Books and Music in 2016

A new year starts, and with it my list of music and books for the previous year.

2016 was an interesting year musically. The year started with the release of Kokori's first album, Rootkit. Kokori, an industrial duo from which I am 1/2, had released several EPs and singles in the past, but Rootkit not only is our first album, but our best work so far, IMHO. Later in the year, "The Sky Is Concrete, The Stars Are Bullet Holes", one of the album's tracks, was also present on the "Passo A Passo" compilation, and Enough Records' CC Meeting mixtape. Also from my musical projects, Merankorii - my solo project - released the single "1666", 350 years after the Great Fire of London occurred, with a track that came from the 2014 album "Synthetic Works".

Matt Howden's projects "Sieben" and "7JK" had an excellent new album each. "The Old Magic", under the Sieben moniker, is available with the companion CD "The Other Side Of The River", which manages to be the highlighted disc from the bundle. While 7JK changed its formation slightly, the new album manages to be even more powerful than the first one, and from it I'd like to highlight the opening track "Liftoff For 7JK".

Sol Invictus is back, and will present us with a new album in 2017, one which I plan to get. For a band with such an huge discography and without a big sonority variation along the years, this is the kind of band one can easilly fall into skipping one or another release. However, in 2016 the single "The Last Man" was released, and boy - those are two strong and surprising tracks. I can't vouch for the album yet, but this single is a must-have.

The obscure and mystical project GVAR leaked again, this time the album "Mirroah". More mature than its debut "Vraii", the parallel-universe DVARish concept is kept strong, and GVAR stays as a must-follow project to every DVAR fan.

Luigi Rubino (probably best known as Ashram's pianist) released a new solo album, after its 2009 debut. The new album is not surprising - it packs what one would expect - but it is still a very pleasant album to listen again and again. Also unsurprising but excellent is the latest Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio album, "[Vision:Libertine] Part III - The Hangman's Triad". Conceptually and lyrically, they keep fresh and strong, as they keep being polishedly detailed sonoricly. While it would be hard for an ORE album to be surprising without them re-inventing themselves, this album is more cohese than their last few, almost competing with the genious "Make Love, And War" of 2001.

As far as books go, in 2016 I managed to read a bit more than in 2015, but still not enough. From those, I re-read the whole MegaTokyo series of Manga, and crossed it with the paralel series of books that are now being released as "Megatokyo: Endgames". Endgames is an MMORPG (some) Megatokyo characters play, and the events that happen in that virtual world obviously cross into their players' relationships... While the Endgames books can be read as fantasy novels, they wouldn't excel as such. But the fact that they're descriptions of what happens inside a virtual world - specially one that exists inside a fictional (Megatokyo) world entices me. With four volumes out there of the saga, I read three of them during 2016, and the fourth is alredy on my pile of books to read really soon.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of my list has Sci-Fi books. I've read and enjoyed Ernest Cline's two novels (Ready Player One and Armada), and picked up on a saga I was planning to read for a while now: the Enderverse. I read the Ender's Game a long time ago, but only in 2016 I decided to pick up the rest of the saga, reading the rest of Ender's Saga. It will be no surprise to have The Shadow Saga on my 2017 favorites list. Finally, I read "Altered Carbon", a book that was given to me. While this wouldn't probably be my kind of scifi, this futuristic crime novel was very enticing. You'll probably soon hear about it, despite it being from 2002, since Netflix is working on a TV series based on this saga.

If you want to read more stuff like this, check out my 2015 list. Otherwise... see you next year!

A long needed blog post

I should have written lot's of things on this blog that I've been delaying for a long time... And accumulating issues. Here's a short summary, so I can throw this behind my back:

Activism

ANSOL, the Portuguese FSFE sister association "Associação Nacional para o Software Livre" (National Association for Free Software) is being revitalized, and I am now its direction's Vice-President for the years 2011-2012. If you wondered why I seemed with even less time this last few months, this is probably one of the reasons for it. We've been doing lot's of things, lately organizing the Portuguese event for Software Freedom Day or participating in a Public Consultation on which Open Formats should the country's computer systems use. Today isn't really a "good news" day regarding Free Software in Portugal, since the two parties now in the Government changed their minds since last year (when they were opposition) and decided to reject a proposal that would make the country spend 50% less in Software Licenses by using Free Software.

Music

I've been more silent in 2011, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working. In fact several cool things happened: in March I've released a new album, for the first time in vinyl. A release party was held, here's a small fan-made video of the show:

In August, the latest Merankorii album, "Alain", was released in both cassette tape or tape + CD editions. Here's one of its tracks:

Merankorii - Intermezzo by A Beard of Snails Records

And for December there are also news - some things I'm not yet well sure to publicly state, but one is for sure: I'll be playing live in Lisbon at the 20th, and you're invited to go. Feel free to RSVP in one of the several places where the concert is announced:

• Reverbnation
• MySpace
• Last.fm
• Facebook

I've also participated in various compilations, but let me highlight two of them, because not only (in one case) it has Merankorii, but because both feature new tracks from Kokori, my industrial duo, that spent the year writing what's going to be, eventually, the best album ever: Necktar 2017 Volume 3 and Icaro I. Here's Kokori's track on Icaro I:

What Else? Well... lot's of things, really ;-), but I guess this blog post is already long enough for a "catch up". I intend to do more of these, but this is not a promise ;-)

Happy Music Day! Here's how to celebrate...

