Memo to the editors at Dusted (and Pitchfork and all the rest of you): for those of us not "in the know," i.e. those that actually might be looking to the record review for information or analysis rather than with a pre-existing opinion, the following sentence might be better positioned at the beginning of the review, rather than in the last paragraph:
"Only a couple of the record’s 10 tracks are actual songs."
Read this story at Slate and/or listen to the story at NPR. No exaggeration here: the kicker premise of Orson Scott Card's classic science fiction novel Ender's Game is now completely possible.
In a nutshell, Raytheon hired video game developers to redesign the command and control systems for military drone aircraft. The result is a video game-like system that on the one hand, further isolates the operator from the very real death and destruction on the other side of the world, and on the other hand, makes the system intuitively easy to use, particularly for a generation of young people raised on incredibly realistic video games. It's impressive, and terrifying. The reporter's 7-year-old son watched the demo with him, and said, "It was really cool."
According to the oracle1, "math rock" is a style of rock music characterized by "complex, atypical rhythmic structures" and "asymmetrical time signatures." I don't love the term, but it's there, and it actually does fit. But I've been noticing it getting a lot of use lately, and none of the bands it's being applied to these days, as far as I can tell, ever stray from 4/4 time. It seems some of the other qualities that commonly went along with the weird time signatures, such as "angular" melodies (whatthefuckever that means), or "strident" vocals, or simply a lack of vocals at all, are enough these days to qualify for the genre. Battles, Les Savy Fav, and Foals are examples that come to mind, along with what I think of as "new prog" bands like Explosions in the Sky. (How much better Mogwai were than Explosions will ever be is another post.) These bands get labeled math rock because they sound a little weird, I guess.
I guess that's my only point. I'm just getting a little Andy Rooney on the indie rock scene. Heh.
Real, good math rock: Jetpack, Don Caballero, June of 44, Rodan...
1On a side note, a Yale undergraduate I mentored this year, who is now going on to one of the top medical schools in the country, cited Wikipedia more than all other sources combined in her final term paper, and then complained about getting a B+ in the course. Yeah.
The Economist really is an excellent publication.
In regards to their unbiased news coverage, might I propose that non-party people put your hands in the air and wave them just like you do not care? Or like you care but don't let it influence your news coverage?
Via the FP blog.
...the military-industrial complex is alive and well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/washington/20generals.html
please save us from the indie pop folk core weenie music!
