Music

Movie Review: The Sparks Brothers

This week I watched Edgar Wright's excellent documentary The Sparks Brothers, about the band Sparks. To my musical shame, I didn't know who Sparks were beforehand, aside from recognising their early hit This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us, without knowing the name of the band.

Music

Review

Read more about Movie Review: The Sparks Brothers

Podcast Of The Week: Rhythmic Lemurs

#313

Scientists have recently discovered that Lemurs sing with categorical rhythm, something that was prior only known to be present with just birds and humans. This informative episode of NPR's Shortwave has all the details, along with some clips of singing Lemurs that happen to be Queen fans!

Music

Podcast

Read more about Podcast Of The Week: Rhythmic Lemurs

Piano Map

#311

Pianos.pub maps pianos that are free for people to play, all around the world.

Data Vis

Life

Music

Read more about Piano Map

An Spás Eadrainn-The Space Between

#308

An Spás Eadrainn-The Space Between is a beautiful music and art programme created by Susan O'Neill and filmed in Bunratty Castle. The programme features a number of musicians and artists that are paired with each other to produce art simultaneously and/or collaboratively while in each other's company.

Music

Video

Read more about An Spás Eadrainn-The Space Between

Plant Music

#306

The Verge published an interesting round-up of a group of musicians and artists connecting synths and equipment to plants to generate music, while also going viral on Tik Tok.

Music

Read more about Plant Music

MuRli's The Sky Has Windows

#305

MuRli released his newest EP The Sky Has Windows, and it is great! Listen to it and buy it on bandcamp.

Music

Read more about MuRli's The Sky Has Windows

BitListen

#300

BitListen is a website that sonifies transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. The pitch of the notes played are based on the value of the transaction.

Blockchain

Data Vis

Music

Read more about BitListen

Music in 2021

#296

My favourite album of the year is Game On by Mick Flannery & Susan O'Neill. Their voices perfectly accompany each other like two sides of a musical coin. Pure magic. Dry Goods - House Plants Dry Goods, the debut album from House Plants is just great, and gets better with every listen!

Music

Review

Video

Read more about Music in 2021

Infectious Music

#282

Mathematicians at the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind in Canada studied the download patterns of music from MixRadio and found that their spread matches the patterns seen in the spread of infectious diseases. Interestingly, they found that metal and dance music is not infectious and electronica is the most infectious.

Data Vis

Music