Today is the International Music Day, and here are my suggestions for you on how to celebrate it... by giving you the info about 10 free (and legal) downloadable albums:

20th March 2010

Today is a day to celebrate Music, but there's an "event" that celebrates music monthly. On the 20th of each month, musicians all over the world are invited to create, compose, interpret and record one song. That means no ideas from beforehand; no writing, performing, recording, mixing, mastering of the track before or after that day. For those who like the concept but don't know how to make music, you can also contribute by making the artwork for one of the month's editions. Today, I'm leaving you the link to "20th March 2010", a double CD showing you what this artists do in one day, and what do they do when they're not limited to 24 hours.

Aural Apocalypse September 15th, 2010

After a monthly celebration, an weekly one. Aural Apocalypse isn't a propper release, but an weekly podcast, allways with great music (mainly Neofolk, Dark Ambient, Neo-Classical and Medieval) and witty comments, including "news of the apocalypse" and a bit of history in the first episode of each month. That's right, this is one of my tasks for every wednesday... The episode I'm recommending you is the one that features for the first time my music (one Ambiansu track), and also refers Noori Records. But, if you like it, don't forget to check out every other episode, this is great stuff indeed.

2 Years Of Torture Compilation

But the international music day is not weekly nor monthly, it's yearly. Another yearly usual happening is for record labels to celebrate their own aniversaries. On February 11, 2010, Love Torture Records turned 2 years old. To celebrate, they have put together this amazing compilation, which I here leave for those who are fans of heavier/harsher sounds. Music styles found here greatly vary, but they are mainly experimental, electronic, avantgarde and noise tracks.

Noori Records 2009 sampler

And after the previous item, I had to show you another yearly label release, this time not to celebrate the label's aniversary, but to celebrate one year of releases. This is the Noori Records 2009 sampler, a lot softer release than what you'll get in the previous recommendation, with Merankorii playing "dark-ambient Jazz", Betray-Ed with its neofolk, +ko+ko+ with their industrial dark ambient, and Ambiansu with two experimental tracks. Every of this bands have more freely available music, so if you like any of them, just follow the links to their own websites...

Various Artists - Falésia 3

Still in the "label compilations", but this one is different: Enough Records (a really nice Portuguese netlabel you should get familiar with if you aren't already) decided to make a compilation devoted to Portuguese projects surrounding the dark ambient genre neighbourhood. After the success of the first and the second, they ended up doing a third (and possibly the latest). This one includes projects like Dyman, Sektor 304, Ambiansu and +ko+ko+. After listening to this, and if you like it, don't forget to check the first Falésia (3 CDs worth of material) and the second one (2 more CDs).

Zero Is Enough

Also from Enough Records, and also in the dark ambient vein, even if with more cinematic elements, comes "Zero Is Enough", a mixtape I made using only Enough-released free music, scanned from the complete catalog, from the earlier releases to the latest stuff. This mix tape is a special made for the RadiaLX event organized by the free radio "Rádio Zero", and was aired (online and offline) for the first time on that event. The excelent cover artwork was made Francisco Noá, in his first collaboration with Enough Records.

Do What Thou Will

Another compilation that is, in itself, a celebration of music, is "Do What Thou Will", a ritualistic compilation created out of the concept of "doing what thou will" using as the starting point an 11 minutes unprocessed and raw acoustic piece of ritualistic sounds, created by "Akoustik Timbre Frekuency". The result is simply this: 333 minutes in 35 tracks and 2 videos, by the artists invited by ATF...

Nouvel Ordre Mondial [A Tribute to Ministry]

Another kind of free compilation, this time a tribute. Ministry was a well known industrial band with 27 years of carreer, until its mentor Al Jourgensen decided to retire the band in 2008. It's discography had many phases, from its initial EBM and experimental Synthpop, passing from thrash, until the latest releases in a more metal vein. But if you think its discography has many styles and variations, you have to listen to what other artists decided to do with its compositions for this tribute: from the almost neo-classical piece from Patient to the thrash metal from the Evolutionary Armageddon covers, you have here something of all - an interesting tribute album in many aspect, and a must-have for Ministry fans.

Meranata

But if sometimes several artists join together to celebrate the tracks of another band on a tribute, some other times bands just decide to enjoy and play with each other tracks. This album is such a case. TVK netlabel invited Merankorii and Nata "to rework tracks from each others back catalog in any way they saw fit resulting in the split release (in more ways than one) that is MERANATA. This is what happened in the aftermath of that experiment. Two very different approaches, but with much common ground."

