument mature. Of course, with everyone else doing Web mash-ups, this didn’t win, but it’s more up our alley. (Web 2.0 – meh, whatever.)

The synth has its own project blog:
http://davenoise.com/blog/

Other winners (in our book, and as recommended by Harmony Box co-creator Dave Gamble):

LonelyHarps by Jamie Hollingworth and David Padbury is a Last.fm-based tool concept that helps you find dates – and choose the right tracks to set the mood – using music for compatibility. And, really, do you really want to date someone who doesn’t have musically compatible tastes? (I’m sure it’s just because they spotted lots of hotties on Last.fm, but…) The only bad news: the app didn’t actually get fully made yet, but we’ll stay tuned, gents. They do have impressive-looking formulas.

Music Zeitgeist by Cristiano Betta visualizes lyrics by decade, such as the 1980s, above. (Yeah, it was all about wanting and karma, the 80s.) Check out the project directly.

Theremag by Jono Cole and Jonty Wareing of Last.fm is actually the app I most want to see, but there’s no documentation yet. It’s a Theremin emulator on the Google Android-based HTC G1, with an unusual sensor — the built-in magnetometer (the one that normally acts as the compass) which was used to pitch-bend Michael Jackson. Once they get documentation up, expect to see it here. (I love that magnet sensor, too. Good fun.)

iPhone Music Visualizer by George J Cook and Matt Biddulph grabs Soundcloud files, analyzes them with Echonest (which recently got an iPhone-friendly Cocoa API), and then plays them back with a visualizer. It looks like a great place to get started if you’re planning on building something similar yourself.

In fact, it’s well worth checking out the wiki not only because some of the projects have (okay, sometimes-sloppy) source code, but point you at the resources you’d need to tackle something like this yourself if you’re a coder. And the event prompted a lot of folks from Last.fm to Echonest and BBC and others to get their APIs together.

It’s a terrific idea, and it sounds like we need another music hackday here. (Press releases, ahem, claimed this was the “first” music hackday, even though we’ve done a global event ourselves, but who cares — let’s do more!)

New York would make a nice base of operations for a similar event because a lot of folks with interesting APIs are here (or in nearby East Coast towns), but I think it’d be great to get more people online and not just in one locale.

What think you, sirs and madames? Tips on how we could make an online event work?

It was inevitable: eventually, someone would figure out that mobile computer musicians wanted to be able to have a slim-line controller (particularly for MIDI keyboards) that was tiny enough to fit anywhere and take anywhere. I actually heard a rumor at one point that someone would be M-Audio, but Korg has beaten them to the punch. Our friend Ben Rogerson of MusicRadar.com (from Future, the Computer Music and Future Music folks) is at the London International Music Show and sends along the scoop:

Korg nanoSeries puts laptop users in control [MusicRadar.com]

Info at the Korg Japan Page (and yeah, I’m sure these will be huge – or, erm, tiny – in Japan!)

There are three different controllers in the line:

• nanoKEY: 25 keys, transmitting either as MIDI notes or (via a separate mode) Control Change (CC)  messages. Octave shift (natch). Pitch, modulation. And it’s supposed to be velocity-sensitive, too, although we’ll have to get our hands on one to see how sensitive it is.
• nanoPAD: 12 pads, supposedly inheriting the terrific sensitivity and feel of the padKONTROL, which is pretty much the favorite pad controller round these parts. Chord Trigger. Control Change mode (as with nanoKEY). There’s even an X/Y touch pad with roll and flam mode, favorite features of the padKONTROL.
• nanoKONTROL: 9 faders, 9 knobs, 18 switches, transport controls. (No, really.) MIDI notes, 168 CC messages. There are even attack and decay times for the switches, allowing them to work as faders, filter controls, effects settings, and the like – something I’d love to see on other (full-sized) controllers.

Additional features are available using the free KONTROL Editor software: on the nanoKEY, you get velocity curves / fixed velocity and assignment editing, and the nanoPAD and nanoKONTROL support scene editing (four of them) in addition to other assignment editing choices. There’s also a download code for the M1Le, the “light” edition of the Legacy Collection Digital Edition, for any M1 fans out there.

They aren’t terribly pretty (the nanoKEY buttons look like they were lifted off a vintage DEC microcomputer), and it’s hard to tell what the feel of that keyboard will be like, but these are indeed promising for tight spots.

Bus-powered, USB. I wonder if, using a hub, you could easily plug in two or three?

Now the bad news: we know neither when these will be available, nor for how much. Let the waiting begin.

The closest thing we’ve seen to this is the Kenton Killamix Mini, a pricey but nicely-built slim-line knob box. (MusicRadar has a review.) And, on the cheaper side, there’s also the cute Novation $99 Novation Nocturn CDM saw at NAMM, which could very well complement one of these. But the really tiny MIDI keyboard has generally been elusive, making this very interesting indeed – not to mention, any of these could sit atop a full-size MIDI keyboard if you’d rather roll that way.

I think fans of the microscopic will find a way to connect these to ultra-mobile PCs or hack iPhones or Nintendo DSes. Any takers?

The embarrassment of riches that is music software for the Nintendo DS continues to grow. Alongside the homebrew entries, DS developer AQ Interactive has the one officially-distributed DS soft synth, a loving emulation of vintage Korg goodness in DS form. We’ve gotten word that the DS-10 makes its public debut this Saturday in London, as part of the London International Music Show (LIMS):

"KORG DS-10 night in London"
Date: Saturday, 14th June, 2008
Time: 22:30-26:00
Location: LIFE, 2-4 Old Street London EC1V 9AA
tel: 020 7250 3737 (http://www.life-oldst.com/)
Admission is FREE!
———————————-
We will have fine entertainment at the event, featuring smooth vibes from cool DJs and a special appearance by the producer of the DS-10, sanodg.  He will not be at LIMS but will be only at our event, so do not miss this only chance to see his performance with the DS-10!
Come one, come all and shuffle on down, and please receive a free drink by letting the reception know that you’ve received this invitation at the door!

I’m supremely jealous (London gets to have all the fun these days), so if anyone would like to cover the event for CDM so the rest of the world can enjoy, please get in touch! No word yet on whether you can trade your free drink ticket for a “free DS-10 cartridge ticket.” Guessing not, unfortunately.

Still no more word on pricing/availability for the rest of us on the DS-10, but I expect this means we’ll be hearing more soon. When I hear from AQ, you’ll hear from me.