Bringing statistics to life is not particularly easy, but this website does so with a creative brilliance. Using interactive animation and videos, you can look at a wide ranging set of sustainable global development data as the numbers change across space and and time. It promotes a statistically-founded world view, and somehow makes that fun.

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Why we like the things we like, specifically why we like the music we like, can be a touchy subject, especially for those of us whose identities are so seemingly bound up in these often inexplicable tastes. Honest, unsparing reflection on taste can lead to us to question aspects of ourselves we took to be as fundamentally defining.

Carl Wilson, in this amazing book for Continuum’s 33 1/3 series, asks tough questions about himself and his tastes, and in the process gets at some very uncomfortable truths about class, culture and cognition, all filtered through a discussion of Celine Dion’s 1997 many, many, many times platinum record (yeah, that one with the song from Titanic). Maybe the best piece of music criticism I’ve read.

The post Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste appeared first on Lost At E Minor: For creative people.

Our friend Jay Breitling first recommended this band when we asked him about other local bands that we should try to play with.

They become one of our favorite bands in Boston and beyond. Driving, noisy, melodic, and loud, we love their sound. We fell in love with their demos, but their full-length record is one of the best we heard in 2010. They really should be experienced live, though. Their show will leave you simultaneously exhausted and energized, and most importantly, wanting more.

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The one thing that gets me going just as much as listening to or playing music is the visual identity of it all – most specifically, album cover artwork. I am a sucker for a great record cover, and over the years, I have bought albums based solely on the artwork.

Though that method doesn’t always work out from an audio standpoint, it’s never a total letdown because you still have this great piece of art on your hands. This blog is a searchable database of album art porn (if you’re into that sort of thing). I can spend hours sifting through it and, although it’s not quite as updated as it once was, I think it’s worth a visit.

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A few years ago I watched the documentary, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man. The film is fascinating and Walker himself is a surprisingly open and gracious interviewee. But for me, the real gem in the movie was first hearing The Electrician. This song’s combination of brooding Berlin-era Bowie ambience and Walker’s bombastic crooner schmaltz just shouldn’t work. But it does. There is nothing else quite like this song.

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This is our new EP, released on October 3 on 100m/Sweaters and Pearls records. These six songs represent a couple years’ worth of work (fun work, but work, nonetheless) and we’re really proud to have completed it. I think it provides a great snapshot of our evolution as a band from our first single.
[audio:NaturalHistory.mp3]

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This web series was pointed out to me by Justin, our drummer. It’s character driven, and as is often the case, requires at least a few episodes before you can start to identify and appreciate the dynamics the show creates.

But the payoff is worth it. It’s as endearing as it is funny (in the same way Party Down or the BBC’s The Office was). It blends silly and funny into including the best response to the question, Do you drink?, that I have ever heard: ‘Probably’.

The post Dorm Life: simply a web series about Dorm Life appeared first on Lost At E Minor: For creative people.

Animal Hospital’s Kevin Micka plays and records everything himself. This is impressive enough, but live, he recreates these songs piece-by-piece, building each song from its constituent parts by playing, looping, manipulating, layering and mixing guitar and drums.

Yet, he would be only a curiosity if the songs themselves weren’t so moving. I can’t do justice to his beautiful music so watch the videos on his site, listen to his record, Memory, and catch him live if you get the chance.

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