The americana/country/folk heroes This Leo Sunrise out of Utrecht, The Netherlands in crappy YouTube galore. Go check out there new EP ‘Koewacht‘ (CC-licensed, off course) which I highly recommend.

(thanks MOMI )

We just released another eclectic music compilation with twelve Creative Commons licensed songs together with Mindz.com . The songs range from lounge-like electronics to R ‘n B and from dirty garage rock to indie pop. You can download this release directly (50MB zip) or have a look at the homepage where you can also find our previous free, gratis Creative Commons licensed compilations. I hope you’ll enjoy the music!

From the press release:

The Dutch open music platform Simuze released another free music compilation to promote its artists today. Music lovers can enjoy the twelve eclectic tracks on Mindz Music vol. 1 – the first collaboration with the new Dutch social network MINDZ.com – selected from the varied offer of Creative Commons licensed music on the platform. This is an excellent opportunity for those who’s Dutch is a bit rusty to experience some lovely music from the Lowlands. Anyone can legally download the compilation for free – including artwork and English documentation– in a zip file from: http://www.simuze.nl/live/download.php

 About Simuze.org:

Simuze.org is an on-line music platform for musicians and music lovers, based in the Netherlands. The goal is to combine the essential need of musicians to spread their music with the possibilities to distribute content through the Internet, in order to gain the much-needed exposure to promote their music. Simuze acknowledges and embraces the fact we live in a digital age that offers new creative possibilities, where people are used to discovering and exchanging music for free on the Internet. Because of this, all music on the platform is distributed under a Creative Commons license, which allows musicians to declare that the music they have uploaded to the website – under certain optional conditions – can be copied, remixed and shared for free, on a legal basis.

 

Since the launch of Simuze.org – in July 2005 – over 400 artists have uploaded more than 1500 songs. The music available on the platform ranges from obscure avant-garde experiments to finalists and winners of prestigious Dutch music contests. With over 100,000 unique visitors on a monthly basis, Simuze is becoming an important channel for Dutch musicians to promote themselves. At the moment the platform is still in its public beta stage, but in 2008 a new version of Simuze will be launched. This version will include a huge increase in functionality and usability for both musicians and music lovers, and also a beautiful new design.

Mark Pilgrim exactly says what I have been thinking about the whole iPhone hype. The only thing he missed is that touchscreens suck in giving back tactile feedback and therefore I personally dislike touchscreens for interfaces. Although this issue might be solved in the future.

In the meantime I bought myself a Nokia E61i , because my old Sony Ericsson was giving my way too much hassle with connections and low battery-life. Until now I’ve been quite happy with the E61i and I’m anxious to play with some Python programming for it. That has to wait though, as I’m in the midst of working on some new Wordpress Mu plugins for clients and developing a new version of Simuze based on the Symfony framework, which at the moment costs me more time than anticipated. On a sidenote: the plugins and software I have been developing the last months also needs to get a space on this website and so I’m also working on setting up a new site. Slowly I will get a decent site. Hopefully before the end of this century

It’s not all work and no play.

I’ve started with a new martial art or to be precise five different martial arts. These are all grouped under one vision, so the different arts are more like Lego blocks and build upon each other. The name of it is Takeda Ryu and I really like it.

I bought a Neuros OSD . The process of getting the device was pretty annoying, because of the box-pusher Expansys. I will blog about the whole experience later on, but to make a long story short: DO NOT buy anything at Expansys . They couldn’t care less about you. Their support team seems to consist of robots more annoying than that depressing one in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and more bureacratic hive-minded than the Borg . Luckily, thanks to the very kind support of the Neuros OSD Technology people I now have a working unit, which I plan to use so I can learn a bit of Lua with it.

The next three months I will also participate in a workshop organised by Stifo@Sandberg, which will kickoff with an interesting conference on 2th of november with some rather interesting speakers. As far as I know the conference is free to attend, but you will have to reserve in order to get in.

Now back to work….

Our Simuze team did it again:

We’ve selected twelve songs from Simuze and created a downloadable CD. Just like the previous virtual cd ‘Spread The Love’, this one can be legally downloaded for free, burned to a CD, protected by a ‘fold-it-yourself’ cover and shared with friends and strangers. All thanks to the musicians and artists using Simuze and licensing their music under a Creative Commons license.

This time we focused on music in the ‘electronics’ genre and I think we made a nice representation of this genre. It will also give all those people whose Dutch is a bit rusty a great opportunity to check out some great music from the Lowlands. So wait are you waiting for?

Download Share This Vibe now and enjoy ze musica!

Last Saturday I gave a presentation at the general meeting (ALV) of the Dutch Linux users groep (NLLGG). I talked about our foundation (Stichting Open Media) and the projects (Simuze and Netcultuur) we initiated. The presentation will be made available on the the NLLGG’s website and I plan on putting it online at www.open-media.nl as well.

There were only a small group of people available, which was to expected when your giving a presentation about media and the other presentation in the next room is about a hot topic such as virtualization. Heck, I’ve would have gone and watched the virtualization presentation myself if I wasn’t supposed to present

Anyway, I met some nice and interesting people and I hope they liked the presentation. At least I found it a whole lot more satisfying than the radio interview on BNN United.

The Utrecht based band Sennen, has released their full new EP called ‘Automatic Writing’ (three songs, 30min) on Simuze and it rocks! Especially the track ‘hearsay’. All the songs are full of tension and have – in my view – some really cool trumpet sounds. Kinda jazzy, but mixed with some indierock and sparse electronic effects. All, without vocals and still they keep me hooked! It would be perfect for a 21st century black and white film-noir with some action-thriller added to the mix. Please filmmakers, this is your chance. Sennen made the score and now I want to see the film!

I would say, if you like Explosions in the Sky, Tortoise, We Vs Death and such you really should check out this band!

ps: They will perform live at:

- 12 januari in ‘de Merleyn’ in Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- 13 januari in ‘dB’s’ in Utrecht, the Netherlands