Song of the Week #9: "Lotus Flower" and "If I lose You"

By: Matt Gallagher

Hello friends. It’s been a while, I know. But I have returned with a song of the week! So fear not! This week I’d like to feature two brand new songs from two of my favorite artists. The first being a brand new single from Radiohead!!! This comes from their new album “The King of Limbs” which was just released today. You can download it from www.radiohead.com . The video itself is very odd. It features Thom Yorke dancing abstractly to the music. Enjoy it!



The second video comes from the band Shiny Toy Guns. This is the first track in a few years that features the reunion of the band and their former lead singer, Carah Faye Charnow. We all wait with baited breathe for the new album, hopefully due out later this year.




Thanks for listening,
Matt

Song of the Week #8: The Becoming

By: Matt Gallagher

This week I'd like to feature a great live studio recording of "The Becoming" as performed by Nine Inch Nails. I've always enjoyed the energy Reznor puts into this specific performance.



ok ok, one more. This ones for you love.

Video of the Week 6: Stanley Kubrick

By: Matt Gallagher

This weeks video is a wonderful piece that looks at the films of of the great Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was one of the 20th centuries greatest visionary directors, with extremely high accolades such as A Clockwork Orange, 2001: a Spacey Odyssey, Eyes Wide Shut, The Shining, Full metal jacket, Dr. Strangelove: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, Paths of Glory, and Spartacus. Looking back at his body of work, I can easily say he is responsible for many of the brilliant and notable films in the last 50 years. If you enjoy cinema than I guaranty you have seen one of his films. So without further ado, an homage to Stanley kubrick.

Warning: the film clips featured in this video do contain scenes of graphic violence and nudity

uploaded by user: vezina2001

Song of the Week: honourable mention

by: Matt Gallagher

During my travels with the internet peoples, I stumbled upon this little gem.

We all know and love the iconic and memorable Jurassic park main score. Well a user by the name of birdfeeder has taken it upon himself to drastically reduce the rpm down to about 1000% of the original. It's an hour long track that sounds like a complete departure from the original. It's very atmospheric and dense. Give it a listen!

Jurassic Park Theme (1000% Slower) by birdfeeder

And here is the download link if you enjoy it enough!
http://www.mediafire.com/?51fhcm5lejdwfhh

thanks for listening,
Matt Gallagher

Song of the Week 8: And All That Could Have Been

by: Matt Gallagher

I’ve loved this song ever since I first heard it many a year ago. It is so damn haunting. I would describe it as building minimalism. Everything about it is shy and downplayed yet so much emotion and story is behind it. The vocals are so far off what one can usually expect from Trent. Truly great work. Hope you guys enjoy it!


uploaded by: orangepeelpro

Another great tune that fits within the same general mood is The great Below. Another personal favourite. Ive always felt these two go nicely hand in hand. This particular track comes from the album The Fragile. This particular video is taken from a live performance from the Fragility 2.0 tour in 2000. it opens with La Mer then concludes with The Great Below.


uploaded by: nemesiswontdie

Thanks for listening,

Matt Gallagher

Song of the Week #7: Packt like Sardines in a Crushd tin Box

by: Matt Gallagher

This week I want to feature one of my favorite Radiohead tunes. This one comes off the album Amnesiac. I quite enjoy it for its very industrial everyday beats that make up the bulk of it and the and the heavy droning base that picks up a little bit in. The lyrics are another aspect that draws me to the song. They are untypical of the standard lyrical tropes in the majority of pop songs; very off putting and confrontational. Feels like built up anger being spilt out from a shy narrator.

There is no official video for the song, but I was able to find a very interesting fan made one by a youtube user known as RojamNairassoy. Very cool stuff.

And just because I can, here is another Radiohead tune that I quite enjoy. This one has an amazing video to accompany it. It was part of a contest the band had where fans submitted videos to accompany songs off their latest album In Rainbows.

