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Watch the video for a quick look at CNET's show 'Loaded'.
The Softlightes: "Heart Made of Sound"
?Musically, we don't know what the end destination is, and I like it that way. Whatever we've created, it wasn't by accident, but it certainly wasn't on purpose. For me that makes music honest,? says Ron Fountenberry, the principle songwriter and unofficial captain of the good ship that is the Softlightes. It?s fitting that Fountenberry references bedrooms when he speaks of the Softlightes? incandescent and joyfully experimental music?it?s there that he tinkers endlessly with a dizzying array of instruments in search of the perfect melody; a way to channel an equal appreciation for Alvie Singer, Ready Made Magazine, Ali G, Boba Fett, Playstation and Larry David? a way to be real and make someone happy through song. But what?s more important to our chat right now are the products of the Softlightes? collective imagination and recording sessions: the dazzling pop songs that are collected on their shimmering debut album for Modular Recordings, Say No To Being Cool - Say Yes To Being Happy. Without digging too far back, the Softlightes story begins (roughly) in 2003, when Fountenberry and bassist Kristian Dunn?s previous project, the electro pop group The Incredible Moses Leroy, had caught the ear of one Mr. Cody Chesnutt. Or was it the other way around? ?I remember seeing a four star review of Cody?s album in Rolling Stone and thinking to myself ?It?s not that often that a black artist who isn?t doing a straight r&b thing gets that kind of attention,?? remembers Fountenberry. Meanwhile, up the California coast in Los Angeles, Moses? first album Electric Pocket Radio (E.P.R.) was becoming very popular at the rising star?s house. From there came a string of connections between Moses? and Cody?s management. Before long, Cody took the band on tour with him for a string of sold-out club shows. ?He and his management were always promoting us to other musicians and people in the industry,? says Dunn appreciatively. One of those people happened to be Modular Recordings impresario Steve Pavlovic. He immediately took a shining to the radiant pop that Moses were creating after hearing a copy of E.P.R. passed to him by Cody?s Australian tour manager. After releasing two buzz-garnering albums and working with acclaimed producers and musicians such as Joey Waronker (Beck) and Keith Cleverlsly (the Flaming Lips, Spiritualized), Moses disbanded and Fountenberry and Dunn and started up the ?idea of the Softlightes? in the fall of 2004. ?Professionally it felt as though it was time to move on, or maybe throw in the towel completely. We really didn?t have a lot of options. I just figured if we were going to try, I wanted to be happy and make music that was close to my heart, even if that meant sounding silly to some people,? says Fountenberry. ?Since it felt as though it might be our last chance, we decided to go for broke... something like that Eminem song or Rocky! We just tried to create a lush and beautifully balanced pop record, like the old days, even if we didn?t? have a record deal or access to a studio.? Over the late summer and fall of 2005, drummer Tim Fogarty (?besides being great drummer, he had a cool electronic drumset, so we knew we had to have him in our band ?) and pianist Andrew Van Baal entered the fray and the four embarked on endless sessions at Dunn?s Los Angeles home studio?better known to most as his garage. As the songs with the full band took shape, Dunn would send CDs to Fountenberry in San Diego, where the singer would tinker endlessly with melodies, harmonies and arrangements before calling Dunn to request changes (and more changes and more changes.) What resulted was a new home grown masterpiece. From the breezy sun-soaked opener ?The Ballad Of Theodore and June? to the glitchy electronica of ?Girl Kills Bear,? the thundering ?The Robots In My Room Were Playing Arena Rock,? to the utterly infectious ?The Microwave Song,? Say No To Being Cool Say Yes To Being Happy is a celebration of the sounds that would be blasting on your radio in a more perfect time. ?The thing I kept asking was ?what would happen if?,?? says Fountenberry of the experimental climate that recording at home allowed for. ?What if I used a vocoder here or replaced synths into this guitar part? What if I sampled the sound of my neighbor upstairs walking really hard and made a beat out of it? You just can?t work like that when you are on the clock.? Dunn adds, ?We?d all try to think about what a regular rock musician would do and then do the opposite.? Now that all the what ifs have been answered, the noise is about to begin. Please bask in the warm glow of the Softlightes with us.
