The problem of listening to music while working or studying
What is really the best music to listen to when working or studying? I know a lot of people who can sit with their headphones on listening to heavy pumping trance music or hard core rock music. For me this is impossible, I get totally un-concentrated and un-focused. First of all music at work has to be played in speakers (if OK by your fellow employees) so that the music will not be to intense right into your brain.
But the real problem is two folded; first the music you listen to has to be good enough to put you in a pleasant mode and hopefully excited about doing what you’re supposed to be doing (studying / working); secondly the music has to be bad enough not to have you listen more to the music than what you’re supposed to be doing – again work or study.
Lo-fi experimental electronic music is perfect for this and there are a couple of records that keep coming back to when studying AND the best thing is that they are both Japanese albums – having that great advantage that you do not understand all what they are singing about, and thus, you cannot sing along.
So please enjoy these two musician’s albums while working or studying, but make sure to listen to them in your speakers on a fairly low level and not in your headphones. Enjoy!
Yukihiro Takahashi (高橋幸宏 Takahashi Yukihiro, born June 6, 1952) is a Japanese musician, who is best known as the drummer and lead vocalist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra.Yukihiro Takahashi first came to prominence as the drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band, and became known to western audiences after this band (led by Kazuhiko Katoh, formerly of The Folk Crusaders) toured and recorded in the United Kingdom. After the Sadistic Mika Band disbanded, some of the members (including Takahashi) formed another band called The Sadistics, who released several albums. Finally Takahashi recorded his first solo album Saravah in 1977. In 1978, Takahashi joined Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono to form the Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Takako Minekawa; as an accomplished all-around musician, Minekawa’s musical skills set her firmly outside of the J-Pop “idol” tradition: she writes and composes most of her material, singing quirky lyrics about subjects such as clouds, cats, and the color white (her personal favorite), with her love of Kraftwerk and French Pop Music also showing through her unique experimental sound. She often makes use of vintage Casio keyboards and analog Moog synthesizers, as well as vocoders and other electronic instruments.
The Stylophone in action
The Stylophone appears on a few commercial recordings, most notably David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Slip Away” and the commercial rave single “Stylophonia” by Two Little Boys in 1991. Kraftwerk used the Stylophone on the track “Pocket Calculator” from their album Computer World.
[youtube=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR34vQDSoNA]
The Dubreq Stylophone is a miniature stylus operated synthesizer invented in 1967 by Brian Jarvis. It consists of a metal keyboard played by touching it with a stylus – each note being connected to a cheap voltage-controlled oscillator via a different-value resistor – thus closing a circuit. Some three million Stylophones were sold, mostly as children’s toys. Rolf Harris appeared for several years as the Stylophone’s advertising spokesman in the United Kingdom.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZt64_XOflk]
Read more here about the Stylophone >>
Kraftwerk: Interview with Ralf Hutter
Published by:NZHERALD.CO.NZ
Thank you for taking the time because I appreciate you are busy. You are playing in Krakow in a couple of days?
Yes, we are travelling there tomorrow and we are doing three dates and finishing a festival, we are some kind of ‘highlight’. I think it will be a beautiful occasion in an old industrial complex re-functioned for cultural events. So we travel tomorrow to set up.
Does it take Kraftwerk longer to set up than most bands given the amount of technology you have?
No, faster I think. Two or three hours. But it is more like checking cables and connections and having the computers working properly. It’s not so much a physical set-up.
Is it easier now to perform live than it was say 20 years ago because the technology is better?
Definitely, we’ve been very lucky that the technology developed in our direction. (laughs) This is what we envisaged in the late 70s when we worked with mostly analogue [equipment] of course. Then we composed the concept of [the album] Computer World coming out in 81 and we didn’t even have computers at that time. So that was more like a visionary album. We only got that technology, a small PC, around the tour of that album and we used one on stage just writing letters. Just typing them in, not even in synch or anything. Just live, and a guy putting that on screen.
Read the full interview here >>
Analog Drumsynth à la Kraftwerk
For those who want stereo output only, here is a version with individual pan.
Nostalgia – Indochine, the first ever synthpop record I've bought
Started playing some old vinyls of mine and it caught me that this record was the first ever synthpop album I’ve ever bought – the start of an era 
I am not claiming it to be the best ever conceived but clearly something still worth listening to. Of course I had already explored some Depeche and Kraftwerk stuff on the radio, but this record was really something. I remember that you could buy the vinyl in different colors and that this extended single had a couple of nice bonus tracks. I never continued to listen to Indochine after that but I at least wanted to share with you a moment of truth – that kicked off my career in the electro space.
Cheers and have a great weekend
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJK8aVOUm9o]
Denki Groove – Japanese guys back from the caves
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afIZapZNh_Q]
Denki Groove, have resurfaced after a long stop in releasing new songs.
Their first new single in eight years, a catchy crowdpleaser called “Shonen Young”, is accompanied by a fabulous and decidedly 80:s-flavoured video available on You Tube. The album “J-pop” is a feast of classic synthesizer sounds and beats and is already out in Japan.
