Tag Archive: IPad


THE WIRE’S DIGITAL ARCHIVE

Filed under: Music — Leave a comment
June 10, 2013

Steve Lacey on the front cover of the first issue of The Wire from Summer, 1982

Today, The Wire  announced that every back issue of the UK-based magazine is now available to  subscribers online and via the iPad, iPhone and Android apps.

You can peruse more than 350 issues which includes some issues that have been unavailable for up to three decades.

It’s hard to know where to start and I imagine that ,initially, I’ll be dipping into the archive on a fairly random basis.

I was interested to read the editorial in the first  issue  from Summer 1982, which gives an insight into how the remit of the mag has broadened; this states:  “The Wire’s brief will be to cover the field of contemporary jazz and improvised music – the happenings of now with a clear nod to its past greatness and wink at its possible future”.

The digital world that makes it possible to scan these back issues has also had a huge impact on the world of experimental music. Jazz still has a place in the current magazine but this has to compete with genres that include electronica, ambient, noise, weird folk and avant rock.

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SCALING THE HEIGHTS OF AGO DEL TORRONE

Filed under: Italy, Photography — Leave a comment
November 17, 2012

The Guardian Eyewitness is one of my favourite I-Pad Apps – a spectacular  image delivered daily taking you to the heart of world events or simply displaying a virtuoso piece of photography.

A good example from a couple of days ago is this shot by Robert Boesch which, at first glance, looks like  a giant cactus but actually shows twenty-eight climbers simultaneously scaling the 1,000 metre high Ago Del Torrone in Northern Italy. Rather them than me!

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TESTING BOOKTRACK

Filed under: Books, Fiction, Italy, Music — Leave a comment
April 27, 2012

I’ve been test driving Booktrack on my ipad – a free app marketed as a revolutionary new reading / listening experience.

How it works is that selected titles are downloaded to your chosen device complete with a built in synchronized soundtrack. You can set specially composed music to play at the same pace as your reading speed.

The website assures us that “Unlike listening to random music, this music is scored to accompany the text and make sense to the story, helping to further the imagination and the story telling. The sound does not take away from the reading experience; it enhances it”.

I sampled the whole of The Ugly Duckling and the preview copies of stories by Salman Rushdie and Edgar Allan Poe.

The ‘sound designers’ combine ambient effects and field recordings like quacks and gunfire for Hans Christian Anderson’s tale.  Initially it felt quite distracting but it is quite cleverly done and by no means as kitschy as it sounds.  The site is clean, well designed and easy to navigate. Continue reading →

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TEN REASONS TO (STILL) BE CHEERFUL

Filed under: Atheism, Blogging, Health and fitness, Italy, Music, Politics — Leave a comment
April 4, 2012

Today I am 54. Instead of allowing myself to be burdened by birthday blues, I decided to make a list of ten things that give me reason to smile today.

My own glass is half full because :

TOUCH WOOD, MY HEALTH IS GOOD
This is something I never take for granted. Having passed the half century mark four years back I am all too aware of the ageing process and, being fearful of middle age spread , I exercise regularly, eat sensibly and drink moderately. In consequence I feel in better shape than I did 20 years ago.

I’M STILL A MUSIC JUNKIE 
Up until his untimely death at the age of 60, John Peel always said that he remained as massive a fan of new music as when he was in his teens. I feel the same way. The limitless availability on the net and the CDs I get to review help fuel an insatiable passion that I’m sure will never wane. Continue reading →

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THE WIRE BIGS UP JAMES FERRARO

Filed under: Music — Leave a comment
December 20, 2011
ferraro

The Wire magazine’s album of the year is a typically perverse choice. I doubt whether James Ferraro’s Far Side Virtual on Hippos In Tanks records will top any other ‘best of 2011’ list and probably won’t even figure in most.

This will probably please the Wire team as they want to demonstrate the sharpness and originality of their ‘cutting edge’ selections.

The album is certainly topical as it taps into the year’s obsession with tablets, pads and androids.An I-Pad features prominently on the album cover and many of the samples are the sounds any internet user will recognise.

It’s a playful collection of tunes and has a certain novelty value but I suspect it will date very quickly. Ferraro describes it as an “opera for consumption civilisation” and he is, I’m sure, aware that it is a product that is as transient as computerised jingles that inspired it.

Ferraro is highly prolific, both as a solo artist and with Spencer Clark in The Skaters. As if to emphasise the trashy, disposability of his output, a a lot of his music has been released on limited edition cassettes or Cdrs. It would be ironic if The Wire’s elevation of Far Side Virtual to the number one slot means that it is viewed as a classic but frankly I don’t think there’s much danger of this happening.

A fun and clever record but ‘best of the year’?  No way.

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