2014 Year in Review

Well, 2014 is coming to a close.  Was it any better than 2013?  It's hard to say.

By many accounts, 2014 was shaped by events that were more unfortunate than could ever been realized.  Domestically, in the US, we had multiple police brutality cases come to light.  None of those seemed to come to the conclusion the public hoped for.  We were swept by fear over the concerns of Ebola, which hit Africa to devastating effect but never made a particular impact here.

Overseas, by all accounts, was much worse however.  From ISIL to plane disasters, 3 of them now that another plane has gone missing on the 28th of December, the world has not been a particularly safe place.  It all seems so far away when we hear about atrocities like the December 16th school massacre in Peshawar by the Pakistani Taliban or the thousands of deaths in West Africa due to Ebola.

At home, this disconnect became increasingly obvious.  The fear frenzy sparked by Ebola, which to date only has 4 cases and 1 death in the US, was almost comical in how overblown it was.  The level of misinformation supplied was clearly crafted to feed the fear as all credible sources have said that outbreaks in developed countries would be incredibly unlikely.  Now don't get me wrong, the crisis in west Africa over the spread and fatality of this current Ebola strain is very well founded, it just isn't particularly dangerous to the US where the media went crazy.

As bad as the year's been in the world, outside the Earth we perhaps had one of the most exciting events in recent space history.  Rosetta and Philae, spacecraft from the European Space Agency (ESA) landed on a moving asteroid, no doubt a great feat.  From a set of cute animated renditions of their mission to an xkcd comic chronicling their landing, the scientific community celebrated the success, though brief, of one of the longest and most difficult space missions to date.

In daily life I'm sure everyone has had somewhat of an up and down year.  Every time you think something good happens, you get punched in the gut with something terrible.  That's how the world is though, between all the good and bad, there's a lull where nothing seems to happen.  Sometimes, I feel like that's what we should really be celebrating.  Not praising the good, nor vilifying the bad, but celebrating those everyday events, the mediocrity is what keeps us going.

With that, I hope everyone has a good new year's.  Hopefully, this upcoming year will have more to celebrate, both good and neutral, and less to cry over.  As always, until next time.

--CsMiREK

Gear Days - Stocking Stuffer Special

I'm a bit late with this, I wanted to originally have this out yesterday night but it took a bit longer than expected.  The topic for the day is the Stocking Stuffer Special, a ranking of headphones I own that can all be bought for under $50.  The field is crowded and honestly there aren't a large number of standouts but let's get started anyways.

All told, there were 14 pairs ranked this time around and they got grouped into 2 small groups at the ends and one big blob in the middle

So let's get to the ratings:
1. Superlux HD668B
2. Yuin PK3
3. Sennheiser CX200
4. Incipio NX-100 f38
5. Panasonic RPTCM125K
6. NuForce NE600X
7. UrbanEars Plattan
8. Sony MDR-PQ5 (Discontinued)
9. TTPOD T1-E
10. California Headphones Silverado (Discontinued)
11. Klipsch S4i Rugged (Discontinued)
12. Sol Republic Amps
13. NuForce NE770X
14. Zipbuds Juiced

Gear Days - Holiday Kickoff: Beats Studio Wireless

It's holiday time and that means headphones (not that it isn't headphones time all the time).  To kick off the holiday headphone times I'll cover a pair of headphones I've recently come to owning, the Beats Studio Wireless.

So, what are the Beats Studio Wireless headphones?  Most obviously, they're headphones produced by the often controversial company Beats (now owned by Apple).  Equally obvious is that they're wireless headphones.  What else can be easily gleaned about the Beats Studio Wireless?  Well, they're over ear, closed back headphones that also sport ANC (active noise cancelling).  Now let's get to it and get on with the review.

M50 vs M50x: Changing of the guard?

Back in February of this year, Audio Technica released a followup to their wildly popular Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones, now labelled the ATH-M50x.  About a month ago I caved and decided to get a pair expressly for the purpose of figuring out what has changed.  With that, let's get started.

Both the M50 and M50x are closed back over ear headphones, that much has not changed.  In fact, overall, the sound and design are really quite similar.  So what has changed?  First, the M50x has a removable cable, which is awesome.  In the box, it comes with three different length cables and the addition of having a removable cable is really quite great.  Second, the pads on the M50x are initially more comfortable and less stiff than the original M50's ear pads.  After extended wearing though, they both feel about the same.  The carrying case that comes with the headphones is the same as before.  That pretty much sums up the external differences.  Let's move onto the sound.

Gear Days - Fall On Ear Classic

This year's Fall On Ear Classic featured 8 entrants and honestly was quite surprising to me with the end results.  As a note, the Fall On Ear Classic may be a biannual thing as I don't find myself liking on ear headphones all that much.  In general, I find on ear headphones to be quite uncomfortable. Another note is that my views on how bassy particular headphones are may be quite biased, both personally and as an effect of the gear with which I am doing my testing, it tends to give all headphones a not insignificant bass boost.  Anyways, onto the results.

How very colorful, just missing purple

From top left to bottom right, the Beats Mixr, Yamaha PRO 300, Sennheiser Momentum, Harman Kardon CL, Voxoa HD (Bluetooth), Outdoor Tech Privates (Bluetooth), Grado SR80i, and UrbanEars Plattan.