Necktar 2017 volume 2

"Necktar 2017 volume 2" is a futuristic/electronic compilation with 92 tracks and more than 8 hours of music. It intends to be "A mere journey through time, the great work of anachronistic alchemists, the apiary of a network of precognitifs... Difficult to define Necktar 2017, till the first cycle is not achieved. Currently it is a compilation of hors norme (not normal) music for free sharing, articulated in several thematic episodes. For know what it will be ultimately, unless we can travel through time, it won't be until 2017." In other words, this cycle of compilations intend to be a musical Sci-Fi predictive work, showing us how will be the world in 2017. This "part 2" is concentrated on "Random / Perception / Cycles : Reproduction". This year's volume (part 3) is already in the works, and is going to be about "Macro / Perception / Micro : Evolution".

Pequenas Conversas, É Bom!

"Pequeno É Bom" is a monthly meeting about independent editions. I've participated several times on this meetings, and there are some videos where you can listen (in Portuguese) to my points of view regarding the independent edition. Here are the movies:

Everybody loves a freebie

2009, the second year of Noori Records existence, is actually the first "complete" year of Noori Records activities. We know that everybody loves a freebie, and with that in mind, we've setted up a free compilation album called "Noori Records 2009 sampler". Here, you'll be able to listen to some track from the four Noori Records public releases that were made during this year.

Click on the cover image to listen or download the album!

Here's more info:

=== Noori Records 2009 sampler ===


1) NR005 * Merankorii - April in Portugal 4:07
2) NR007 * Betray-ed - Forgotten Landscape 3:00
3) NR007 * Betray-ed - My Impervious Homeland 3:23
4) NR010 * +ko+ko+ - Dark Swan 8:11
5) NR010 * +ko+ko+ - Little Harbour 7:46
6) NR011 * Ambiansu - The Train's Bar 5:23
7) NR011 * Ambiansu - Clearing 10:51
-----------------------------------------------------
Total: 42:41


# NR005 - 02/04/2009 - V/A - April in Jazz
# NR007 - 20/07/2009 - Betray-Ed - Haunting Memories
# NR010 - 24/11/2009 - +ko+ko+ - What Are You Gonna Do?
# NR011 - 24/11/2009 - Ambiansu - Tagebuch

This is a free promotional compilation regarding Noori Records' public releases in 2009. Feel free to know more about each of them at http://noorirecords.ning.com . Also, here are the links for the bands' websites, send your love to them!

Merankorii - http://www.reverbnation.com/merankorii
Betray-Ed - http://www.last.fm/music/Betray-Ed
+ko+ko+ - http://www.reverbnation.com/pluskopluskoplus
Ambiansu - http://www.myspace.com/ambiansu

The author of the picture used on the cover is pa1nt, and is covered by a CC-BY license.
Check out his pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/pa1nt/

Ambiansu - Tagebuch

Many of you know that I have a one-man-band called Merankorii, but only a few know that I also have another musical project, called Ambiansu.

After interviewing M., the person behind the one-man-band "Ambience", whose latest album "As Dez Esperas" I considered one of the 10 best albums of 2007, we kept contact, and one thing leading to another made us want to try something different. The result, Ambiansu is more or less what you could expect from a fusion of Merankorii and Ambience styles (and something that people are generally describing as better than any of those two projects alone, but I'll leave that for you to decide).

Almost two years later, we had a musical project with one album released: "Tagebuch".

Tagebuch is an opus of 5 pieces, a mix of what's classical with what's disruptive, and what's traditional with what's unconventional. Instead of entering into much details, I'll instead ask you to listen. It was released in a 500 copies limited edition CD in card box, and it costs only 8€ (postage included). And the best part of it? If you buy it until the end of the year, for each CD you buy, I'll offer one to a library.

Before you ask: no, we don't intend to have the album for sale in digital form. On the other hand, it costs less than your typical mp3 album, I'll offer one to a library with each purchase, and you can always rip it to your favorite format and give the CD to a friend (yes, this is a promise that we won't charge you for "piracy" or any other of those silly things).

So, what are you waiting for? ;-)

bits

Yup, I'm still pretty much alive. There are so many things to do, and so many things I want to do, that I really don't find any time to write on this blog, and after finding Friendfeed as a way to let my thoughts escape, I really don't think I'll ever return to use my blog as I used to. But I still like having a blog, and for so many times I've found myself thinking I want to write here again. So, this is what to expect: sometimes, rarely I suppose, I'll just write something, rant a little bit, and say almost nothing. Personal blog, okay?, it's fine to do just that :-)

I've been quite busy in a number of fronts. Work, Merankorii, Noori Records, I'm also now officialy a member of ANSOL... And there are lot's of things that urge to get people to act, specially if you take into account the whole craziness of lately regarding digital rights, copyright, freedom, privacy and so on both in an European level (specially with the Telecoms Package, then the event of the Pirate Bay trial and everything that "floated" around it, and then the three-strikes-like things, or the internet censorship like what's possibly going to happen in UK or Germany) and in Portugal (and things are really muddy on those fields too, but I'll probably reserve some time to talk properly about that later).