Thanks for listening,

Matt Gallagher

Video of the Week #3: Batman and the Joker

by: Matt Gallagher

This week the video is a Hilarious spoof of the Joker interrogation scene from "The Dark Knight". It's from a group called MonkeyAndApple. They feature some very funny sketches that are definitely worth a view. This is one of the funniest. Enjoy!

Song of the Week #3: Faunts - Meno Mony Falls

By:

Matt Gallagher

Meno Mony Falls is one of my favourite mood baring tracks. It always creates a sense of built up emotion. I love the way it starts simplistically and slowly builds into pure emotion. I can't quite pinpoint the very reason this track moves me the way it does though. It could be the out of place yet welcoming drum sequencer that seems too fast for the general tones of the track. Or the single note guitar slides that at times break into multiples but you never can quite tell. I think atmospheric ambiguity is a good way to describe the track, given it cant quite be described as housing one emotion or nuance, but many. It feels like a backing track to the rawest of emotions; a backdrop of atmospheric tones.

I hope you like it as much as i do:

video uploaded by: X9SamFisher

Thanks for listening,

Matt

The Death of the Working Class Hero

By:

Matt Gallagher

Today marks the anniversary of a tragic departure of a hero. On December 8th 1980, the world lost a visionary, a dreamer, a husband, a father, and a lover. A man who spread powerful and lasting beliefs through art and music. He will remain in our hearts for years to come.

Here's to you John...

Song of the Week #1: Gust Of... by The Album Leaf

By:

Matt Gallagher

Music plays a major role in my life. It accentuates feelings and builds emotions. It alters moods and provides the soundtrack to the soul.

Music is a pivotal part of my life, to say the least. So my goal is going to be to post, weekly, a track that has moved or affected me in some way. I'd like to stick to tracks that evoke feelings of setting and atmosphere, not just something I heard and really dug. Thats not what this is.

Like I said my goal is a song a week, at least. I may end up posting multiples, but I'll try for at least one.

Entry I: Gust Of... by The Album Leaf

What interests me most about this track is the constant high pitched drone that never lays up. Its reminiscent of "room noise": the ambient sound a room houses when no other sounds are present. It also reminds me of the tonal highs of circuitry. The sound made when passing current through a resistor. The sound is haunting and unsettling yet it is clashed with a beautiful guitar medley. I'm never quite sure what to make of it, yet it leaves deep emotions that resonate the more the track is played.

Thank you for listening,

Matt

Response to: Shaping Our Identity

By:

Matt Gallagher

The idea of a unified identity is very intriguing. I would actually liken it to the way the mind processes ideas and concepts. Lets take a cup for example. It is safe to assume almost anyone knows what a cup is; its properties. The cup holds items, holds liquids, is used for consuming. Everyone with the "idea" of the cup would define it as such but one's mental picture of it would be quite different from that of another's. When i say cup to you, you may picture a glass entity, elongated in shape, yet simplistic,whereas my "idea" of the cup may be round, stout, and ceramic. Although very different, both ideas of the cup are correct because the properties remain constant.

This general concept can be applied to the human identity. In Dillon's post, he brings up the notion that identity may be a constant or an imprint. Id like too introduce the possibility that what changes our identities is our idea of them; our subconscious projections of our identities. And it is not our identities that change with influence but our projections. With this concept one can then suggest the results of removing an identity. If for instance a man lost his memories or simply his identity, he could, in effect, resort back to the "definition" of identity; the general identity applied at birth or written into our "code".

I’m interested in getting others opinions on this. Post some comments.

thanks for listening,

Matt

Dissidence (untitled) by Matt

Adrift - written and performed by Matt

Computations within the cloud

By:

Matt Gallagher

I very much like the concept posed towards the end. Subconscious connection of masses. Cloud computing if you will. Minds conjoined to sew the very fabrics of time. An evolution of the sub conscious over time to protect itself. This allows for the assumption that you and I and they exist and our interactions are not falsified, just simulated. Maybe our physical manifestation is nothing more than a subconscious portrayal of what we used to be. A portrayal of a body that now ceases to exist. If our current state of mind allows us to virtualize existence as we know it and manifest it as a dream, then an evolved mind could potentially live fully immersed in the virtualization or dream world.

how do i know my existence is real?