Exact numerical breakdowns can be found in the headphones spreadsheet under the On Ear tab but let's get to some reviewing.

Musical Discovery (genre) - Math rock

I'm aware it's been a long time since my last post and I'll eventually get to giving my conclusions of the summer 2014 anime season.  It might not be until I clear up the fall 2014 anime season though.  In the meantime, I'm gonna put up some music related posts to come back a bit more to how I started off this blog.

The topic of the day is math rock.  Math rock is a derivative of post rock and progressive rock that focuses on interesting and different uses of time signatures.  While most music currently (both rock and otherwise) follow a relatively strict 4/4 beat, meaning the beat is in 4 beat cycles, math rock employs shifts in time from 3 beats to 2 beats.  It is also common for math rock to use more exotic time signatures like 7/8 or 11/8 as well as abrupt or frequent time signature switching.

The thing about using 7 or 11 beats to a cycle is that it makes it difficult to count.  3 beats or 2 beats are short enough that it is obvious when listening to a 3 or 2 beat passage.  7 or 11 beat passages on the other hand blend in, being just one beat shy of a 4 beat cycle (8 or 12).  This leads to some interesting interactions where beat can be obscured greatly while appearing to have a relatively static sounding 4 beat.

The two bands in particular I've been listening to in the math rock vein are 'toe' and 'how to count one to ten'.  Both bands are based out of Japan and are mainly instrumental bands. The thing that strikes me about both bands is how well they are able to layer sound.  Honestly, I am quite poor when it comes to hearing and listening to beats.  However, their ability to layer different rhythms and lines fascinates me.  If you want lyrics and a catchy line, don't listen to either of them.  However if you want well formed and interesting musical ideas and good clean guitar sound, they're both fantastic.  At the current moment I'm tipping towards 'how to count one to ten' because I find the music more refreshing, but that's my opinion and if any of this sounds appealing I recommend you check both bands out.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

More anime, 4 to go for me.  This time we've got Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun.  Nozaki-kun is about a high school mangaka or manga writer/artist known for shoujo manga, in English terms, manga aimed towards girls.  However, contrary to the stereotype of a female mangaka we get a completely deadpan male.

From that description, it's pretty obvious that Nozaki-kun is a slice of life anime.  However, it also starts off with a bit of a gag scene where another main character, Sakura Chiyo, tries to confess to Nozaki.  It's too bad that he construes this as her wanting his autograph.  Somehow this leads to Chiyo becoming an assistant to Nozaki.  As much as that setting sounds like the back drop for a full out romance, at least from the first episode, it seems that that might just become a recurring gag.  To add to the comedic effect, we find out that Nozaki really seems like a complete airhead when it comes to romance even though he's shown as one of the best shoujo mangaka.

Overall, I'm a bit torn on how to rate Nozaki-kun.  On the one hand it is a generally well crafted gag based slice of life/comedy anime.  However, on the other, it doesn't seem to have characters strong enough to really shine.  Nozaki feels a bit lifeless and Chiyo feels like the personification of a girl in love trope.  That said, there's really not much offensive about the anime as a whole.  I would say that it's worth a watch but if you don't immediately like it, I can't really say it would be worth watching how it continues.  For a rating I'll just go with a 5/10 as it's honestly quite middling for me, I'm not offended by it nor do I think it's particularly good.  I could put up a picture but I'm not sure there's too much of interest here.  Let's power through the remaining anime reviews.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Tokyo Ghoul

Tokyo Ghoul is up next.  If I were to give Tokyo Ghoul a genre, I'd probably have to say supernatural action.  The basic premise is that the world is full of humans and ghouls.  Ghouls are beings that eat humans and have supernatural powers but there is no indication in the first episode of why they exist or how.  However, ghouls remain hidden in the world, disguised as normal humans.

Getting into the episode, we have a young boy (again really?), Kaneki who is interested in a woman at the coffee shop he frequents.  They go out on a date where he finds out that she's actually a ghoul.  At this point, she attacks him and tries to kill him so she can eat him.  Unfortunately for her, something happens, probably not an accident, where construction equipment falls on her, killing her.  Afterwards, Kaneki, in critical condition goes to the hospital where he needs organ transplants.  Thankfully, he can get organ donations from the now dead crazy ghoul who just tried to kill him.  Too bad for him though, now he's half ghoul and apparently when ghouls try to eat anything that isn't human flesh, it tastes like shit, which makes Kaneki go crazy.  The episode ends with a fight caused by Kaneki wandering into another ghoul as he's eating.

Summer 2014 - Akame ga Kill

Back to action we have Akame ga Kill.  If I were to describe Akame ga Kill in one word it would obviously be assassins.  Expanding on that, Akame ga Kill is really a story about a boy from the boonies who travels to the city in an attempt at more wealth for his village.  He finds out quickly that the city is no place for naivety as he is tricked and almost killed by his 'benefactor' who's really a sadistic bitch.  This leads him to meet a group of assassins known as Night Raid who he ends up joining.

Wow, didn't expect to put that all into one paragraph.  Well, I guess it's time for an image.

