You can't listen to The Drift. It doesn't let you. The voice; there's something wrong with the voice. Is Walker singing in tune? What happened to his tone? Is that warble supposed to be there? I think he's dying. He's old and a recluse and unhealthy. He wears a baseball cap everywhere and gets no light. I am sure he's dying of something. It must be cancer, the wasting disease. The one we can't stop.

But "Cossacks Are" eases you in. There are drums that make a rhythm and jangling guitars and a bass, though maybe it's playing only one note. You might interpolate a melody. All of this is fairly conventional.

The lyrics are excerpts from reviews of Scott Walker's previous albums. So maybe there is irony here. ("It is hard to pick the worst moment.") Humour. ("You can easily picture this in the current top ten.") Self-reflection. Those are all things we can understand as part of a human process. Likely you have never heard anything like this song, but it is easing you in to the rest of the album.

Turn off the record after that track. Hit stop on the CD player, lift the tone-arm, disconnect your headphones. I am not kidding: you must do this. Go about some other business. Feed the cat, hold your loved ones, do the dishes. Please believe me. You need to do these things.

Then come back for track two.

"Clara" is the end of the world. It begins with synthetic clatter that is announced as birds. This is a true statement; these sounds are birds. (My cats agree.) Then, with a jolt, something starts coming through. There are different sections and things happen sonically we might be able to call music. The vocal line is all over the place. It thinks there is a melody somewhere but it's not too sure. This is the thread of a life looking for pattern. I know there is meaning somewhere in what I do, but I am not too sure. I have to pick my way and trust to where I am going. The singer is a cancerous sleepwalker.

It might help to know that the subject matter is Mussolini's mistress, who chose to die with him after the collapse of the fascist axis. And suffered the same fate of having her corpse strung up on a hook, kicked and beaten in the street.

This song is that sound. We actually hear it. There is nothing that will convince me I wasn't in Piazza Loreto in 1945. I have actually been there now, by way of this music.

"This is not a terrapin, with its shell torn away. Like what happened in America."

The ending is pure magic. A recitation; a poem.

"Clara" is the best song of the decade, in form, content, clarity and ambiguity, delivery and confidence.

But after it ends, dare you go on? There are sounds that follow that simply cannot be heard. "Jesse" starts with Walker doing a child's imitation of the planes hitting the World Trade Center twin towers... "pow, pow!" And then the first line: "Nose-holes caked in black cocaine." Impossible as it seems, the lyrics then take into their fold Elvis Presley's stillborn twin brother. What verve!

"In my dream I am crawling around on my hands and knees, smoothing out the prairie."

Seven more songs follow, but it's no use. You cannot listen to this album. I think instead that it is listening to us, feeding back into our ears our worst fears, the dark bitumen of the soul, that which is bitter and inescapable, which seeps out and stains.

There is no album even remotely close to this one released this decade. It points a way into a land we, if sane, dare not enter. But which we, if alive, have no choice but to traverse.

Listen to it one song at a time. Take comfort in the world around you. Stay close to friends.

You can make it if you try.

more...

The blogosphere has come alive with posts championing various albums as the best of the decade. Which is funny, because I thought we had one more year to go! Nonetheless, after I found myself responding in comment form to some of them, I thought it best to present my own winners here, even though I recognise how useless such an enterprise is. After all, I barely listen to contemporary music. But then again, that might be an advantage, as I'm largely immune to the usual hype and trends. The good stuff filters through. Sometimes this even corresponds with what has been hyped.

My list will contain many choices you will expect and maybe some you don't. I base it entirely on my own subjective position as an electro-acoustic composer with a great love for post-punk music and adventurous forms of all stripes.

Björk: Vespertine (2001) The turn of the decade marked a child-like return to innocence and the sound environment of the womb. Coco Rosie, mùm, Antony and the Johnsons and more conformed to this inward-looking mode of heightened subjectivity and sensitivity. And most of it bugs the crap out of me. Except for Björk and her exercise in music box melodies and soft-spoken intimacy.

The Two-Minute Miracles: Volume II (2001)
The Two-Minute Miracles: Volume III (2003) Anyone who bemoans the loss of song-writing craft in this mediated world obviously hasn't heard The Two-Minute Miracles and their perfect pop creations. I first came across them in a rock bar in London ONT and knew I was in the presence of true musical genius. I got a copy of their demo from the singer, Andy Magoffin, who has made a career of hiding his light under a bushel.