ENIAC: The public's first glimpse of a computer
On Valentine's Day sixty years ago, the world read the first newspaper accounts of a mysterious, new computing machine in Philadelphia. It wasn't the first computer ever made, but on that day, public awareness of modern technology took its first great post-war jump forward.
ENIAC: The public's first glimpse of a computer
On Valentine's Day sixty years ago, the world read the first newspaper accounts of a mysterious, new computing machine in Philadelphia. It wasn't the first computer ever made, but on that day, public awareness of modern technology took its first great post-war jump forward.
Alienware is trying to have it both ways with the new M17, combining a relatively low starting price with some very pricey upgrades, including quad-core CPUs and ATI CrossFireX video cards. Our configuration wasn't very exciting, but turned in capable gaming scores.
Yes, Nokia launched a new Netbook, and yes, Twitter fought the law and won. But it wasn't until the end of today's show that we finally get to the bottom of a long-running controversy. MP3s don't do what they promise. Jason and Brian explain why.
Before you buy: Car tech and GPS
If a new car isn't in your budget right now, maybe some new accessories would do the trick. CNET's Brian Cooley has some suggestions you should consider before heading to the store.
Funki Porcini: "What Are You Looking At?"
Funki Porcini produced and directed the video for this spacey tune, which takes a close look at natural symmetries. This video is from "Zen TV," a collection of videos from Ninja Tune that includes some of the biggest figures in electronic
music, paired with some of the most creative directors in the world.
Since the mid-nineties and the groundbreaking Stealth parties at the Blue Note in Hoxton Square, Ninja has been almost as well
respected for its engagement with visuals as it has for its audio. Now at last, the two come together on this massive
retrospective of almost a decade of experiment, innovation, humour and weirdness.
Let's get the spec out of the way first.
The ZenTV DVD has twice the capacity of a normal DVD, containing as it does 35 promo videos from the label, a fifteen minute
audiovisual mix and a 30 minutes audio mix from Hexstatic. And as if that wasn't enough, the DVD has a state-of-the-art menu
system which means you can watch the videos either in the order we intended, randomly, or chronologically from the oldest to the
newest or the newest to the oldest. You can also look up any specific act and check out their videos and album art. Or just leave
a gallery of some of Ninja's finest covers running in the corner of the room as a kind of ambient art installation dahlink? Mwah.
But that just scratches the surface, really, cos after all, in the kingdom of the blind content is king. Or something like that.
You know the music is going to be good (we hope you know the music is going to be good), but what about the visuals?
Well, one advantage with not having hit records (Coldcut's "Beats & Pieces" remains our one top forty for 12 years work) is that
you don't have to worry about getting your promos shown on daytime MTV or TOTP or any of those hellholes of visual mediocrity
where all the bands have to look fabulous and if they don't, well you better make sure you put some models in there who do? So
instead, you can be (whisper it) creative.
Which is why some of the top up-and-coming names in video direction and animation have worked for Ninja in the last few years.
Because they know that if they pitch an interesting, visually striking, innovative idea, they will be left to get on with it
without interference. Established directors like Alexander Rutterford (Amon Tobin, now working for Radiohead) Sam Arthur (DJ
Vadim) as well as young turks like Conkerko (Bonobo). Fizzy Eye made their first music video for Wagon Christ (the truly
excellent "Receiver") and have since gone on to do commercials for Honda, proving that a track record with Ninja doesn't ruin
your business prospects.
Beyond this, artists like Kid Koala and Jaga Jazzist often even commission their own videos, working with close associates to
find the perfect match between their sound and the director's vision. As if that wasn't enough, there are artists on the label
who are intimately involved in the creation of their own videos, whether it's the Scruff cartoons that make up the basis of his
Cosgrove Hall-animated "Sweet Smoke," the pioneering audiovisual cut-ups of Hexstatic and Coldcut, Funki Porcini's satires of
adverts or his weird, otherworldly concrete moving abstracts.