Animation wise, Akame ga Kill is pretty good.  Some of the more dramatic shots are drawn in the style above which is kind of cool.  Plot wise, it's not terrible.  The fight against the corrupt capital isn't horribly original but it's not an overplayed plot either.  The action itself is quite good although there isn't much except at the end of the episode.  The music is done by Taku Iwasaki, which if you know much about him, means that you get pretty non intrusive music that is quite good and fits the atmosphere well.  All in all though I'd give this episode a solid 7.5/10 for being a good introduction to something that could be good.  Stay tuned for the next anime update, Tokyo Ghoul.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Locodol

Next up on the summer 2014 anime list is Futsū no Joshikōsei ga Locodol Yattemita, which hereafter shall be called Locodol because damn if that isn't a long ass name.  In the context of this anime, I'm not sure if this is actually a real thing or not nor do I care, Locodol is a portmanteau of local and idol.  After explaining that, it's pretty obvious that Locodol is another one of those fluff slice of life animes.

Going into the actual episode, we have a high school girl, Nanako Usami, who just really wants to get a swimsuit to go to the reopening of a pool in her town.  Unfortunately, her parents won't give her the money she wants to get a new swimsuit.  Luckily for her, her uncle has a job for her and is willing to pay for her swimsuit.  Thus, she is wrangled into being a local idol with an upperclassman of hers, Yukari Kohinata who appears to be just do it because.  Anyways, we get a scene with swimsuits and singing and all in all it's just plain fluff.

No image this time around because honestly I don't really think there's anything worth putting up here visually.  That isn't to say the animation is bad, it's actually pretty decent, I just don't really think there's that much to put up.

As to what I thought of the first episode, I thought it was ok.  It's relatively cute without being pure cute overload or super moe based.  The humor is light and generally tasteful.  I will however say that I enjoyed the background music.  The music was composed by Hasegawa Tomoki, also known for Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and I think his understated and colorful style really helps out the episode as a whole.  I'd give Locodol a 6/10 propped up by the music.  If you're looking for a light anime, I personally enjoyed Barakamon more but if idols are your thing, I think Locodol does a good job.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Barakamon

We're gonna keep going until we're done.  More anime, this time Barakamon.  Barakamon is a slice of life comedy about a calligrapher named Seishu Handa living on a remote island after getting exiled for hitting a calligraphy director.  Honestly not too much happens so I'll keep the review short.  The episode consists of learning some of the quirky characters on the island, including a roguish little girl and the jovial mayor.  All in all it's a pretty decent first episode if you like slice of life and comedy without a huge amount of mystery.  As a kind of fluff anime without too much substance it has its fair share of cute with a bit of serious.  I'd probably give the first episode a 6/10.  Since this is a short post I'll just leave this GIF here.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Summer 2014 - Argevollen

Continuing with the anime theme is the other main mecha of the season, Argevollen.  Set in a war torn continent, shocker, Argevollen really seems to be a story of a young mecha pilot, Susumu, who gets caught up with an experimental mecha named Argevollen and the young lady, Jamie Hazaford, who we'll say comes with the mecha.

More specifically, Susumu is part of a small squad apparently out in the middle of nowhere as the enemy forces from Ingelmia siege one of the last standing defenses of Susumu's country, Arandas.  In retreating, he and his squad come across a civilian trailer under attack by enemy forces.  Of course, as a young and hot headed soldier, Susumu defies orders to ignore the trailer and goes in like a dumbass.  But hey, if he didn't there wouldn't be an anime to say is full of cliches.

Anyways, he goes to try and save this trailer, which now only has a single survivor, what we find out in the next episode is a young "engineer", Jamie Hazaford.  I say "engineer" in quotes because honestly it seems like she has no fucking clue what the hell she's doing and yea I'll leave it at that.  She boots up Argevollen and makes Susumu pilot it as well he is a pilot and he dispenses with the remaining enemies with nothing but his fists and feet.

Summer 2014 - Aldnoah Zero

First up on the anime review block is Aldnoah Zero.  Taking place in a world where some portion of humanity has migrated to Mars, Aldnoah Zero is a mecha anime focused on the tension between the Vers empire of Mars and the inhabitants of Earth. At the beginning of the episode you're introduced to the crown princess of the Vers empire, princess Asseylum, her name most likely not coincidentally sounding like asylum.  In any case, Asseylum is convinced that there can be peace between the Martians and the humans of Earth.  To that end she decides to make a trip down to the surface of Earth as a sign that she sincerely wants peace.

At this point we switch away from the elegant princess to Earth where we learn that 15 years ago the Martians destroyed the moon in some crazy war.  We also learn that, at least in Japan, teenagers are being taught how to operate mechas to defend against the potential of another Martian/Earth human war.

Anime season summer 2014 START!

Ok so maybe I'm a bit late with this as technically anime season summer 2014 started on July 1st, but I really hadn't watched enough of the first episodes until now to make a substantive effort.  Anyways, just like how US television has shows scheduled around the 4 seasons, so does anime in Japan.  Over the next week or so I'll be posting my thoughts on the first episodes of various anime.  The way I'll organize this is by having a page on the side bar labeled anime.  For each season I do reviews I'll have a link to another page with links to first episode reviews and another page for links to end of season reviews with a small section on my recommended anime for the season.  Seems a bit convoluted but is better in my opinion to needing to actually search stuffs.  Also, for more first episode impressions check out animenewsnetwork which has a lot of anime related information.  Anyways I hope you enjoy the anime reviews.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK

Gear Days - Summer Super IEM Showdown

Since I've been at the headphone collecting game for about a year now I thought I'd start doing yearly headphone roundups broken down by headphone type.  For summers I think IEMs or in ear headphones are worth a look at.  For falls I think that on ear headphones are a good topic.  And for winter I think that over ear headphones are the most fitting.  In spring I'll do the full gambit with a full relisten and a completely updated ranking.  Why such arbitrary month matchups?  Personally I think summer is the season most about traveling and a good pair of in ear headphones can take you a long way if you don't want to get noise cancelling headphones.  In the fall, I like walking around outside as the temperature begins to drop but isn't too cold yet.  On ears tend to be cooler to wear outside than over ears so they get fall.  Winter is the coldest month and over ear headphones can work as pretty good earmuffs so that's that.  Spring is the time for rebirth and a fresh outlook and so a full listen will be good to reassess the top and the bottom alike.  Now for IEMs.

Currently I have 9 pairs of in ear headphones.  Ranked from 1 to 9 they are:
1. Brainwavz B2
2. Klipsch X10
3. Shure SE-315
4. Sennheiser CX200
5. Sol Republic Amps
6. Klipsch S4i Rugged
7. Nuforce NE770X
8. HiSoundAudio HW2 Wooduo 2
9. Zipbuds Juiced

PPPP - House Pizzeria

Continuing on the pizza hunt is another local Austin establishment, House Pizzeria.  Though not hidden in a sub division, House Pizzeria is also easy to miss on the side of the road with a dim lit sign.  Going inside, the building is quite quaint.  Internally, it's dimly lit with a jukebox as the music source.  As an aside, I must say jukeboxes are pretty cool.  Anyways, at 12", the pizzas from House Pizzeria land on the smaller side, good for one or two meals at most for most people.  That said, at $9 pre tax, the price is somewhat normal for a non-chain pizza place.  But enough about the small things let's get a look at this pizza.

PPPP - Little Deli and Pizzeria

The first place I went to for PPPP is a little place called Little Deli and Pizzeria.  Little Deli is a small shop in one of the suburban areas of north Austin off Anderson Lane.  As I was driving over I almost missed it because there are no extra signs and the direction I was coming from had it almost out of view.  However, as I rounded the corner I was met with a really large crowd even though it was a Tuesday night.  As an establishment, it's really quite a small place.  If you can imagine a small deli place that would be the right size.  As you walk in, it really does look just like a deli place.  The only difference is that there's pizza up and an assortment of random cakes in the window.  They also have outside seating which was packed.  It's also apparently a BYOB place, which if that's your thing is pretty cool.  I ended up getting a 14" pepperoni pizza which came out to $15.16 which is a bit on the more expensive side.  I also ended up taking about 30 minutes to get my pizza which considering the length of the line isn't so bad.

In terms of pizza they serve a nice and simple New York style pizza, their site says New Jersey pizza but it's a thin crust pizza regardless.  From crust to sauce to toppings, overall the pizza is quite good.  But that's a cop out so let's go more in depth.

Prospecting for Purveyors of Perfect Pizza

As a young single who is often too lazy to cook, I, like many others greatly enjoy the simplicity of pizza.  Simply order a pizza from a place, wait some amount of time, generally 10-20 minutes and you have food for generally 2 to 3 meals.  More than simplicity though, pizza has always evoked a sense of community for me, even when eaten alone.  From pizza parties to sharing a pizza with family, the idea of a pizza has always been one I enjoyed.  Moreover, the variety that comes with pizza is immense.  Get some dough, some sauce, traditionally marinara but sometimes white or bbq depending on your tastes, cover with cheese and you have a basic pizza.  From there add any multitude of toppings from onions to pepperoni, ricotta to mushrooms, anchovies (yuck) to prosciutto or meatballs.

So what exactly does prospecting for purveyors of perfect pizza really mean and what am I gonna do about it?  Well one, I really like alliteration because it makes for fun sounding phrases.  I was also inspired by the burrito bracket running on Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight.  While I don't have a wealth of chefs and food writers to give me recommendations, I do have time, the time to visit as many pizza places as possible.  Why pizza in particular?  Well I want to see just what makes good pizza and what makes great pizza.  So let's get to it, what am I gonna rate these pizza on?

Gear Days - Audio Technica Noise Cancelling Showdown

More headphones GO!  This time I'm gonna do a head to head between Audio Technica's ATH-ANC7b and their new noise cancelling headphones the ATH-ANC70.  The ATH-ANC7bs sell for around $130-$150 new while the ATH-NC70s sell for $200 new which is their MSRP as they are new headphones (they came out in December 2013).  A good thing to note is that both of these headphones can play music without a battery which is always a plus especially in the realm of noise cancelling headphones.  As a review it'll be just about the same as most others just with head to head comparisons.  So let's get started.

First off, as with all reviews is form, comfort, and accessories.  Thankfully, in this particular category the two don't vary much.  Both headphones are over ear closed back headphones.  The build quality on the ANC7b feels more sturdy regardless of the lower price.  Both headphones have memory foam cups but I find that the ANC70's cups are more comfortable and the ANC70s are more comfortable to me.  A thing to note though is that I feel like both pairs are somewhat small.  If your head is large I might not recommend these.  Personally, I find the headband to push down on my head more on the ANC7bs leading them to be less comfortable in that respect as well.  In terms of accessories, both pairs of headphones come with a carrying case, airplane adapter, and 1/4" adapter.  The ANC70s come with one 1.2m (3.9') cable while the ANC7bs come with a 1m (3.3') and 1.6 (5.2') cable.  These cables are standard 1/8" to 1/8" cables so it's relatively easy to replace them if you have to.  A couple of nice things about the ANC70s in particular are that it has a volume fader on the left earcup which can be useful and that it has a built in microphone to answer calls with.  To use the microphone, or pause/play music you hit the logo on the left earcup which doubles as a button.  Overall pretty cool although I haven't tried taking a call with them.