Several albums later the band are still working it out in the best possible ways. Only one of the 13 songs on Volume II tops the three minute mark. "Rayon Queen In A Nylon Dream" and "Name That Song" you can play at my wake. Ditto "Aphasia" and "Stall Tactics" from Volume III (The Silence of Animals). They are all so supremely cute and hummable and tap-your-feet-ish. But dear heart, I'm getting carried away.

(If you can't travel to London ONT you might get their music as downloads from Zunior or on CD from Teenage USA. But you should really go to London instead.)

Sigur Rós () (2002) And here it is again, the womb, the open parentheses, wide for all to enter, with blank pages for your own thoughts and a whole new language, Hopelandic, to convey the wishes of a new generation. This is revolutionary music, the sheer melancholic joy of which will wipe out the stagnant forms of existing society once and for all. Can we have a louder crescendo? Can we have a deeper harmony? Can we have a more plaintive vocal? No. This is where it all culminates, in the barren heaven we call Iceland. And, oh yes, the videos.

Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002) Wilco are really an entirely average band, so how they managed this is a mystery. Great cover. Great title. Great use of COMET transmission recordings (for which they were sued, but, you know). The rest should be all alt-rock cliches, but despite the pathetic vocals there are some lovely moments of suspended noise and interpolated emotion. "Ashes Of American Flags" should be crap, but is actually one of the best post-911 songs I have heard; the last minute of noise and bombardment is perfection. (And on the cover: twin towers.)

Similarly elsewhere: Wilco should be failures but instead pull rabbits from hats. "Poor Places" winds up to incredible intensity. "Reservations" from beginning to end lies in some kind of Big Star parallel universe. And no-one can ever do that except Big Star themselves. So maybe Wilco are some kind of genius? Damned if I know.

Wire: Read & Burn 01 (2002)
Wire: Read & Burn 02 (2002)
Wire: Send (2003) They're back...again! The history of Wire is a history of returning -- whoever named their first compilation got it right in one. This time they're in full guitar loop overdrive, still ironic but now noisier. Better? Likely not, but these first doses of the newest version of this particular conducting metal rod puts most of their grand-children to shame. Lots of track repetition between these three disks means you end up buying each one. Not exactly value for money but valuable nonetheless. "It's all in the art. Of stopping." But they don't stop. So what does that tell us?

Cliff Martinez: Solaris OST (2002) Once a drummer in unlikely bands, Martinez can now craft a perfect fusion of orchestral score and glitch electronica (ouch! those cliches!), married to a tone poem of a film that is clearly the best thing this director has ever done. I love Tarkovsky but this is another film for another time and place (this time, this place). Heart-breaking and ice cold. Perfectly cast. Perfectly sound-tracked.

Ulrich Schnauss: A Strangely Isolated Place (2003) Here is the romantic warmth of the Cluster school of German motorik electro-groove, complete with just the right mix of happy thoughts and cool rhythms. Dense and amateurish too, when it needs to be. A special record for my love and I.

Tortoise: It's All Around You (2004) Everyone hates this Tortoise album but I am content to think it their best. Some of their earlier material was too scrappy and their boxed set, while impressive, contains a lot of dross. Live I preferred Isotope 217 -- Tortoise seeming to work too hard to attain their relaxed groove. I think that's what reviewers dis here, the sense of striving and cohesion. But what doesn't work in the scramble of the sweaty alcohol-fumed bar might work on headphones in the quiet of my studio at 3am. The perfect illusion they create for me here is one with hyper-real imagery of the cover. Yes, they know exactly what they are doing. And it is something wonderful. And something entirely fake.

Arcade Fire: Funeral (2004)
Compelling emotions, stories from adolescence and a sway and swoop that can incorporate punk with rock with folk without really caring that there is any difference. Arcade Fire: you might have heard of them. But still, some good, huh?

Rheostatics: 2067 (2004) I'm not sure you can still call them a dark horse after a couple dozen albums, several books, radio specials, art installations and stage plays. You can be sure, though, that they'd never ever hit it big with such willful descents into "stupidity" (quotes always intact) as "Power Ballad For Ozzie Osbourne". The stupid know they're being clever clever and the clever wonder why they bother to pander. Then both sides get mighty pissed off. The truth is they always loved Rush and Ozzie and Neil Young and Devo and Scott Walker. Oh, and hockey. So what you hear is what you get. Mostly.

Live they were crap except when they were the best rock band on Earth. On which nights you actually knew there are reasons why rock exists... and not just to fill out the muscle shirts and the tight trousers. Other times everyone hated them; I mean, they sing like women, right? But is anyone else going to write an alien conspiracy song about a WKRP character? Or redo one of their own tunes -- about teenage suicide nonetheless -- as a piece of electro crap? Or sing about feeling guilty for not having shot a gun? I mean, what wimps, right? Right?