One thing that has been keeping me excited for a couple of months now are the "20th's": Cabinet Pin is a micro-label that organizes a monthly compilation where artists can participate by following the rules: they have to do a complete track in one day only - the 20th of each month - and then submit it. I've been doing it (almost) each month, and I really like the concept and the results. I'm really fun and an artistic challenge, and I've been trying to convince a couple of other musicians to also participate... Maybe you want to give it a try? Anyway, tomorrow is the 20th and is a saturday, so it will be the first time that - I hope - I won't be in such a hurry and with such an high-constraint as usual... Let's see what will come from that, having an actual entire day instead of - like what happened once - having less than one hour till midnight to get finaly started...

And now, AvatarCamp is running (today and tomorrow) and I'm "there" via Selva (my Portuguese text-based virtual world). So, excuse me, but I have a virtual barcamp to attend to :-)

Taking the "name your own pricing" model one step further

There are many ways from which I could explore this issue, but as you can probably see by the lack of updates on this blog, I don't really have much time to write about this - I have more important and/or interesting things to do... Anyway, this blog post can work in three ways: 1) to tell you about one experiment I did, how it went, and what will I do now that the experiment is over; 2) to improve my comment on André's blog post about Portuguese people (in Portuguese), where he states that "Portuguese people think that everything that has to be paid is too expensive"; 3) to improve my comment on Miguel's blog post about tips and tip jars, where he says that some tips are "socially accepted" while others aren't...

Yesterday, the 2nd of April 2009, my micro-label Noori Records released its first "Pro CD Audio" (a term generally used by labels and distributors to describe Audio CDs that aren't CD-R's), a limited edition beautiful (as you can see in the picture) compilation called "April in Jazz".

I've been playing in my mind with the concept of the "name your own pricing" model in my mind for a long while: first it was the Nine Inch Nails experiment, releasing an album for free in digital format, selling it also as a physical release that soon was sold-out, and Radiohead's "In Rainbows", where people could choose how much to pay for the (digital version) of the album. From March 2008 I decided to let people buy Merankorii digital tracks at the price of their choice, and in May 2008 I wrote about why wasn't all my music free. Yet, and after many hours thinking, reading and learning, I decided to take the "name your own pricing" one step further.

At the 2nd of April, "April in Jazz" was released, and got sold out. News about the album release were spreaded via e-mail to Merankorii and Noori Records fans and friends, and because I was more of less afraid of the results I decided to tell first (and it ended up being only) about it to Portuguese people (because shipping costs are less that way). And so, the challenge was made:

[...] and doing it in a very special way: you choose the price. That's right: it was your money that made this release possible, so you are the ones who have the right to tell how much is it worth to you, how much you're willing to pay.

There are several things that you have to think about this: probably the most important one is that I wasn't selling the CD on a widely available website where everyone could click and buy, I was talking to true fans, and only to them. Still, here are some data about the results of the experiment:

• More than 50% of the buyers paid more than I would ever dare to ask for a CD;
• I hadn't a "price" in mind, but the price I would probably choose for this release is the same as the lowest price people paid for the CD;
• If the edition had the double of its size, and everywhere else paid 0 € for it, and those other copies needed to be shipped to the moon, it would still be profitable;
  
• 20% of the people who bought it didn't like to have to choose how much to pay for it.



• WOW, Noori Records and Merankorii fans totally ROCK.

So, is it true that Portuguese people always think that everything is expensive? I don't think so, if you make them wanting to get it (whatever 'it' is you're trying to sell). So, is it true that people won't tip artists? No, I don't think so - but you'll have to make them comfortable in doing so. Having a tip jar in Merankorii's website never helped me getting money (well, I got $0.20 :-)), but when people feel they have to pay something for something, they can be very generous. What about this experiment, what will happen next? I really don't know, but one thing I'm sure of: I'll keep thinking and trying to test several models that feel right for everyone: artists, labels, fans, buyers, freeloaders, everyone. If it's fair, it's good for everyone. And I don't think that putting buyers in the position of "OK, now I have to chose an amount to pay for this..." isn't that fair, that good, and, as I stated before, not everyone liked the idea. So, I probably won't do this again. But that doesn't mean that the experiment isn't worthy - it is, and a lot. It let's you be a lot more transparent with your community, and the community will show a lot more about themselves.

Think about it.

[Merankorii - Angellore] new album released!

[Updated with link to an online store selling this CD]

Merankorii's 7th album, [Merankorii - Angellore], was released yesterday, 15th February 2009.

This album, a split with Angellore, shows two faces of the same story - We - one noisy and urban (Merankorii), and the other neofolkish and pagan (Angellore).