Denki Groove celebrate their 20th anniversary next year.
About section from Wiki:
Denki Groove (Japanese: 電気グルーヴ, denki gurūvu, lit. “electric groove”) is a Japanese techno–pop group influenced by Kraftwerk and YMO, founded in 1989. It is a part of Sony Music Japan‘s Ki/oon Records sublabel. Current members are Fumitoshi Ishino (Takkyu Ishino) and Masanori Taki (Pierre Taki). Former members are Yoshinori Sunahara and Jun Kitagawa.
Its works are particularly popular in Germany, where a handful of singles as well as solo releases from Ishino have been published, and Denki Groove is regularly booked for live performances and DJ sets for the Mayday festival. The duo performed in front of 15,000 people dancing in the rain on the Green Stage (mainstage) at the 2006 Fuji Rock Festival in Naeba, Niigata.
Early works have a focus more on pop sensibilities. With later releases the style evolved through several types of electronic dance music, though often with many asides in unrelated genres. Recent work has largely been composed of German-style techno. The group’s lyrics are often tongue-in-cheek and sometimes quite bizarre. They did the opening theme, “Mononoke Dance” (モノノケダンス/Mononoke Dansu) for Hakaba Kitaroh, the new version of GeGeGe no Kitaro.
Their popularity and recognition of their work increased significantly after 2006, when one of their songs was selected as the ending song for the award-winning anime, Eureka Seven. The song, “Rainbow”, is one of several reasons why the anime has gained a cult following throughout the world, and is featured on the official soundtrack for the show.
Dyko, Yamo, Model >> Ring a bell?
…well they are all living evidence that Wolfgang Flur has not finished his music career after Kraftwerk. For those of you who still have not come to enjoy Dyko – make sure to check them out
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imHVAlXv2XY]
…and for those of you who always wondered what happended to “Das Model”, well here’s Flur’s take on it, not new but clearly worthwhile watching:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KgTZbJrt5k]
…and Yamo, well go check it out for yourself >>
…and the reason I am posting this — I have started to re-read “I was a robot” and got inspired, hehe
Cheers
Kraftwerk extends its tour dates in USA
Kraftwerk will do three US live dates in connection to their Coachella Festival concert on April 26: in Minneapolis on April 19, Milwaukee on 20 and Denver on 23.
Plus a Bonus Easter treat:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-gUsitz7Y]
Empire State Human ♥ Kraftwerk = True ? read more >>
Dopplereffekt to Kontra musik
For those of you who missed Dopplereffekts appearance on February 2nd or perhaps haven´t had a chance to see them yet, make sure to catch up
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrsgQHes6So]
Dopplereffekt are one of the strangest and most mysterious units of the contemporary electronic music scene. There are no interviews and hardly any live appearances. Nobody really knows who they are, their releases have so far only been available on limited vinyl on Dataphysix/Detroit. The composers hide behind strange German pseudonyms whereas the song titles and lyrics are in English and make up a strange mixture of scientific, sexually explicit and political allusions.
Dopplereffekt’s music is also highly eclectic and unusual. Even if at first sight the forefathers Kraftwerk seem to be more than present Dopplereffekt have developed a very own and highly influential sound aesthetic, without which the current electro-hype seems to be unthinkable.
Dopplereffekt also always went an unusual path with their stylish anti-style in cover artwork, which has always been surprisingly and provocatively plain.
The brain behind this mythical group is scientist Heinrich Mueller (Drexciya, Arpanet, Japanese Telecom, der Zyklus etc). They had a great impact on the electro clash sound around 2000 and tracks like Plastiphilia (listen) and Rocket Scientist (listen) are strong soundtracks to this era. What few people know is that the tracks were produced already 5 years earlier, in Detroit…
Today their music is more experimental but at the same time also more daring, mature and interesting. The experimental album Linear Accelerator, released on International Deejay Gigolo was this year followed by their latest release, Calabi Yau Space. This Rephlex release is a beautiful melodic and rhythmic journey in to the world of theoretical physics and string theory (listen).
Great melody, rhythm and harmony begins with sound itself and it is on this level that Dopplereffekt is concentrating. This is ’Techno’ in the sense that the term was originally intended.
Discography:
“Gesamtkunstwek” – Clone Classic Cuts (2007)
“Calabi Yau Space” – Rephlex (2007)
“Linear Accelerator” – International Deejay Gigolo (2003)
“Myon-Neutrino/Z-Boson EP” – International Deejay Gigolo (2002)
”Scientist Mixes EP” – International Deejay Gigolo (2001)
“Scientist EP” – International Deejay Gigolo (2001)
“Gesamtkunstwek” – International Deejay Gigolo (1999)
“Sterilization EP” – Dataphysix Engineering (1997)
“Infophysix EP” – Dataphysix Engineering (1995)
“Cellular 7-inch” – Dataphysix Engineering (1995)
DATAMASKIN