Then you get "Making Progress", one of the most heart-breaking tunes ever. And "Little Bird". And "Shack in the Cornfields". And of course they produced their most accessible album as their swan-song. Bastards.

Bark Psychosis: ///Codename: Dustsucker (2004) Two albums in two decades is not exactly pushing the boat out. But when they are as definitive as those from Bark Psychosis you can rather forgive them the longueur. In case you missed it, this band is the one the term "post-rock" was invented for, perhaps to fill a gap in vocabulary that comes when jazz sensibilities meet rock chords in a loose improvisational way, and not with the over-determined rigidity of so-called jazz-rock.

This Dustsucker is in deep narcosis; this is driving down the highway stoned music, like a chapter from a bad Bill Drummond novel. You put this on and drift away, but never ever in the fall-into-your-arms-all-safe feeling of the rave. Here there's always a concrete embankment waiting in the dark. It's J.G. Ballard on ecstasy.

One could complain that it's not all as focused as it should be. But "Shapeshifting" builds to a lovely noise mass. And "Burning the City" is my favourite song of forever. "Did you ever hear the one?"

C-Schulz & F.X. Randomiz: Das Ohr am Gleis (2004) Processing train sounds electronically is the oldest cliche in the book, dating right back to the genesis of musique concrete in Pierre Schaeffer's "Etude Aux Chemins De Fer". But these two composers, from opposite sides of the Cologne tracks (as it were) make it sound like the freshest idea to hit rotating disks. Modulating between pulse and noise, field recording and synthetic augmentation, this album (available in a dual disk format that includes a surround sound representation) is streets ahead (tracks ahead?) of what generally passes for decent electro-acoustic music -- in the pop or academic worlds.

The Fiery Furnaces: Blueberry Boat (2004) I'm sure you've heard of The Fiery Furnaces, since they are the darlings of those webzines that champion cool before quality. And for most of the records this band has released that would be true as well. They have some sort of output problem -- Stereolabmania let's call it -- that compels them to issue every utterance of their musical muse as though it was Ubu's own defecatory Ode To Joy. In amongst this effluence are pearls of interest (please don't mention the swine) that largely arise from the Lego construct song-structures, right-inside-your-head delivery and pirate-fixated lyrics. And that's not nearly enough hyphens (not yet) to sum up this lot.

Never has anyone got as much out of their name as Eleanor Friedberger, and her brother isn't doing too badly either. When I hear Totoro mentioned at about minute seven of "Quay Cur" I wonder if they have been watching the same anime as myself. No, likely they're saying something completely different. And that's only the questions thrown up by one small snippet of one not-so-small song on this very long album. Imagine how confused and bemused you will be after the eleventh time signature change, the four-hundredth chord, the eight-thousandth rhyming couplet? What about when they rhyme "Valencia" with "in extensia" (only because they pronounce stuff the 'Merican way, natch)? What about when they inform you that "Donna had a Scotch and made him switch off the porn, because there's nothing that's dirty about the ocean in the morn"? What about the cheesy organ (who's your grandmother?) and whacked out duophonic synth lines all over what should be (maybe, possibly) guitar-based folk songs? What about the strangulated syntax of "Where did you for lunch-time go?" That's better writing than most bands manage in a career.

This is what you'd hear at a free performance in a bookstore in Iowa if the daughter of the store-owner had learned everything she knew from Baptist Bible Camp, The Residents and Tiny Talent Hour. And then been forced to listen to her older brother's collection of Scandinavian prog rock, imitating the songs on her Casio. While harbouring a deep love and respect for James Joyce.

So maybe you could stop reading me as I try to do the impossible and describe this train-wreck of an album... and instead start listening to it. For the perfection of the punch-line half-way through "Chief Inspector Blancheflower"... and much more. You'll laugh until you stop.

Architecture In Helsinki: In Case We Die (2005)
Here is illustrated a delicate balance: cleverly orchestrated pop music with idiosyncratic instrumentation and novel song forms performed with spirit and a certain sense of rightness. It's as though every performer was channeling their inner child in perfect synchrony. Not surprising then that it never worked out nearly so well for them subsequently. But listen to this one particular gem of an album and you'll be jumping on the spot, spinning round and round, while singing along in your best fake opera voice. Every song is better than the one before. And since the first song is amazing, that means we end up in the stratosphere pretty darned soon.

In case they die they've produced a lasting work of wonder. I'm sure for that they sleep better nights.