The album was released in a 60 copies limited edition by NgH Productions, and it is the first Merankorii album in a printed CD.

If you're interested in buying it, feel free to contact me here's an online store selling it. The album price is 8€.

I hope you'll enjoy this new album!

New free stuff ('cause free is what you like)

This is a quick post, just to let you know a couple of things, both related to my musical projects.

First of all, my Metal band "Mordor" is officially setting itself "deceased" with the release of its last track, for free, in a 2CD Metal compilation: Carrying the Deadly Blast Vol. 3&4 is a free, Creative Commons licensed, double CD Metal compilation, feature tracks from bands like FluiD, Odium, Mordor, Nihil and Elgibbor.



The other news is about the first movie of a promising couple of directors: Playground is a short movie made in Blender, with a Creative Commons license and a soundtrack by Merankorii.

Here's the movie.



Enjoy!

2008 is over, welcome 2009

2008 is over. It's peak, for me, was obviously the 27th of December, the day of my marriage. Being a married man is... not that different. I have a ring on my finger now, and that's a difference, but the really nice thing about being married is actually living with Paula, something that could happen without the ring :-) Anyway, the wedding went really well (and I even did something I wasn't expecting, and acted like a crying baby for a couple of minutes), and our honeymoon was excelent. Now that I'm back to "real life", working again, there are things that change. Living with Paula is awesome, but the adaptation has quite a few funny episodes. For instance, who gets to control the waking alarm and choose at what time it should be set to fire up, in which side of the bed is its place, or - most importantly - if it will wake us up by playing CD (my choice) or radio (Paula's choice). Or, for that matter, what CD should we be listening to at this very moment: I just had to change CDs! O:-) Oh, and where will we get space to store those tons of excelent books Paula have? She argues that we should use the space reserved to my tons of excelent CDs, but that's obviously not the right answer :-D

Another news from me is that I have now, as a birthday/Yule gift from her, a Stylophone. It's a cute little musical instrument, and a quite addictive one. I wonder how much time will it take to "suddenly disappear", as I tend to play it quite annoyingly for hours. Don't worry, I only plan to release stylophone-played tracks that were previously approved by her :-)

2008 was an intense year for Merankorii: two albums released ("A Viagem" and "Split") and participation in a few compilations: "Anti-Nuclear Music Compilation", "Killing In The Name of Reverend Murder ...Is Our Business (Vol. 1)", "Evocation", "The World Of All Evil" and "Okkulth Magick I". In this year I kept the "one track per month" iniciative, meaning that each month I published one new mp3 of Merankorii into the wild. One real interesting thing about this experiment is that, even if all my music is licensed with a Creative Commons license, there are a few Merankorii fans that, while liking the music enough to want to listen to them, don't actually want to pay for it. Thus, I'm pleased to make them happy by releasing one track per month. It's great to have the feedback I got from this: both from people telling me "thanks" for the iniciative, and from those telling me "hey, when is this month's track? Will I have to wait for the last day of the month to get it?" :-) 2009 will surely bring you more Merankorii news: I can tell you that Merankorii's 7th album is going to be released really soon now!

Speaking of music, and because people tend to do lists every time an year ends, here's my "top 10 2008 albums" list, that exclude everything with the hand of Merankorii or Noori Records. Here is it (without any relevance to the order, they're ordered by "when did I buy it"):

• Caprice - Kywitt ! Kywitt !
• ThanatoSchizO - Zoom Code
• Edo Notarloberti - Silent Prayers
• V/A - Fairy World IV
• Ashram - Ashram (2008's re-edition)
• Les Fragments de la Nuit - Musique du Crépuscule
• Sol Invictus - Lex Talionis (2008's re-edition)
• Marilyn Manson - The Early Years, Volume 2
• Cranes - Cranes
• V/A - La Nuit des Feés 2

Actually, this is the best time to revise my list of "best from 2007":

• Dismal - Miele Dal Salice
• Antimatter - Leaving Eden
• Tenhi - Folk Aesthetic 1996-2006
• V/A - Fairy World 3
• Ambience - As Dez Esperas
• Corde Oblique - Volontà d'Arte
• Knox Om Pax - Laudanum
• (r) - In Pink
• V/A - La Nuit des Feés
• Sol Invictus - The Killing Tide (re-edition box)

I guess someday I'll take some time and do the same for 2006... But not today.

50.000 tracks played on Last.fm

As you can see on the screenshot (click to enlarge), I've been on Last.fm for more than two years, and today I've reached the 50000 played tracks. Last.fm doesn't really represent what I listen: lot of the time when I'm at work I listen to what Last.fm plays to me (which limits the choice), and when I'm at home, I'm usually listening to things that will not end scrobbled: CDs, Vinyls or Cassettes. Still, this is probably the biggest (public) data available of what kind of music I dig, and it's pretty cool that I've reached 50K: now you can give some credit to what those numbers show.

