A selection of the best articles on music:
1000 Words about Free Music
By Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky
When you face the idea that digital reproduction equals infinite abundance, the result is basically that you have so many options available, that the normal business model of scarcity simply no longer applies: and so music should be free.
More Optimistic Today Than Ever: A Talk with Pete Seeger
By David Kupfer
One of the world's quintessential activists, Pete Seeger has had an epic life, full of amazing contributions to our culture and politics. But he is also a modest soul, dedicated to getting audiences to join in and sing along at his performances. An inspiration to generations of musicians, I visited him just before his 90th birthday at his home overlooking the Hudson River.
I am Rock and Roll
By Steven Taylor
In a culture where participation in American Indian spiritual practices can be arranged for you by a travel agent, it is important to understand the history of the things we choose to practice, particularly with regard to historical conditions of exploitation. So does this mean that my white students shouldn't be rapping?
A Window into the Future of Sound
By Michael Garfield
The way we listen to music today is not going to last. A bevy of new technologies is set to radically change our relationship to auditory media.
Nightingala
By David Rothenberg
[Terra Nova] • All bird species have their own zikr, praising Creation, and the bolbol is the master bird who never repeats himself, always coming up with new names for God. This gives bird song the highest honor in a devotional culture, a loftier purpose than biology has so far allowed.
Is That a Real Reality, or Did You Make It Up Yourself?
By Steven Taylor
Since ancient times, people have believed that music holds the power of transformation, and that new forms of music tell us about changes in society to come.
In Through the Out Door: Sampling and the Creative Act
By Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky
I get asked what I think about sampling a lot. Think of this essay as a soundbite for the sonically perplexed.
Can We Play Live Music with Whales?
By David Rothenberg
[Terra Nova] • Experiments suggested that killer whales will trade riffs with human musicians. But as conservation became the major priority, scientists and activists neglected to pursue wailing with the whales.
Psychoactive Vibes
By Michael Garfield
Explore humanity’s unfolding understanding of the relationship between physical waves and states of consciousness.
Black Mountain's Prog Gnosis
By Andrew William Smith
The visionary Vancouver quintet Black Mountain achieves the transcendent communal bliss that great rock has always aspired to. With their defiantly and ironically titled sophomore release, In the Future, the band reclaims the project pioneered and lost by progressive rock: album as quest.
The Blues, Prayer, and Unrequited Love
By Jay Michaelson
Sometimes, prayer language rings hollow and empty. Sometimes, I prefer dance music to blues. But as Leonard Cohen said, "there is a crack in everything, that's where the light comes in."
Mind Games
By Gary Tillery
John Lennon realized, then propounded, that the only barrier to our living in a better world is agreement that we are committed to it.
Klaxons "Surf the Void"
By Propaganda Anonymous
As the Klaxons touch down in Brooklyn to perform "Surf the Void," lead singer Jaime Reynolds speaks about the influences of Ayahuasca, Alfred Jarry, and Robert Anton Wilson on the making of this record.
Do You Love?: An Interview with Michael Franti
By David Kupfer
In Iraq, I was the first North American they had ever seen who was not carrying around an M16 rifle. They wanted to know about me, they'd ask a lot of questions. They would take me into their homes where they hid during the bombings, to their hospitals, mosques, and to meet musicians, performers, writers.
Killing Joke's 2012 Survival Guide
By E. C. Hansen
Killing Joke's song, "Eighties" was a standard at high-school dances for the latter half of that decade. The band wrote about the end of capitalism and the world as we know it, and the members were magicians who conferred with the spirits. Now they rock harder, heavier, and more beautifully than ever.
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