Millions: The Notebook Behind Your Eyes (2008) With thousands of independent labels and tens of thousands of artists, surely some great music is being created that I will never hear? Yet every time I tune into possibly OK net labels or MySpace pages I am deluged in crap. As I am sure you have been.

But not this time.

You don't know who this is, but it's one David Suss from Brooklyn. He releases cassettes (remember them?) and burns his own CDs for labels no-one will ever know. "The Notebook Behind Your Eyes" is the best drone music since Phil Niblock. And drone music is possibly the most difficult music to make interesting. There's complete brilliance on display here, as organ piles upon synthetic chatterings and guitar washes. It all keeps evolving and doesn't hold back on the noise quotient. No-one will mistake this for ambient. It's incredible.

Conclusion
OK, so, there you are. Some great music that might just change your life. But these are just the runner-ups. So, next time: the album of the decade. I hope you are ready. I hope you are sitting down. Because nothing will prepare you. No, nothing at all.

more...

In this follow-up on 21 Steps To A Safer Computer I will specify the software packages I use to protect my Windows XP system (also compatible with Vista and Windows 7 I imagine). The first fact I'd like to convey is that it is not necessary to pay for anti-malware / anti-virus software. Lack of money is no excuse for bad security!

Over the years I have used various products. The general trend is for excellent new free packages to develop to the point that their firms start charging for them. Then they grow into enormous bloat-ware that require constant maintenance and payments.

The first package I had been using was ClamWin Free Antivirus, which is an open source package based on a previous LINUX core. It appears quite robust but is slow to run. I had been using this manually on an as-needed basis. But my recent experience has shown me that it does not find enough Trojans and other system hijackers to be reliable.

Alongside this I use Spybot-S&D to ensure browsing safety. The resident component, TeaTimer, checks for rogue processes and registry changes. Why it is called TeaTimer? Read this.

I am now experimenting with Panda Cloud Antivirus, which is based on a radically different architecture. The local component is small because all the work is done in concert over the net. Furthermore, scanning is not always performed immediately, but instead is deferred based on a risk management regime. This prevents the programme from hogging system resources. I think this is very very cool. And in practice Panda found Trojans and other invaders on my system that other programmes had missed. To ensure its effective coverage I run a scan manually on my Windows folder after I boot up. So far, so good!

Furthermore, I have now run Panda USB Vaccine on each of the USB sticks in the house. This should prevent them from being used as vectors of infection in the future.

You can read about the Panda Protection Model and more on their site.

more...

In the first article on computer security I provided a gentle introduction. In this post I'm going to make some specific recommendations, knowing well that most will ignore what I am writing. Perhaps the only way to ensure such advice is heeded is to have disaster befall you! I certainly hope it doesn't come to that, but I am quite familiar with human nature.

Before I begin I will itemise some consequences of falling prey to malware. Any or all of these can (and will) happen to you:

• Your web browsing behaviour can be tracked in order to present unwanted advertisement.
• Your browser can be redirected to porn and other sales sites.
• Your passwords can be stolen and used for fraudulent purposes.
• Email messages can be sent as if from yourself but with malicious content.
• Your identity on internet forums can be stolen and used to post racist, defamatory or otherwise unappealing messages.
• Your computer can be hijacked, without you knowing, and used as a bot to send out spam.
• Your computer can be used to orchestrate denial of service (DOS) attacks, opening you up to legal liabilities.
• An application can be rendered inoperative.
• Your entire computer can be wiped.

OK, so the threats are real and serious. Now for what you should do about them. I realise you have probably read this advice before in various places. Some might even be called "common sense". But it is useful to have a central checklist to refer to. There is so much more you can do than what is here; take these precautions as a judicious minimum. They may seem a burden now, but many become second-nature and take no more time or effort than being risky. (As a bonus, most are OS agnostic.)


A. Backups are God.

1. Back up your data regularly. Because no matter how secure your system is, some day you will lose important information to malware. Or your hardware might fail of its own accord. All hard drives crash eventually; it's a fact of life. So make a copy of your data somewhere safe, e.g. on a completely different medium (for example DVD). Then make a second safe copy, because one is not enough. (In fact I once had an original plus two backup copies fail... all at the same time! I then spent the next four weeks replicating eight weeks of work.)

2. Store a backup copy off-site. If your house burns down having two copies of your data at that same location will not save your bacon. I recently read of a photographer who had just this happen to her work. You need a copy that is physically distinct. Some now use online storage for this purpose, which is fine if you can bear the bandwidth.