Before jumping into the differences in sound quality, as these are both noise cancelling headphones it makes sense to compare how well they cancel noise.  As I was reading up on reviews of the ANC70s I came across this review which I agree with in some parts and wholeheartedly disagree with on others.  Most importantly I completely disagree with how she portrays the noise cancelling, saying that they cancel higher pitch frequencies better than low.  First off, it's not true.  I'm typing this review on a mechanical keyboard with MX Blue switches, which if you don't know what that means, means that there is a really loud audible click every time I hit a key.  These clicks are pretty high pitched.  Regardless of whether I have noise cancelling on or off, the clicks are quite audible.  In fact, while wearing my ANC7bs, the clicking is louder with noise cancelling on than off because the other sounds are muted more than the clicking of my keyboard.  The reason why it makes sense that higher pitches aren't affected by noise cancelling as much is that higher pitch sounds tend to be louder and easier to hear, up to a point, and because higher pitch sounds travel faster.  Noise cancelling also does relatively poorly with voices since those are quite variable.  Also, what's the point of noise cancelling headphones if they can't cancel out the low drones of airplanes?  It's a weird statement by the reviewer for sure.  In regards to how well these cans do in ambient noise cancelling, both are pretty respectable.  The large majority of fan noise from my desktop is removed as well as all of the other non-keyboard clicky noises.  Voices don't get cancelled all that much but being closed back headphones, there is still a decent amount of general noise isolation to both cans.  If you run the noise cancelling without any music on, there is an audible hiss on both headphones that's just about the same loudness which is just the signal that the headphones are using to cancel the outside noise.  All that said, given what I hear, the noise cancelling on the ANC7bs is better than the ACN70s regardless of price but neither are as good as what you can get from Bose.

Service Announcement - Shopping For Headphones

I've been writing this blog for about a year and a half now, and although I've reviewed many pairs of headphones and written up jargon filled pages to assist the average consumer, I find that I have yet to say anything about how to shop for headphones.  So here I am to assist and serve.

For most people, my general methods to gathering many headphones and having the best come to the top won't work.  One it's too expensive and two it's just plain silly if all you want is one good pair of headphones.  I do hope that from reading this blog you realize that headphones do sound different from each other in completely objective ways.  But let's get down to some details on how to shop for headphones.

Step one.  Determine why you're buying new headphones.  Are you just looking to replace stock Apple earbuds and don't really care about the sound?  Well I have no idea why you're reading this unless you really like my writing.  In that case buying whatever the hell you want, it's not gonna matter anyways.  Do you want fashionable headphones that won't break the bank?  Do you want to truly enjoy your music or do you want to drown the world out, maybe both?

Step two.  Price.  This is potentially the most important step for most people.  When you are looking for headphones, realize that the prices you initially see are almost never what they could be.  Sales inevitably crop up as with most buyable objects.  If you're passively looking for headphones, make sure to check out websites like Lifehacker who usually post sales for the day posts which usually have a pair of headphones or two on sale in various places on the internet, not necessarily always the best headphones, but headphones nevertheless.  If you really need to get a new pair of headphones and are on a constrained budget, ask yourself, what is the greatest price I could spend on a pair of headphones?  When you establish this number, your options lessen.  However, it is important to note that price does not equate to performance.  There are plenty of great options in the lower end of the price spectrum as much as there are plenty of not so great options in the higher end of the price spectrum.  Case in point, the Noontec Zoro HD headphones rate as some of the nicest sub $100 headphones with a similar aesthetic to Beats iconic Solo HD headphones yet are half as expensive.  There is no need to sacrifice sound quality and performance for aesthetics.

Service Announcement - Music Done Right by Darren Korb

I'd like to direct your attention to the works of Darren Korb.  Previously I put up a Top Tracks post on his song Setting Sail, Coming Home, the ending track to the Bastion soundtrack.  A little over a week ago, on May 20th the game Transistor by Supergiant Games was released which features a brand new soundtrack by Darren Korb.

I implore you to take a listen to the soundtrack even if you don't have the time or want to play the game it belongs to.  Of particular note are the vocal tracks, "The Spine", "In Circles", "We All Become", "Signals", and "Paper Boats".  If the rest of the soundtrack is too esoteric or out of your taste please at least listen to those five tracks.  The vocals by Ashley Barrett are phenomenal and the instrumentation by Darren Korb is flawless.  All five tracks are perfect specimens for how long a track should be, lasting just long enough to make you want more without devolving into repetition.  The entire soundtrack is up on Youtube here.  So what're you waiting for, get listening!  Special shout out, I especially love "In Circles", the complex beat is just so interesting and fun to listen to.

--CsMiREK

Musical Discovery - E.S. Posthumus

So it's been a few months since I last did a Musical Discovery post, largely because it's been a few months since I've really posted at all.  But anyways, this time I want to cover E.S. Posthumus.

