I wanted to check out last.fm for ages, so yesterday night i finally set up an account and uploaded a couple of our albums (more soon). If you are a last.fm member as well, feel free to add us to your friends list and join the 2nd rec group. If you want to peep at our iTunes playlist click here.
December 14th, 2005
We’re happy to annouce 2ND025:
Artist: Pillow
Title: Flowing Seasons
Cat. No.: 2ND025
Format: CD/LP
Release Date: 20.02.2006
Label: 2nd rec
Distributor: Hausmusik
Tracklist:
01. Song For Beginning
02. Cut-Out-And-Keep Quarrels
03. In Deep Sea
04. Indecision
05. Mixologists And Waifs
06. Tree Shadow
07. Thick Skin
08. With The Passing Of The Seasons
Info:
Best known as the keyboarder of Italy’s premier post rock combo Giardini di Mirò, wowing fans and sceptics alike with their formidable long players and impressively intense live performances, Luca Di Mira has now come up with his first ever solo outing, “Flowing Seasons”.
Sharing nothing but an undercurrent of deep melancholy with his main band, the album reveals Di Mira’s prodigious song-writing talents. Its first track, “Song For Beginning”, a gradually unfurling pop song bolstered by the luscious beats of Northern Italian electro hop specialist Populous, already hints at the general direction the record sets out to pursue. While the song leaves us with the niggling suspicion that individual sounds are constantly trying to slip away, this impression is reinforced by “Cut-Out-And-Keep Quarrels” where Patrick Zimmer’s (finn.) fragile vocals are almost drowned out by the sparsest of acoustic guitars – a long, strangely crepuscular song undermined almost imperceptibly by the hum of an old-fashioned organ. And this overall sensation seems to reflect Di Mira’s understanding of what pop is all about – old-fashioned, yet in a pleasant, elegant way far removed from stale conservative values.
For example, the instrumental “In Deep Sea” might begin with a Keith Jarrett-esque piano chord and portentous sound fragments, yet Di Mira slowly mutates the dull sketch into a fascinating, distorted etude, while “Mixologist & Waifs”, gradually building up in the best Shoegaze tradition, unfurls a warm carpet of strings for the uncharacteristically mild ambient rustle contributed by Hamburg-based 2nd rec artist Christophe Stoll (Nitrada). The dynamics layered by Di Mira - without ever deviating from his hushed trails - are impressive: in his compositions light-drenched melodies rise from the void, from crackles and meandering sounds, culminating in the album’s most obviously poppy track, “Thick Skin”, carried by singer Jacqueline Tune’s mesmerising harmony. It is this contrast between Di Mira’s denial of palpability, between sections where the tracks seem to evaporate, and his unashamedly catchy melodies, which makes “Flowing Seasons” so downright splendid. Finally, “With the Passing of the Seasons” - an almost seven-minute-long, imaginatively arranged suite featuring cello, violin and clarinet - demonstrates the true extent of the talent and diligence Di Mira has invested in his impressive masterpiece.
Rasmus Engler
December 7th, 2005
I’ve just checked our website statistics and i’ve found out that there was 72 GB traffic in November, which is about 20 GB more than we usually have. When I dug deeper I’ve found this:
There were more than 4000 requests in November for a MP3 file of the Giardini di Miro song “When you were a postcard”, resulting in more than 19 GB, almost 30 percent of the total traffic.
If we post a MP3 of a new release on our website, there are usually 1000 - 2000 downloads within the first month. But this file is more than two years old and not even linked from the startpage on our website.
So where do all the requests for this MP3 come from? The referral statistics didn’t reveal anything about it, so we assume that the MP3 was embedded in some other website: if anybody visits this site, a stream of “When you were a postcard” starts in the background (we’ve changed the name/path of this particular file, so we’ll see in a few days if the heavy traffic stops).
While we totally appreciate if someone links to the MP3s we offer here on 2ndrec.com, please don’t embed huge files like this in your own website. Please don’t stream MP3s from other servers on your website, because the traffic might explode. And website traffic isn’t for free. In our case it wasn’t a problem, because we have pretty much free bandwidth included in our hosting deal. But if we would have had a smaller hosting plan (like we’ve had a year ago), it would have cost us about 2 Euro for each additional gigabyte.
Anyway, if you are one of the “culprits” - we’re not mad at you. But please don’t stream MP3s from our server (or any other server which isn’t yours). It’s OK for us if you use the song on your website (as long as it’s a personal, uncommercial website and the music is credited properly), but please use your own webspace.
December 6th, 2005
Every Thursday we present one MP3 from our catalog (additionally to the ones you can find on the release pages on our website). These MP3s are only available on our server for a week, after that they are gone and will be replaced by another one. This week:
Nitrada “I Fear: Good” (MP3, 4.5 MB)
Here’s a little story about the song or - to be exact - the last three seconds of it. I wrote this song back in my old studio in the Fork basement. Everything went pretty fine, I had most of it in my mind pretty clearly. And I had the idea to let it stop with a sound as if someone would stop a tape recorder. Sounds simple, huh? But since I’m a poor sound engineer, I just couldn’t do it in a satisfying way. Later while mixing the record with my friend Paul in his studio, I confessed my problem to him and we both tried to solve it together. We were close, thanks to Paul! But we were both not fully happy. So we decided to put all eggs in one basket: Rashad at Dubplates & Mastering. Fully aware what responsibility he had to bear he did it within some seconds and it was instantly perfect. Happy end, indeed.
December 1st, 2005