3. Make a backup schedule. I know I'm being repetitive here, but it's one thing to have good intentions about backing up and another to do so religiously. On your calendar mark regular times (every Friday morning, for example) and reserve these for backing up. Determine when you will do full, incremental or other backups, so you don't get confused. Then document what you are going to do in a file on your desktop. Be organised.

4. Store all you local work on a drive other than your boot drive. That way you have one drive with your operating system and programmes and a second drive for your work. If the main drive is corrupted, you have a good chance of getting out alive with the second drive and all your work. If system limits prevent this (for example, you have a laptop with a single drive), then be sure to have two partitions on the drive. Store your work on the non-boot partition. This strategy saved my wife's work when her laptop got wiped last week.


B. Updates Are Important... Sometimes

1. Keep any vulnerable software up to date with the latest version changes. This particularly includes your operating system, your web browser and your anti-malware software. Vendors are always improving security, fixing bugs and plugging holes. You need to have the latest versions to keep up with the crackers.

2. Do not update other software unless necessary, as this exposes you to increased risk. There is always a new version, but will it help you?

3. For convenience and to avoid interrupting other tasks, you may wish to turn the auto-update feature of your software off. If you do so, please remember to manually update when you need to.

4. Schedule one day a month to look at software upgrades and to deal with those programmes that nag you about updates. Put that on your calendar as well.


C. Isolation Is Safety

1. If you have critical work, isolate it on a computer system of its own. This is a luxury, to be sure. But if you have more than one computer you can use one as your general-purpose net surfing, game playing, risk-taking adventurer and reserve the other as your serious and secure work computer. That critical system should connect to other devices only when necessary. Whether or not this plan works for you depends largely on what tasks you need to regularly perform. But the more important your work, the more necessary this approach is.

2. Run the software firewall that comes with your system. This will tell you when unexpected internet or local network activity occurs. However, a software firewall is rather an oxymoron, since the whole idea of a firewall is to stop baddies before they get to your computer. And so...

3. Run a separate hardware firewall. This might be built into your router or your broadband modem. Make sure it is on and configured properly. Most come with only minimal security features turned on; you can do better.


D. Practice Safe Browsing (And Email)

1. Malware comes from untrustworthy site, so if you are browsing "free offer", "free download" or "free porn" sites be prepared for the worst.

2. Not every site is what it appears to be. Phishing sites disguise themselves as a trusted partner (for instance, your bank) in order to harvest your password when you log into them. Double check the URL in the address bar. Be sure the lock icon (or equivalent) is lit if you are supposedly on a secure site. Be sure it really is the address bar and not just a carefully bitmap fake.

3. Do not follow any link from an email, even to a supposedly trusted site. Spammers are forever sending out fake "your account needs updating" emails in order to get you to a spoof site. The only exception is that I do follow registration confirmation links in emails. In this case, I know to expect one of these from the site I just visited and initiated registration with.

4. Never open an attachment you did not expect. This includes attachments from people you know, unless accompanied by a personal note you can guarantee is real. Malware may have taken over their computer in order to send just such authentic-seeming messages!

5. As a corollary, never send unsolicited email attachments. Don't make life more difficult for others.

6. Never run any programme you have downloaded unless you are sure of its content. Never open any document you have downloaded by double-clicking. It may be a different file type in disguise. Instead, open the appropriate application and use the File menu to Open the document. If this does not work, it is likely the wrong file type or corrupt.

7. In Windows, turn on Explorer options that allow you to see the full file name of everything in a folder. This can help you spot disguised file types. (I won't go into the details of how to do this, but it is important so look it up.)


E. Reduce Automation

Our computers automate processes to make things easy, but these automatic steps are invitations for crackers. Here's where the big security/convenience dichotomy hits home. For optimum security you need to turn off all automatic processes and vet things manually.

1. For Windows the most important thing to do is to turn off AutoPlay on all drives. Letting a USB stick or CD run software the moment it's plugged in is a disaster waiting to happen. The easiest way to do this is to download Microsoft's Tweak UI utility. Once it is installed and running, go to the "My Computer" heading, choose "AutoPlay" and then expand the subheading "Drives". Now, un-check every drive and click "OK". (Tweak UI does many cool things and there are other great tools on that same page -- check them out.)


F. Use Anti-Malware Software

First, it must be stated that running anti-virus software is not a panacea! In fact, I would say that it's more important to follow the previous steps than it is to use anti-virus software. Because if you do everything in sections A through E then you've cut both your risk and the potential impact of any threat enormously.

1. Decide whether you want to run a resident programme that can continuously check you activity. If you do so you will gain the obvious advantage of a continuous security presence. But there are many possible negative side-effects. If you have a slower processor then the speed of your computer may be adversely affected. You may not know what to do with the messages you receive. Further, these may become a burden to you, reducing the joy of using your computer. I have seen systems where the anti-virus software was as annoying as a virus!