E.S. Posthumus was a group formed of two brothers, Helmut and Franz Vonlichten.  Stylistically, the music they produced could be best described as modern or 21st century classical music.  As a genre, that may seem odd as classical music generally pertains to a particular time in music history.  However, the music of E.S. Posthumus combined many of the mannerisms and stylistic elements of classical music with drum beats and electronic elements that could never have been used in the classical music of old.

Before Franz' untimely death in what I'm gonna call May of 2010, the announcement was in July and said about 2 months prior, E.S. Posthumus released 3 albums, Unearthed, Cartographer, and Makara all three of which sit currently on my shelf.

I'm not sure exactly when I first heard of E.S. Posthumus but I remember immediately falling in love with their first album Unearthed.  I remember hearing chant being used outside of its traditional context and drums that although forceful and strong, blended seamlessly with the rest of the orchestra.  Deep cello lines and soaring violins, chant that resonated deeply and strongly with me.  Even though they released two other albums I still feel the greatest connection to Unearthed and especially the fifth track 'Ebla'.  While others may not enjoy it the same way I do, I find myself always going back to it and listening to it carefully.

While I know I'm 4 years late to send my condolences to Helmut and their family, I still find myself compelled to listen to E.S. Posthumus and their music has a profound effect on my views of music both classical and not.  Helmut has moved on to another band Les Friction but I could never really move on to give them an objective listening.  In any case, RIP Franz Vonlichten even if I'm 4 years late, I didn't have this blog 4 years ago.  To Helmut, I hope you continue to write music and I hope the world never forgets E.S. Posthumus.  Until next time.

* No audio for this post *

--CsMiREK

Headphones Jargon

Short post this time.  I just put up a new page on headphones jargon/lingo/whatever you want to call it.  If you wanted to know what I mean by the different kinds of headphones and what various metrics I look for, hopefully it'll be helpful.  I'll have more term to definition type explanations than I gave in these posts.  The idea is that if you don't want to spend the effort to look stuff up, it'll be a place where you can quickly pick up what the terms mean individually.  You can find it on the side below the link to the headphones spreadsheet.  The posts I mentioned here will also be linked to on the page.  Until next time.

* No Audio for this post *

--CsMiREK

Musical Taste

It's been a year and a half since I started this blog and I just realized that I haven't really mentioned anything about my personal musical tastes.  Through my Musical Discovery and Top Tracks posts I hope that it strikes you that I have at least somewhat eclectic tastes when it comes to music.  From electronic like Alstroemeria Records to rock like 9mm Parabellum Bullet to pop like Sara Bareilles and St. Vincent I end up listening to almost everything.

Since my first post of Musical Discovery when I had around 17000 tracks I've added another 5000 taking the total to over 22000 tracks.  So I think that it's good to know what I look for in music and what I enjoy.  In doing so I hope that you take some time to look at what determines the music that you enjoy.  For me, I look for two things and two things only.  The first is whether I find the music interesting and the second is whether the music fits my aesthetic for music.

So what defines interesting to me?  As a kid growing up with classical music along with regular pop music, defining interesting is a somewhat odd thing for me.  I heavily favor music that is complex in structure.  However, I also realize that there is a cutoff where complexity does not equate to better and simplicity wins out.  What that means in more digestible terms is that I tend to enjoy music that keeps me thinking.  A lot of pop music I find to be repetitive in a bland way.  The general texture of most pop music is consists purely of a vocal (singular) track, some sort of 4 beat percussion track, and a nondescript instrumental track.  By nondescript I mean that there is no memorable part to almost any instrumental track I hear on the radio.  This doesn't mean that I don't like repetitive music.  I can very much enjoy music like Robot Rock by Daft Punk which is a pretty repetitive track.  I can also admire the works of Steven Reich, in particular Piano Phase and Come Out.  While not super impressive nowadays, the ideas are really interesting and the use of panning in Come Out is just plain awesome to listen to.  I guess what really defines interesting to me is how much I can pick apart and understand a piece which is perhaps a bit outside of what others might think about music.

The other half of my musical taste is my aesthetic for music.  This is more in line with what most people would say musical taste is.  My aesthetic brings me closer to electronic music at the moment while still enjoying rock and pop.  I love the sound of string instruments and orchestral works in general.  Brass in particular is so fun for me to listen to, I'm a huge fan of the big band sound even though I don't have much in my library.  While ambient and rap or hip hop generally don't veer into my aesthetic, I can appreciate them if they provide a substantively interesting musical part.  As an example, Nujabes was a hip hop artist first and foremost even with the jazzy elements.  The jazzy elements helped a lot for me to embrace his music.  Alternatively, Eminem is just straight up rap music.  However, he or whoever produces his music has a very clear and good sense for how to treat his lyrical rhythm in a musical setting even if that setting isn't the most complex.  I find myself impressed with Eminem more than most other rappers or hip hop artists.  The other thing to realize is that musical aesthetic changes as you get older.  I implore you to listen to things that you don't like initially as your aesthetic changes.  Just 4 or 5 years ago, there is no way I would have seen myself liking Eminem or Daft Punk or Alstroemeria Records but in time I've gotten to the point of embracing good music regardless of genre.  Sometimes interesting music overrides what your usual aesthetic is.  After all the two are wholly separate things while simultaneously being heavily interrelated.  I hope you enjoyed this post and I hope it makes you think about what your musical tastes are, what you find interesting and what you're currently drawn towards.  With that, until next time.

