Tribeca Film Review: ‘Other Music’ Except for a small sliver of humanity, “Other Music” — a film about a late, legendary, left-of-center New York record store and the community around it — is not a date-night movie. In fact, the documentary, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, is almost a meta version of its subject, in that it’s proudly focused on the niche audience of record-store aficionados dedicated enough to watch a documentary (see also Colin Hanks’ 2015 Tower Records doc “All Things Must Pass”) or a drama that doubles as a sociological study (“High Fidelity,” based on Nick Hornby’s novel) about one. But despite that, “Other Music” largely triumphs in its goal of documenting, celebrating and mourning not just a record store that was much more than a record store — for 21 years, it was an epicenter of the East Village alternative music scene…
All-in-one turntables offer a modern, minimalist introduction to vinyl: The continuing resurgence of the vinyl market has until recently been held back by the sometimes intimidating need for first time adopters to purchase additional preamps and power amplifiers for their new turntables. Users accustomed to all-encompassing mini hi-fi systems and wireless speakers who are considering vinyl potentially turn their back on the format when faced with the additional extras, but a new market – and new solutions – are now emerging for wireless and integrated turntable systems, offering the easiest introduction to vinyl’s pure analog sound. Previously, all-in-one turntables commonly took the form of cheap and nasty systems characterised by cramped and distorted audio, typically targeted at clueless hipsters shopping in big box retailers or clothing stores.
Tokyo, JP | Discover music hidden in x-ray films at Bone Music Exhibition: The Bone Music Exhibition in Harajuku’s Ba-Tsu Art Gallery offers an eye-opening look at how music transcended censorship in the USSR back in the ’50s and ’60s. Perhaps what’s most unusual about these bootleg tunes is that they were ‘embedded’ and disguised within x-ray films. These circular x-ray scans are ghostly remnants of a time when foreign music of certain genres were banned in the Soviet Union. Rock ‘n’ roll was condemned for being too corruptive, jazz for its flagrant eroticism, and thus songs by the likes of Elvis Presley and Ella Fitzgerald were prohibited. The problem was that by the end of World War II, the Soviets had already grown an unshakeable liking to such music. Rather than allowing arbitrary restrictions to separate them from the music they loved so dearly, young Soviet rebels dived into an intricate underground music trade where forbidden records were distributed like illicit drugs.
Joy Division announce Goodhood 40th anniversary Unknown Pleasures capsule collection: Joy Division are launching a capsule collection with Goodhood to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their iconic 1979 album ‘Unknown Pleasures’. The ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ hitmakers and East London fashion and lifestyle retailer have joined forces with renowned art director Peter Saville, who was the mastermind behind their world famous artwork based on an image of radio waves from pulsar CP 1919, from The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy, which he reversed the image of from black-on-white to white-on-black and printed on textured card for the original version of the record. Goodhood are working on a whole range of products designed by Peter from apparel, homeware, accessories to lifestyle goods, all featuring the same style motif…Peter also designed album sleeves for New Order, which the surviving members of Joy Division – vocalist and guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris – formed after frontman Ian Curtis tragically took his own life in May 1980, aged just 23…A press release states that “The LP will be pressed on 180g ruby red vinyl with an alternative white sleeve resembling the original design idea.”
Sorting through the chud: There’s bound to be some treasure when I buy 2,000 records, right? It’s not all thousand-dollar records and sweet soul music. There’s a word a lot of vinyl record enthusiasts use and that word is “chud.” A box of chud is basically a box of scratched-up Herb Alpert records where the covers have been partially devoured by termites, clawed by disgruntled kitties and autographed by mold. Chud may include records so warped, they make the turntable needle surf the tumultuous black wave like a doomed otter after an oil spill. If Barbara Streisand is the Chud queen, Andy Williams is the king. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not shitting on Barbara’s career. There’s a great drum break on her “Queen Bee” song, but overall, seeing a lot of Streisand records is a prime indicator of chud. When I thumb through a stack of records that begins with four Streisands, I’m not hopeful that Coltrane is coming next (John, not Chi). People are always trying to dump their chud, a classic record collector move…