2. If you are not running an automatic process, then scan all untrusted content before using. This notably includes USB sticks and any downloads from the net.

3. Be sure you are protected from adware and other browser infiltrators as well as trojans and viruses. These are different animals and sometimes you need different software to deal with them.

Now, re-read B1. Anti-virus databases that are a month old are useless.


Conclusion

Congratulations, your system is now much safer than before. Thank me by donating a cup of coffee using the PayPal button in the sidebar. Or, buy your Christmas gifts from Amazon starting with the buttons in the top right. Thank you!

I'll add a third article with some software recommendations next time.

more...

I have a new (short) track online, entitled "Wavefront Makara (hue blue linear)". This is a response to the post at Music Of Sound in which film sound designer Tim Prebble asked people to interpret a particular image of ocean waves. Go there and check out the photograph. I urge you to listen to the other submissions, because they are very good!

I interpreted the image in two ways. First, objectively, in terms of what the actual pixels sound like, using a programme that interprets pixel data using additive synthesis. Second, subjectively, in terms of what the location the image represents might sound like. For this I used location recordings of a beach and waves I gathered here in Ireland. This collision of extreme digital sounds and more palatable phonography I left pretty well undoctored.

I have the track hosted at Soundcloud, a "a platform and tool for creating, collaborating, promoting & distributing music". They re-encode uploads as 128 kbps mp3 files, which is a little weak, but you can't argue with two hours of free hosting! (If the file is made available as a download, the listener gets that in the original format, which can be OGG or WAV.)

Comment here if you have used Soundcloud and what your experience has been. I find it a little Web 2.0 but I'm trying not to gag on that spoon.

more...

Well, it had to happen eventually. After years of living free and easy, our home network was recently hit with some sort of malware that caused quite a bit of havoc and has taken me five days to repair. I don't know how it started but I do know that one of the vectors used was our USB sticks. This experience has sent me back to the drawing board to re-engineer a more secure system.

Computer security is a confusing business these days. There are so many types of programmes trying to destroy our systems that even keeping track of all the categories of threats and deterrents has become complicated. In these two articles I'll run through some of the common terminology and make some recommendations.

This most recent attack wiped out the data on one computer and compromised my passwords, forcing me to update all my site passwords. Yes, that's right, I have had to change dozens, even hundreds of passwords at financial, social networking, subscription, product registration and other sites. Define "tedious" -- this comes pretty close!

Don't want this to happen to you? Please read on.

First, keep in mind that security is a compromise. There is no such thing as total security. The only way to accomplish that mythic goal is to never connect your computer to the internet, to other computers over a local network, to other devices through BlueTooth, to portable drives and USB sticks... to anything at all in fact.

For some limited uses you may get close to that ideal. For example, a workstation in a recording studio can work in isolation except for rare updates. But most of us have a general-purpose computer that regularly shares data with external parties. Cutting ourselves off from the world is not an option.

The question then becomes: "How much convenience do you want?" The more convenient, the less secure. The UNIX operating system is based on a secure core, though how secure any given distribution is depends on what options it was built with. The most secure versions have minimal interface and functionality. Certain routers, firewalls and independent storage devices (NAS) fall into this category.

Now that it's based on UNIX, the Mac OS is quite secure. In any case it has never been a huge target for crackers¹, since the platform has less market share and hence presents a less tantalizing target. Microsoft Windows has traditionally erred on the side of being convenient and easy-to-use, at the cost of security. In fact, its security model is pretty haphazard.

To use your Mac or Windows computer correctly, you should have a single administrator account that is used for making systems changes plus downloading and installing programmes. This account should be tightly secured with all available precautionary settings and in addition should have active security software running at all times. Separate user accounts should be used for day-to-day use.

OK, hands up: How many of you actually do this?

I'll admit: not me. That's for two reasons. First, I download and update software so often that this is inconvenient. Second, I have had troubles with programmes that either do not install correctly in this manner, or do not run properly unless logged in as administrator. (That's the weakness of the Windows security model showing itself.)

Oh look! I have compromised my security for the sake of convenience. In practice, this means that malicious software has a pretty easy time of infiltrating my system.

Malware consists of spyware, root kits, trojans, viruses, worms, adware and other baddies. People generally refer to them all as viruses but they aren't². Each have different characteristics, exploit different system vulnerabilities and carry different associated risks. This is important to remember since a particular security application may work against some types but not others.