*Audio will be up later*

--CsMiREK

Gear Days: Headphone Spreadsheet

Recently I've been going back through all of my headphones and re rating them.  The results of which I'm glad to share with you here on this link.  When I obtained a pair of Beyerdynamic DT880 headphones all of my rankings needed to change.  Simply put, at the current moment they are the best headphones I own and everything needed to get re rated in order to compensate.  In the sub tabs of the spreadsheet I'll be breaking down the sub sections of headphones I currently own with the best in each category taking the 10/10 slot and everything else adjusted to the headphones that hold the 10/10 slot for the category.  The last sub tab is a list of songs I like to listen to for various reasons that I try to elucidate.  If you are ever in the position of looking for headphones I hope you can refer to that spreadsheet for some advice at any time.  I'll also be leaving the link on the side for reference at all time.  And with that, until next time.

*Note: No audio for this post*

--CsMiREK

Gear Days: Brainwavz B2 Brazen Brightness

And...we're back.  Well at least I am.  For my return to posting we have another issue of Gear Days.  For this post, I'll be talking about the Brainwavz B2s.

The Brainwavz B2 headphones, henceforth referred to as the B2s are in ear headphones that you can get for around $125-$140.  At this point you might be asking yourself, 'Why would I ever spend over $100 for a pair of earbuds?'  Well firstly, if you've read any of my other posts on headphones you'd notice that I make a distinction between in ear headphones and earbuds so get your shit straight.  Second, honestly if you like in ear headphones and want a good step up, the B2s are some really nice headphones for the price so now let's get down to the specifics.

Musical Discovery - 9mm Parabellum Bullet

As harsh as I am about pop music, there are glimmers of hope in the muddled trash.  While not perfectly analogous, the Japanese pop scene also has its own particular tropes and crap that is followed which I find marginally more enjoyable.  But this isn't really about pop music.  It's about rock.  More importantly, this is about the band 9mm Parabellum Bullet.

As a band, 9mm Parabellum Bullet was formed in 2004 and so have been around a decent amount of time now.  However, throughout what's amazed me about them is not their sound, but their ability to experiment and improve.  In the past 10 years they've released 5 albums which is not too bad.  Not nearly as prolific as Alstroemeria Records who I posted about last month, but 5 albums in 10 years isn't too shabby at all.  More importantly, like Alstroemeria Records, each album is different from the last whether that's good or bad.  Since there are only 5, I'll talk about each of them just because.

Rant Corner: Pop music

New month, new rant corner.  Gotta vent my anger some way right?  This time around, it's pop music.  You might like pop music, you might hate it.  Personally, I find it bland, boring, and quite frankly kinda sad.  For as much money and effort is put into pop music, it's so...generic and so...homogeneous.  What I find even worse or perhaps disturbing is that artists that create really unique and textural complete songs seem to lose that edge when they become famous in the US.  It's like the status of being a pop music star makes artists completely pedestrian and unable to experiment musically.  Although unable to experiment might not be completely accurate.  More accurately I would say that being in the pop music limelight makes people so reticent to experimentation and failure that they churn out shitty music that all sounds the same.

But let's not just take my word for it.  Let's dive into some examples.  At the point of this post, Katy Perry is a famous singer who sings pretty shitty formulaic party pop music.  From "Hot n Cold" to "California Gurls", you get overly simple and repetitive messes of music.  While it's true they're dance worthy, so's this song by UK band Belleruche.  Almost annoyingly so though, her first few songs, namely "I Kissed a Girl" and "Ur so Gay", look them up if you don't know them, which made her famous are full of little tidbits of interesting things.  There's textural contrast and an almost out of place electronic sound in the latter.

But let's even get away from simply shitty overly simple pop music.  I think the real root to my anger towards pop music is the idolatry surrounding vocalists.  For whatever reason, no matter how famous of a guitarist or cellist or drummer you are, you are never going to be more famous than an arguably shitty singer.  However, this didn't used to be the case.  In days past we had the Jimi Hendrixes, the Pablo Casals and Jacqueline Du Pres, the Louis Armstrongs, and Scott Joplins of the world.  Nowadays, ask anyone for a famous musician that's active.  I can almost guarantee you that they'll pick a singer or a group focused on a singer like the way Maroon 5 is focused around Adam Levine.  Yea, sure you might get the odd answer from an electronic music buff who'll say Deadmau5 or Avicii or Pretty Lights, but for the greater populace, the only musicians are singers.  Where and when did we stop caring for the instrumentals that truly make music special?

I understand that the human voice is special to us.  After all, with a little practice anyone and everyone can sing.  The barrier to entry is so very low in comparison to playing an instrument.  What is it though that makes us revere and look up to singers the way we do?  I find myself enthralled in music more often when the background to a song is more engaging.  Pop music just sounds so stale and almost robotic in its cleanliness and distinction between vocals and background.  In the end, a human voice is just another vessel, another canvas with which we can paint music with.  This ridiculous fixation and obsession with individual singers needs to end.  When it does I think that pop music can make a step forward and stop being the shallow mess of overly used tropes where it currently festers like a pus filled boil popping disgusting slop over our ears.  Sorry if you like pop music, there are hidden gems but honestly they're almost not worth it.