By:

Matt Gallagher

I made a mistake last night. My intentions were noble as I downed two energy drinks as the clock struck 9 pm. My goal: to achieve alertness during my evening class. This did not work. To my dismay, the effects kicked in some time around midnight, keeping me wide eyed until the morning; or so i thought.

One might pose the possibility that I am currently asleep. My perception of reality is no longer valid. The world I inhabit nothing more than a vivid recreation of the subconscious. Maybe my reality is merely a dream my subconscious has created to mask the fact that I have not maintained consciousness. What indication in my current state proves my existence? My senses cannot be trusted. My memories as mentioned in previous posts cannot me trusted. I can ask the person beside me but their answer may be simply a projection of my subconscious. If all aspects of reality cannot be trusted then what may I use to wake up? I am helpless. Left to wait for my reality to break apart as a dream would, waiting for the believable to become the unbelievable. As in a dream, the projected reality is perceived as real and untainted only until the dreamscape is broken. Once the dreamer awakes, he is able to see the dream for what it is. So then whats to say the dream's flaws are only realized after the fact? Possibly the unbelievable is completely believable within the context of the dream, leaving it as close to reality as possible.

With this theory, then, my process of waiting for the unbelievable does not apply. I will only realize my reality a dream, after I awake from it.

thank you for listening,

Matt

Re: Re: How do we come to trust our memories?

By:

Matt Gallagher

My argument is that we trust memories because they are the only forms of truth that we believe cannot be faked. Everything else can be faked. A paper we wrote, a scar we have. If a creator chose to manipulate our thoughts, time becomes irrelevant. What we perceive as time is rendered useless.

What I'm insinuating is a hypothetical world where a single creator has full control. We as the created can not rely solely on our memories to establish our relevance in the world. This is bec if our memories (and everything else) can be manipulated, then we would never know our place. A fictitious existence.

I should backtrack. You touched on us having to rely on what we have impacted, effected, or created. In my initial theory, this is all effectible and can be manipulated by the creator. It in fact manipulatable by us even. That is why memory remains the single item we are able to trust. If the creator can manipulate our memory then our existence is falsified.

Where you are taking this is interesting too. My initial thoughts, as stated above, is that there is an all powerful creator manipulating everything at a molecular level. What you are saying is that maybe it is power over only memory. Where matter cannot me manipulated. In that essence I think time would remain a constant. By simply removing or adding memory would only alter our personal recollection of the timeline we are on, not change it. My initial theory is of a manipulating timeline, through changing memory and matter. Changing our beings themselves.

If the creator has complete control then there would be no need to take memories from one and place them in another. What I'm saying is that our existence could be no more then seconds old. The creator "pops" us into existence and populates us with memories of our past lives. We would never know yet we would have a fake timeline that is so believable simply because we remember it. Using this theory, I am trying to say that the only truth that we can use to attempt to argue our existence is that of our memories. Everything else cannot be believed or trusted and in that regard neither can our memories. Our memories though, as fictitious as they may be, are the only items that prove our existence, regardless of how old we are.

Thank you for listening,
Matt

how do we come to trust our memories?

Hey. Ponder this: there is only one way we prove that the past existed. Only one thing that satisfies our question of whether events happened or not. That is our memory. How do we know events happened? We remember them. In this sense time may not be real if all we have to base it on is memory. We trust memory because we believe it can not be falsified. But what if it can. What if my existence is nothing more than a few minutes old and my memories, fake as they are, tell me I've lived 19 years. But really I'm here with falsified memories and same with everyone else. If my presence was added to your memory a few minutes ago you and I would have no way of knowing how old I really am. Now imagine that at a full scale. Everyone I've ever come in contact with being rewritten with my presence in mind. Now my 19 years are nothing more than a lie. Same with an end. What if we could be written out just as easily. Maybe we knew someone yesterday that we have no recollection of today.

Thank you for listening,

Matt