My experience using big-name anti-malware programmes from companies like Symantec is that they are far too intrusive. The real-time virus scanners use valuable system resources and interfere with the working of other software, slowing the computer unreasonably. Since I use my computer for time- and processor-sensitive tasks like audio creation and mixing, these sorts of resource hogs are a no-no. I can't have the computer suddenly decide to run a security task when I'm in the middle of a big job.

There are many other problems with these packages. They throw up all sorts of messages about possible intrusions that most users have no idea how to respond to. They find a lot of "false positives"; that is, they report normal activity as suspicious. They nag with insistent messages that people get tired of and hence learn to ignore. They are generally not configured correctly.

So what are we to do? In my next article I'll make some recommendations.

Notes

¹ A cracker targets a computer or its contents for harm. This is not to be confused with a "hacker", though all Hollywood movies seemingly do.

² Some people even pluralize "virus" as "virii". I sure wish that had caught on; it's got to be the coolest word ever.

more...

This is not a typical post for me, but I need to share an incredible deal on sound synthesis software. For this weekend only (until November 30) you can buy each of the Native Instruments synths for €99 ($99 for 'Mericans). As a registered owner I got this offer in my email but didn't notice it until today.

Absynth, Massive and FM8 are all highly regarded soft synths, but the real deal is on Reaktor 5, a complete modular synthesis package that comes with hundreds of different instruments and gives you access to thousands more. At this price it's 75% off retail!

Yes, this one package is actually thousands of different beat manglers, drum machines, DJ tools, mixers, effects, etc. etc. ad nauseum. You can combine and recombine them, practice circuit bending, learn virtual electronics and teach yourself synthesis from the ground up. I use Reaktor for a good amount of my own work. If I could have only one synthesis programme, this would be it. It sounds better than Max/MSP and is easier to use then Csound. (Not to diss either one, just pointing out the advantages.)

For those of us who have invested in this tool for years, we can only hope that this blow-out signals a new version coming along soon.

At this price, working with a ripped download makes no sense at all. Now is the time to go legal and get access to the large online collection of ensembles.

Check out the Synthgiving page at NI. Reaktor is available for Windows and as a Universal Binary for the Mac. It works well on all platforms but welcomes a fast processor.

(I now wait for the same price on Max/MSP 5. Ha!)

more...

Limerick hasn't seen a Mamuska Night for about a year. People miss the regular appearance of this no-holds-barred performance evening. In the past I've taken different approaches to the sound environment, depending on the night. Sometimes I've produced original music in an electro vein and other times have filled more of a conventional DJ role.

It is a tricky act since essentially I am filling in between performances that might have their own music, none of which I know beforehand. I don't want to detract from the performances or even try to compete with them. Having worked closely with Davide Terlingo, the creator of Mamuska, I understand the ethos. Too much "party music" spoils the special mood and takes it into a different orbit. The idea is not to blast dance tunes but to create a social environment in which people can mix and mingle. Curator Angie Smalis was totally in agreement with that; she gave me scope to do as I liked.

I'd played disco tunes for God's Dancehall the previous night, so that sort of thing was out of my system. And at the previous event I'd been DJing a rather odd mix of Scott Walker and Joni Mitchell. I'm also looking forward to doing a regular gig in town in an electronic/ambient vein (more on that as it develops). So I knew I wouldn't play any of those three things.

I now present, for the first time ever, a Mamuska set list. This one is close to being definitive. Except somehow I went through a night without playing any Tortoise! I didn't fit in my mashup of Kraftwerk and Kate Bush either... darn. I hewed close to a motorik groove, mixing old and new acts and a variety of traditions. Yet the Neu!, Harmonia and La Dusseldorf I had selected went unplayed.

I've left spaces in the list for where the performances were. This is more or less correct, based on the condition of my track list (and memory!) by the end of the evening. The first grouping is pre-show music, so I deliberately repeated some of these artists later on in the night.

"Zombie" >> Fela Kuti and Africa 70
"Romantika" >> Apparat Organ Quartet
"Cassettesingle" >> Fujiya & Miyagi
"Knuddelmaus" >> Ulrich Schnauss

"Transmission Begins..." >> "The Prisoner" OST
"Fingerbib" >> Aphex Twin
"Connectivity" >> Annexe

"We're Going Home" >> Clint Mansell (from OST for "Moon")
"I May Be Over There (But My Heart Is Over Here)" >> Mira Calix
"Maiysha" >> Miles Davis

"Good Day Sunshine" >> Slowdive
"Flames of Fire" >> Skakkamanage
"Beautiful Lie" >> The Durutti Column