So, in a sort of way to celebrate the 50K mark, here's my own analysis of the numbers and graphics:

• Merankorii is by far the most listened band, which should come with no surprise. Actually, for years now my "alarm clock" is an at firing up mplayer and playing a Merankorii album (nowadays the upcoming one), so I actually listen to a lot more Merankorii than what you can see on Last.fm. What can I say? I am a fan of my own work, or else I wouldn't bother doing it...
• Tenhi is in 2nd and Empyrium in 4th, and I really love both this neofolk bands and have the complete discography of both. But if I had to choose between one of the two, Empyrium would have to be the choice, not Tenhi. I don't know if I really listen more Tenhi than Empyrium (what I know, tho, is that their CDs spin a lot in my CD player, so the numbers should also be bigger on those two), but I guess that this result is caused by the fact that Last.fm has Tenhi musics and plays them to me, while it doesn't have Empyrium tracks.
• Antimatter at number two, Ashram at number five. These two are also bands of which I have the whole discography. They are of two completely different genres so I don't really compare the both, but the reason why Antimatter is ahead of Ashram is, probably, because they four releases, instead of the "one demo and two albums" from Ashram. I recommend both bands: check Antimatter if you like Acoustic stuff, check Ashram if you're into neoclassical.
• DVAR is the weirdest band. Ever. DVAR is, supposedly, made by two Russian guys, from Moscow. Let me quote some of their biography on Last.fm: "The music was presented to them by a strange creature named Dvar. All music of the band is devoted to him and inspired by him. Members of the band claim not to create their own music, but rather being mediums of what they have heard. Lyrics, according to them, are performed in Enochian language." The only people I know that know who is behind DVAR are the musicians of another musical project "Caprice"...

And, well, I could keep on and write a book out of what I listen, but that would be boring, right? Maybe when I reach 100000 scrobbles I'll do this again, and compare screenshots...

If you're curious and want to check out one of this bands or my Last.fm profile, here's the link. You can also listen to what I listen.

Tidbits

Whom rights?

If you're an interested in the developments of the music industry like I am, you'll bump into the sentence "rights of content owners" countless times. 10,200 is the number given by Google if you search for that term. Which doesn't cease to scare me, because people are really serious about talking about it. Shouldn't they be talking about authors rights instead?

Merankorii's new CD

Talking about music, I just announced in Merankorii's blog that Merankorii's 6th release is getting out tomorrow. This is going to be a limited edition CD split with two other bands: Ancestral and Njiqahdda. A new track from the album can already be downloaded from <Merankorii's MySpace, following Merankorii's one free track per month inniciative.

NIN, Radiohead, ColdPlay...

And this leads me to another thing I was planning to blog about for quite a long time. Some people ask me, knowing my thoughts about music 2.0, the fact that I have a musical project and a micro-label, why don't I "go free". Well, going free is great. I'm a heavy supporter of free music. I have lots of music freely available, all my tracks are licensed with Creative Commons but one - that is in Public Domain. Yet, there are things you can do and things you can't. See, some people sometimes tell me that "it's hard to have a band" or that "it's hard to have a label". No - I think that they're wrong. Having one of those has never been easier. But when you say that "my band drains all my money" I have to argue that, well, probably you aren't managing it the right way. See, NIN (above all, Radiohead and ColdPlay experiments can't measure against Nine Inch Nails in terms of concept exploration and free music money making) have the means (number of "true fans", number of listeners, awareness, carreer, investment budget,...) to do what they do, the way they do. I don't take Trent Reznor any credit for being so: I'm convinced that if he hadn't those means he would manage to do what he wanted to anyway. But doing things "the NIN way" works if you're NIN, won't probably work if you're not. So, each Noori Records release works its own way, and the same thing applies to Merankorii. Surely: I could give all Merankorii music for free, earn from ads and tips. But then I couldn't manage to have profit (which gives me increasing financing budget for both the band and the label) while making physical releases, and both me and some of Merankorii's fans wouldn't be happy without those. For those that think that music must be free, that want Merankorii's tracks but not pay for them, well, they'll have'em anyway, but one track per month. Also, when you have "pay as you want" albums and you can buy the music for a price from $1 to $20 USD, you'll only have to spend a couple of dollars if you're really in a hurry.

Free Software

To end this blog post, and keeping the talk on "Free", I'll end leaving you with a great letter that I'll resume as "Free Software - making the world a better place".

Lest we Forget

While with silence in this blog, the last two days were spent in rememberance.

In the 25th, here in Portugal, is a day to celebrate Freedom, since it was in the 25th of April that Portugal got rid of an oppressive regime. I could write countless words about the importance of this event, but instead I'll just leave you with a post about the 25th of April and Freedom.

In the 26th, time to mourn and manifest. The 22nd anniversary of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster. Anti-Nuclear Artists from all over the world decided to mark this day by releasing the (free, creative commons) "Anti-Nuclear Music Compilation". I participated with an unreleased Merankorii track. Know more about this compilation here.

