Where is David Jones ? Where is The Thin White Duke ? Where is Ziggy ? Decades of music fans can indeed wonder where their favorite workalcoholic singer is, and what he does these days...The thing is: David Bowie turned 65 yesterday and while even older stars like Keith Richards plan to go on tour yet again, the thin chameleon hasn't been seen or heard in ages. His last works were an album in 2003 and a song in 2005, a couple of commercials (one with...Snoop Dog), some apperances on stages with bands like Arcade Fire or Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters, some awards and discreet chanting here and there but nothing like the Bowie we're used too...

And it's missing. The Man had different periods (psychedelic folk/glam rock/white soul/Berlin/Mainstream Bowie/Tin Machine/electronics-bass and drums), he also had true visionnary moments and his music did capture most of the Zeitgeist indeed: no one can forget his Ziggy days nor his Berlin stance which probably launched a new musical genre by itself (New Wave is at least 5 pages off David Bowie's attitude and music/vocals cues). Now, in 2012, one wonder: what is Bowie doing ?

David Bowie also did something totally unique by...

Remember Thomas Dolby, with his perky New Wave hits "She Blinded Me With Science" or "Hyperactive" or the very european "Airwaves" ? Well, since he made it big back in the eighties, Thomas hasn't stop to move and, just like the intemporal watcher in the sci-fi serie Fringe, it seems he has always been there when important things happen. Let's recap...

Back in 1981, Thomas releases Europe And The Pirate Twins, following it three years later with The Flat Eath which contains the very haunting "I Scare Myself". He will have later a few more albums released (collaborations with Ruichi Sakamoto, Aliens Ate My Buick,...) and does a few soundtracks. He also produced some records, one of them being "Steve Mc Queen" by The Prefab Sprouts, one of the very best album from the 80's imho.

In 1993 his career takes an interesting turn as he establish a company called Headspace which designs a music compression algorithm called RMF. It was frankly ahead of its time as it envisionned the moments where internet would just mean the end of the control artists and labels had on music files: latest versions of RMF incorporates a watermark...The company also releases software...

Not all is bad on the internet for music: there's more out there than piracy, insulting streaming revenues and Pop Idol wannabees: there are also thousands of bands working their music these days by sending bits and pieces to each other and producing albums without actually never recording in the same room and, as posted this morning, even big recording studios offer new ways of making music and mixing it...

Eric Whitacre has stumbled quite by accident in the beauty of intertwined art when he got a fan posting a video of her singing one of his composition. An idea started to grow: what if he was to put together a choir of people all singing his melody, but recorded in the confort of their own home...And it worked, he soon had a piece made with 185 people...Was it enough ? Probably not as he soon embarked on a project with a 2000 people choir which ended up being a huge Youtube success.

This is Eric explaining the ins and outs of that remarkable digital adventure.

Wired, the wonderful US magazine, has a very interesting article on how music tickles the brain, where and how much.
Basically, music triggers dopamine to ciculate in the blood, and that dopamine makes us feel good, or better. What is fascinating is that there's a peak moment which makes dopamine releases bigger seconds before an anticipated passage in the music: our brain likes to play with himself and delivers more dopamine when the brain is being tickled and waiting for a chord, a figure, something that will give our brain "food for thoughts".
It's a primal reflex for sure, but one based on the idea that, when music is being played, dopamine releases can be enhanced in some ways. We're all animal with boots, aren't we ?

So, they come up with an intruiging theory on why Beethoven somehow seems to trigger all the right points in his 5th Symphonia: our brain is teased to be expecting certain chords and changes but don't quite get them and by doing so the intensivity of dopamine is being boosted ! On another level, our brain does take repetition in music with boredom and disinterest and dopamine releases are then smaller: we deeply want to be astounded and...

"...the version with Blixa singing was seriously creepy. With a capital K..." dixit Nick Cave.
That line alone is worth the detour for that australian TV video.

In this excellent interview, Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue go deeper about "Where The Wild Roses Grow", that incredibly dark song which took the charts by surprise in 1995.