"Radio Sheffield ID" >> David Cain (BBC Radiophonics)
"Time Center" >> Michael Moorcock's Deep Fix
"Tarfur" >> Quarashi

"Weather Shy" >> Yo La Tengo
"rossbit" >> Lowfish
"Testfeld" >> To Rococo Rot

"Radiation Ruling The Nation (Protection)" >> Massive Attack vs. Mad Professor
"Protection" >> Massive Attack
"On My Own" >> Ulrich Schnauss

"Benton Harbor Blues Again" >> The Fiery Furnaces
"Let's Get Out" >> Life Without Buildings
"Aa Dekhen Jara" >> R.D. Burman (vocals: Asha Boshle, Kishore Kumore)
"Hjartao Hamast (Bamm Bamm Bamm)" >> Sigur Rós

"Dreamy Party" >> "The Prisoner" OST
"Ankle Injuries" >> Fujiya & Miyagi
"Overcome" >> Tricky

"Big Black Eyes [Iris Mix]" >> escalation 746 vs. Leafcutter John
"Love Insane" >> Dif Juz

"Jet Stream Summer" >> Skyray
"Triode Or Muon" >> escalation 501 vs. Wire ("Outdoor Miner")

"Goldfinger" >> Magazine
"Obstacle 1" >> Interpol
"Blue" >> Bark Psychosis

"I Believe In You" >> Talk Talk

There you go. Several tracks you will hear absolutely nowhere else and many you are very unlikely to hear -- unless you find a place as cool as Daghdha Space. See you out next time I'm spinning disks. (Hard disks mostly!)

more...

As a supplement to Gravity And Grace: Six Evenings of Dance, there is a "celebration and christening" of the two Daghdha books: Book of Recommendations and Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change. Join us this evening (Saturday 21 November) at 6.30pm in Daghdha Space, John’s Square, Limerick.

The former book is a concise manifesto, written by Michael Klien, Steve Valk and Jeffrey Gormly to describe the underlying ideas of the Framemakers Series of symposia and other events in the Daghdha constellation. The latter is an anthology, edited by Gormly, of 31 essays by a wide variety of thinkers and practitioners. Choreography is a core concept, but only as a jumping off point for discussions of ecology, communications, film, social networks, activism and much more. It's an excellent volume -- and not only because I have a paper included!

"Complementarity: An Archipelago" is a dense dance of ideas which finds connections between quantum theory, object-oriented programming, childrens' games, post-punk music, cybernetics and designer chairs. It ties the personal to the universal using a method I hope to develop further. And all this in seven pages!

Here follows the official press release for tonight.

"Dear friends,
Four years ago we started a process of thinking together about what dance and choreography might mean to the world at large with the Framemakers Public Thinktank."

"We invite you to an informal celebration and christening of our two Framemakers publications – Choreography as an Aesthetics of Change & Book of Recommendations. Whether you were a Framemaker coffee drinker or a future reader, a volunteer doer or attended an event, signed up for the week-long symposium or contributed to our publications, we would love to see you in DaghdhaSpace."

more...

If you're interested in contemporary choreography, dance music, strange happenings or just having a wicked time you'll want to check out Gravity And Grace this week. These six evenings are presented by Daghdha Dance Company in their lovely restored church in John's Square, Limerick. The first night was tonight but you haven't missed anything yet, as Michael Klien's "Standing In Ink" repeats tomorrow. Check out the full schedule on their website or read on for highlights of what I am helping out with.

Though I've been working closely with Steve Valk on "God's Dancehall" (Thursday 19 November at 7:30pm) I can't tell you exactly what you are in for. And that's the joy of it! The theme has something to do with the history of dance music so, yes, there will be plenty of opportunities for you to shake your boogie. It will also feature contributions from the Daghdha Mentoring Programme artists and the Garvey Centre for adults with learning difficulties. There will be an octopus, bread, balloons, a horse, a red carpet, mustaches, bagpipes, music from India and surprises! Well, the only thing for sure is that there will be surprises.

Friday 20 November at 7:30pm sees the return of the ever-popular Mamuska Night, an open format of raw ideas and evolving works in practically any discipline imaginable, though with a strong emphasis on performance art and choreography. I will be providing the sound environment, as I did two seasons past -- a combination of original music, tracks you've never heard and some favourites. The cabaret-like atmosphere is conducive to catching up with old friends and making new ones. I'm so looking forward to seeing what curator Angie Smalis has gathered from the local artistic community.

I'll also be at a book launch Saturday and the performance later that evening.

OK, I'll be back to work now editing sound files. What a week!

more...