Links

To make a change to my latest blog articles, here's a post of "links".

First of all, congratulations Prt.Sc. Prt.Sc is a Portuguese blogs aggregator and I'm happy to be one of the screenies that are aggregated there. Prt.Sc is, for me, with no doubt the best information source for Portuguese geeks (since there's a big ratio of Portuguese content, I don't think it is quite suitable for non-Portuguese readers). It is now making 3 years, and I'm quite confident that this next one is going to be exciting.

Then, Merankorii. For those who still don't know, Merankorii is my own musical project. There are quite some news about it: tomorrow is the official release date of Merankorii's fifth album "A Viagem", that is going to be released both in MP3 format and as a 30-copies extremely limited CD edition with a packaging that doesn't let anyone be indiferent about it. Also, and following what happens with the third CD "Melencolia III", now "Sanguine", the fourth Merankorii album, is also available in MP3 in a "Name Your Own Price" regime: from $1 USD to $20 USD, you can choose how much you want to pay to have my music.

As some of you noticed, my recent blog post about the Document Freedom Day is generating a lot of comments, mainly from me and Microsoft's Marcos Santos, where it is being somewhat debated wether OOXML is or not suitable of being an ISO standard. It's not a surprise that the theme is being so much debated all over the internet this last few days: yesterday the vote submissions ended, and now everyone is just waiting for ISO to announce what are the results (is OOXML is aprooved as an ISO standard or not). ISO already said that the anouncement is going to happen wednesday (I wonder if they did it just to avoid having a press release mistaken as an April's Fool joke). There are some blogs doing an excelent job of tracking down all the announcements and rumors about the vote of each country, and predicting the result. By now, we all already expect OOXML to be aproved by ISO, since the chances of the result being another are dimming almost every hour.

I've already linked to my friendfeed, but I'll do it again. I'm using it more regularly, and I really like the way I use it and how I quickly get track of what my "friends" are doing. I'm also using it to post quick comments or links, so if you're fond of this posts where I give you a collection of links, you might want to follow me on friendfeed.

Some time ago I wrote about OpenCoffee and how it was (not) working in Portugal. VD decided to take a slightly different approach and ended creating "OpenPub", here in Lisbon. I really prefer this concept: people get together to have a drink (to socialize), but since you're gathering informally people with somewhat simmilar interests (or at least with interests in the same field), the socialization ends fruitous. I didn't manage to be present in any of the gatherings that happened until now, but I really hope that this starts happening even more spontaneously (with more people yelling "let's have a drink!", and doing it more frequently), and, of course, that I manage to be in one of those gatherings. The most similar thing I had recently was the dinner from the Document Freedom Day celebration here in Lisbon, and I suppose I'll have fun this weekend, at...

...Tecnonov 2008. Tecnonov 2008 is going to happen at the 5th (this saturday), whole day, in Coimbra. The entry is free, and the talks good. We'll also have free swag (t-shirts included), a Debian key-signing party, and the promise of an event that - like last year - is surely extend itself all night long. I hope to see you there!

Personal Log

After going to work on monday, I took the rest of the week as vacations. I had lot's of thoughs of what to do in this days, and despite not having done lot's of things on the mental list (like finaly visiting "Livraria Trama" or "Discoselecção", two Lisbon stores I'm planing paying a visit to for a while now, or Cascais' lighthouses), it was a fulfilling time in many ways. I also took the time to do some things I constantly want to do but lack the time for it, like watching some movies (I count eight for the vacations, until now) and series, doing some research on various topics, reading some papers, reading an awsome design magazine (this month's issue was about "music packaging design", and there wasn't a single uninteresting article in it!), buying a couple of books and reading some others.

Lately I've been having some job purposals - some more formal than others - and while lots of them were to get me involved in some thrilling projects, I'm writing this to state a curious thing: most people seem not to understand my thrill in working at Sonaecom. There's this weird idea people have that big companies only have boring jobs: in the tecnological field people seem to assume that the only jobs there are is those of "code monkeys" (in the concept that describe those as "don't think, write" kind of coding jobs). Well, I'm not even working as a coder at Sonaecom, but most of all, I don't agree with the assumption that there are no cool/"mind thrilling" jobs at big companies. If these same people think (I assume, but I might be wrong here) that there are thrilling jobs at big companies like Google or Yahoo!, why shouldn't they assume that are cool jobs in - in this case - big Portuguese companies? Besides, there's a factor that for some isn't a plus but for me it is: the scale factor. In Sonaecom I'm not liding with a couple of costumers, I'm working with lot's and lot's of them. If you factor the number of affected clients buy the enhancement you just did... Even a small thing can cause great impact. And that's thrilling - for me. All in all, it's great to have doors open, and it's great to see that, if I wanted to, I could jump from my job and get a thrilling (perheaps even better) one more or less easily. But I'm very pleased with the job I have now, and I have no intentions of changing jobs soon.