--CsMiREK

Musical Discovery - Alstroemeria Records

So the new year has begun.  For my first non-update post of the year, we're going back to Music Discovery.  The topic of this post is the group Alstroemeria Records.  With this post, I will retroactively also be adding genre tags to all my previous Musical Discovery and Top Tracks posts.

Alstroemeria Records is a Japanese group headed by Masayoshi Minoshima.  Genre wise, it falls into the trance category with more recent tracks starting to feel more on the dubstep side of the electronica spectrum.  Historically, Alstroemeria Records has only released during Comiket which occurs twice a year, once in August and once in December, and Reiteisai (博麗神社例大祭) which occurs in October.  The reason for this is because as a group Alstroemeria Records does covers of tracks from a game called The Touhou Project.  These are largely unimportant things, besides the fact that a lot of the music I listen to is related to these events.

Back to Alstroemeria Records though.  The sound of Alstroemeria Records has changed from when they started releasing back in 2003.  At the beginning the sound was more instrumental and less electronic.  Throughout the years, more vocal tracks have been added and the sound has become decidedly more electronic mainly in the veins of trance and dubstep.

In the category of Japanese Touhou cover groups, Alstroemeria Records is likely the most famous due to a viral video released in 2009 that has since seen many copies in various form like this.  I'm personally a fan of the video I linked because it uses carved apples instead of just shadow art.  They're known because they're responsible for the song that goes with the accompanying video.

While far from mainstream, I do think that Alstroemeria Records has a sound that is appealing to many different kinds of people.  While some of the newer material can be jarring for those not into dubstep or harder hitting electronic music, compositionally the material is still very good.  In my opinion, I feel that by expanding and experimenting in different genres, Masayoshi Minoshima has gotten better at composing and arranging and allowing new material into what began as rather general covers.

At this point, I'm just going to end with a mix of some of the tracks Alstroemeria Records has released in the past.  I hope you enjoy and until next time.

**Sorry for all the pops on the p's and b's I really need to get a pop screen.  If/when I do, I'll redo all the recordings.

**Also, if I ever get any notices saying I should take down any cross fades or mixes, I will.



--CsMiREK

Moving forward

Regardless if you're new here or have read a thing or two here before, welcome.  I hope everyone had a great new years and because it is a new year I would like to review my year here.  I started this blog a little over a year ago on January 1st of last year.  Honestly I find this blog to be an extension of myself.  My interests, my flaws, my regrets, my triumphs.  During the course of writing this blog, I have become more aware of myself and what I really enjoy.

Besides starting this blog, this past year I graduated from college.  I moved halfway across the country for work.  I started to work.  I spent WAY too much money on audio gear for the amount I make.  I hung out with friends.  Most importantly though, I spent this last year reflecting on who I am as a person.  While I'm still unsure where I will go in future years, I know this for sure, I am very lucky and thankful for my past.  Sure I have many regrets, but honestly life has been good to me so far.  And while I am still young, I know to appreciate what I've been given.

A few days ago I was thinking about disabilities.  Most notably I was thinking about being blind or deaf and how being either would affect my life.  Given a choice between the two I think I might rather be dead.  I know this sounds disrespectful to those who are either blind or deaf but given how I've lived and my interests, I don't think I could survive being either.  With how much I listen and enjoy music, I could not survive being deaf.  To be so for me, would be equivalent to cutting out one of the most important facets of my life.  To be blind would be equally devastating.  I'm not sure if I could survive as a programmer without my eyes.  I spend almost my entire day looking at a computer screen, and while my eyes aren't great, to the point where I might as well be blind without my glasses, I spend my entire day looking at things.  I'm sure that there are ways to do my job without being able to see, but I can't imagine that they'd be efficient in any manner.

In thinking about all this I came to a realization that the internet is not for the blind.  A system of pages interlinked largely visually is just inherently unusable to those unable to see.  I'm aware that it is possible to enjoy the web as a blind person using screen readers that verbalize the words on a screen.  There are entire sites however devoted to the visual arts, which is fine just completely inaccessible.  For more on this you can read this article written by Gizmodo a couple years ago.

While W3C standards include things about accessibility like use <strong> instead of <b> if you want to have strong emphasis on something semantically.  Eg you want something bold to actually "sound" bold or have a strong emphasis.  To blind people, it can be hard to tell that you mean something to be strongly accented unless you mean to have <strong> tags around things.  More importantly, this isn't even standard.  For example, I tried to set something bold in the blogspot editor and they use <b> tags.  Assuming I meant whatever I had bolded to be strongly emphasized, anyone using a screen reader wouldn't hear it.  Knowing that, I can tell that the web isn't quite there yet for those with really bad vision impairment.

I would love to make changes to the entire internet to make the internet more accessible.  However, I know that that isn't possible by myself.  Instead, I would like to make this blog at the least more accessible.  For those who can't see or those who would rather listen, I am going to start recording myself speaking my blog posts.  Kind of like a podcast but more of a vocal transcription of each post.  This makes this more of an audioblog now, and I'm completely ok with that.  That said, each post will likely take longer as I'll have to both write and record myself for each post.  This will all begin with the next post.  I hope you enjoy it and I hope you keep reading/listening.

--CsMiREK