Overall, since those early audiovisual mash-ups, the driving force behind all of Ninja's visual work has been that the video is
not merely an unrelated promo item to sell a single but should be intimately related to the sounds it represents. The budgets may
be small, some results may be more effective than others, but there's no denying that the attempts to realise this ideal are
never less than interesting.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Click here for the rest of the exciting videos from this collection.
The 404 363: Where we autotune Brian Tong to death
Brian Tong, host of CNET TV's The Apple Byte, finally makes the trip out to New York for the sole purpose of helping us host the show. Alright, we wish--in reality Brian is out here for a much nobler cause. Today's show is filled with everything you'd expect from Apple fanboys and video game nerds!
This heart racing tune from Jaga Jazzist is a gem of rough animation. Plus, there are lots of zebras. This video is from "Zen TV," a collection of videos from Ninja Tune that includes some of the biggest figures in electronic
music, paired with some of the most creative directors in the world.
Since the mid-nineties and the groundbreaking Stealth parties at the Blue Note in Hoxton Square, Ninja has been almost as well
respected for its engagement with visuals as it has for its audio. Now at last, the two come together on this massive
retrospective of almost a decade of experiment, innovation, humour and weirdness.
Let's get the spec out of the way first.
The ZenTV DVD has twice the capacity of a normal DVD, containing as it does 35 promo videos from the label, a fifteen minute
audiovisual mix and a 30 minutes audio mix from Hexstatic. And as if that wasn't enough, the DVD has a state-of-the-art menu
system which means you can watch the videos either in the order we intended, randomly, or chronologically from the oldest to the
newest or the newest to the oldest. You can also look up any specific act and check out their videos and album art. Or just leave
a gallery of some of Ninja's finest covers running in the corner of the room as a kind of ambient art installation dahlink? Mwah.
But that just scratches the surface, really, cos after all, in the kingdom of the blind content is king. Or something like that.
You know the music is going to be good (we hope you know the music is going to be good), but what about the visuals?
Well, one advantage with not having hit records (Coldcut's "Beats & Pieces" remains our one top forty for 12 years work) is that
you don't have to worry about getting your promos shown on daytime MTV or TOTP or any of those hellholes of visual mediocrity
where all the bands have to look fabulous and if they don't, well you better make sure you put some models in there who do? So
instead, you can be (whisper it) creative.
Which is why some of the top up-and-coming names in video direction and animation have worked for Ninja in the last few years.
Because they know that if they pitch an interesting, visually striking, innovative idea, they will be left to get on with it
without interference. Established directors like Alexander Rutterford (Amon Tobin, now working for Radiohead) Sam Arthur (DJ
Vadim) as well as young turks like Conkerko (Bonobo). Fizzy Eye made their first music video for Wagon Christ (the truly
excellent "Receiver") and have since gone on to do commercials for Honda, proving that a track record with Ninja doesn't ruin
your business prospects.
Beyond this, artists like Kid Koala and Jaga Jazzist often even commission their own videos, working with close associates to
find the perfect match between their sound and the director's vision. As if that wasn't enough, there are artists on the label
who are intimately involved in the creation of their own videos, whether it's the Scruff cartoons that make up the basis of his
Cosgrove Hall-animated "Sweet Smoke," the pioneering audiovisual cut-ups of Hexstatic and Coldcut, Funki Porcini's satires of
adverts or his weird, otherworldly concrete moving abstracts.
Overall, since those early audiovisual mash-ups, the driving force behind all of Ninja's visual work has been that the video is
not merely an unrelated promo item to sell a single but should be intimately related to the sounds it represents. The budgets may
be small, some results may be more effective than others, but there's no denying that the attempts to realise this ideal are
never less than interesting.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Click here for the rest of the exciting videos from this collection.