As you might have noticed (perheaps because I think I've mentioned this in my last blog posts), I've been blogging a lot less. This doesn't mean nothing - really - I'm just spending my time doing other things. I still consider myself as a blogger and I don't think that will change. But my perception about blogs or blogging might have been changing in the last few months. I've been, for instance, reflecting on the "blogs as wiki's" idea for a while. Also, since I found myself involved with "new" concepts like microblogging or lifestream, I started to realize various uses and ways to use these tools (both the "new" ones and the "old" blog). For instance, I believe that if I were to track each visitor on this blog and profile him, I would reach the conclusion that the person that uses this blog the most, in most various ways and for several different purposes, is me. And that made me, once again, reinforce my position of "blogging to myself". To give you an example, this blog entry will help me remember that I want to pay a visit to Trama or Discoselecção, the same way I just used my cellphone and this blog to see the list of cellphones I'm considering buying earlier today, or the way I used the search tool of this blog to remember the link to a Web 2.0 service I wrote about, and that I wanted to use yesterday.

Finaly, there are some things I should have done and I didn't this vacations. I still have to finish my work on the release of Merankorii's latest album "A Viagem" (from which, I'm happy to say, the packaging was a success, making me sell a couple of CD's just because of it), dedicate once again some time to the organization of "Tecnonov 2008", a Technology and Innovation conference I'm organizing and that will happen in April, and some Noori Records work (which will bring you some news). Yet, I don't think I'll dedicate the rest of my vacations to this issues, and instead will enjoy the time reading - basicly.

Quickies

One awsome year has passed. The next one will be even better.

Some people are doing one of two things: asking me if I don't have a twitter account or why am I blogging less. For those, here's my friendfeed, where you can keep track of some of my online activities.

OpenSim has now its 0.5.1 version. There's a great post about OpenSim's evolution here.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time preparing Merankorii's fifth album "A Viagem". It will be released this month (no release date set yet) in a really limited edition of 30 CD's. If you want to pre-order it, hurry up because it will sell-out pretty fast. The price is 5€ (shipment included). Also, Merankorii's third album "Melencolia III" can now be aquired in mp3 format for the price you choose, between $1 and $20.

Leave a Tip

From now on, this blog, Merankorii's website and Noori Records' one have a widget telling you to "Leave a Tip". Basicly, you can give whatever you want, from 1 cent to... well, as much as you like :-) All the money I get there will be used to fund both Merankorii (my musical project) and Noori Records (a record label that does things right).

I've talked a lot about new ways of making music 2.0. Lot's of theorists seem to think that "tipping" is the way to be. While I don't agree that that's the sollution, I think that it surely helps (I'll probably get back to this later). Also, studies on this matter tells that people like the fact that they can choose to support the artists. Since both Merankorii and Noori Records gives a lot of music for free anyway, those who don't wish to buy the the physical product itself, now have a way to tell us "thank your for your work", or just help us to keep doing it. Also, there's a great think about being a DIY band and label: all the figures are low. Leaving 2€ in that tip box will probably make to us more than buying 20 CD's of your favourite musician in a retail store.

So, there you go. If you like the work I've been doing in this blog, the way Merankorii gives music for free or want to support this new record label, consider leaving a tip. Thank you.

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If you leave a tip here, it will be used to support Merankorii and Noori Records. Thanks!

Support Merankorii and Noori Records!

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Best 2007 albums

Here's my list of "best 2007 albums", meaning "albums released in 2007 I got and definitively recommend you to do the same". This doesn't mean that these are the only 2007 albums I got and would buy again... But hey, even this way I feel the list is a little longer than usual...

Merankorii - Melencolia III
Dismal - Miele Dal Salice (CD Limited deluxe edition)
Antimatter - Leaving Eden
Bardic Wisdom / Merankorii - Prose of the Ancient Times / Sanguine
V/A - Falésia
Tenhi - Folk Aesthetic 1996-2006
V/A - Fairy World 3
Moorlandt - Waiting Again
The Allstars Project - Your Reward... A Bullet
Ambience - As Dez Esperas
V/A - Livre Trânsito #2 - Sons de Outubro'07
V/A - Winter of Dissonance
Corde Oblique - Volontà d'Arte

Winter of Dissonance

For those who didn't relaise yet, simmilarly to last year, this year I took a big vacations period in this time of year, which justifies the lack of blog posts lately. I like to take this period, so I can use it also to celebrate my birthday, winter and a new year.

So, sorry for the lack of posts here, but if you want to get some freebie to help you enjoy these Winter days, then let me give you a link to Winter Of Dissonance, a 2 CD's free compilation (in mp3 format) that was released this Winter's Solistice and that gives you two CD's full of dark ambient tracks, one of them an exclusive track from my musical project Merankorii. By the way, remember that if you like Merankorii's track, you can download a lot of others at http://www.reverbnation.com/merankorii.

Have a nice Winter!

(PS - Link fixed)