In case you haven’t been following the Matthew Herbert vs. PETA controversy, here it is in a nutshell: micro-house musician/producer extraordinaire Matthew Herbert (who has recently released excellent albums under the names Herbert and The Matthew Herbert Big Band) wants to make a concept record about the birth, life, and death of a pig. Dude not only wants to be inspired by how a common farm pig goes from womb to stable to slaughter, but he wants to literally use sound recorded from all three stages in the oinker’s life and implement them into the record. Guess which stage PETA has a problem with? Anyways, that’s all old news. What’s brilliant is Herbert’s recently unveiled official response to the well-intentioned but oft-misled organization, which you can view at the man’s blog. The brilliantly reasoned explanation doesn’t come from a place of knee-jerk anger or overly passionate pretentiousness, but rather very calm and steady logic: 1) the pig he’s been studying is from a small independent open-air farm that feeds their pigs high grade locally-produced cereals and lets them live much longer than most industrial pig farms, and 2) as a meat-eater, Herbert is simply trying to more fully understand the process by which his bacon is created to make a more fully-informed decision on his eating habits. In other words, suck it PETA!
-Chris Polley
6 Music is a radio station that is mostly unknown in America, and only 1/5 Brits have ever heard of it. 6 Music is basically an ideal radio station where amazing DJs play top quality music. The BBC says 6 Music is failing because no one listens, which probably has something to do with the fact that the station can only be listened to online or with a digital radio in the UK. The announced closure of 6 Music has agitated the music elites in the UK, most notably David Bowie. More surprising than the planned shuttering has been the strong resistance it has met. The listenership of 6 Music may be small, but it is a loyal and vocal minority. The station has a tight following because it runs on the opposite philosophy of mainstream radio. Instead of playing what records labels want to sell as “hits,” 6 Music programs the station with the intent purpose of popularizing great music whether it be from an indie or major label. Their final concern is the quality of the music, not the kickbacks they would receive for playing “Rockstar” 10 times a day. The BBC has not made the final decision to shut down 6 Music, and the opposition is growing. Perhaps now, someone will listen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8551053.stm
-Daniel Wipert
My future baby daddy, Jamie Lidell, is releasing a new album on May 18th titled Compass. Beck, Feist and Chris Taylor from Grizzly Bear collaborated with Lidell on this album. In this video on his website you get some behind the scenes footage of the making of Compass as well as how the album came to be.
You can also hear the single “Compass” on his website as well as check out some upcoming tour dates. I highly recommend checking him out live if you can.
-Felicia
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Here are the albums up for OMD reviews this week:
Tuesday, March 9: Lil’ Wayne, Rebirth
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And now, our Weekly Playlist!
Dan - In honor of 6 Music, here are three tracks from bands I discovered from Steve Lamacq’s show on that station: Mirrors, “Look at Me”; The Horrors, “Sea Within a Sea”; The Rumble Strips, “Girls and Boys.”
Chris P. - It’s been a while since I got on an instrumental kick, so here I go: if you like your music moody and speechless, check out two of my faves of the year thus far, one an established act in the neo-classical genre, the other a kick-in-the-pants debut from a promising young band. “Bowsprit” by Balmorhea is the former, a haunting forest-tinged chiller of percussion and strings. “The Days to Come” by The Non is the latter, a firecracker of crisp guitars and explosive drum work. Both ends of the spectrum, both completely hypnotic.
Felicia - This week I’m listening to BK-One’s song “Gitit” from the album Rádio do Canibal, mainly because the song makes me want to groove and I’ll be doing just that in Mexico by the time you all read this. BK-One is better known as Brother Ali’s DJ, and he gets help on this track from him as well as Slug of Atmosphere.
