Have you played with Pandora.com? If you like exploring new music, you really should.

The idea is that you enter a band name that you like, and they play a song that “exemplifies” that band’s style. You tell them whether you like it or not and they play more music based on your likes and dislikes. As you listen you can also add more band names to refine or get more diverse styles of music going. You can then save these choices as a “station,” and even share it with your friends (you know… the whole Web 2.0 thing).

I entered CocoRosie (for reasons that should be obvious), and am listening to the results as we speak. So far, I like two out of the three I’ve heard. Neither of them are at all like CocoRosie, but I can totally understand why they were chosen. Okay… this is crazy… they just played Scout Niblett who I already love. It’s like they’re reading my mind…

Alas, they are not. It’s all very scientific and based on a project called The Music Genome Project. One neat feature of Pandora is the “Why did you play this link” (click on the album cover of the currently playing song). I’ve been playing with it, and I’ve kind of learned something about my own tastes.

It’s not perfect, of course. You can’t download the music it plays to put on your MP3 player (although, if you do searches for the bands, you can probably find some MP3s at their sites plus it gives you link to buy the music at iTunes or Amazon). And there’s always going to be bands who you absolutely love that aren’t going to be in their database, but as it stands, it’s all really interesting and entertaining. You should go try it out. You can’t break anything, and you’ll probably end up discovering something really cool.

The initial use of it doesn’t require any registration and will play only for a little while. After that you can register for a free account that’s supported by ads, or if you want to plunk down a small amount money, you can get the ads removed.

I just got CocoRosie’s last album, Noah’s Ark, and can’t recommend it highly enough. Seriously. Wow.

Before reviewing, though, I feel like I need to “explain” CocoRosie, because they are definitely not for the uninitiated (and as you can see by the album cover for Noah’s Ark, not for the naive or easily shocked). Of course, like any band that needs explanation, they have the somewhat problematic trait of defying it and making most attempts to do so look awkward and ill advised. At any rate, here’s what Wikipedia has to say:

CocoRosie are an American duet that formed in 2003. Stylistically they may be assigned to the indie rock, psych folk genres, and are sometimes associated with the New Weird America movement. Sierra plays the guitar, the flute, and leads vocals. Bianca is a percussionist and also beatboxes. They were active for most of 2004, playing dates across the U.S. and making several trips to Europe for tours playing with TV on the Radio, Bright Eyes, Devendra Banhart and others.

Here’s my attempt. Take the crackly sweet voices of Josephine Baker and Billie Holiday, some toy instruments, random lo-fi samples, some pretty dead flowers, a good dose of cocaine psychosis, and a week of rain. Mix them in a hand-made clay pot and serve in a 1920’s Paris opium den after-hours to prostitutes dreaming of unicorns.

Got it?

If that at all sounds appealing, then read on.

I think what I love so much about Noah’s Ark is the incredibly effective juxtaposition of the child-like sound with the dark and often disturbing subject matter and imagery. The album creates a beautiful, fragile, melancholy mood like the sun suddenly peaking out on a cold and rainy day. To this end Sierra and Bianca employ toy instruments, samples of phones ringing or cats, ukuleles… whatever it takes. The music is far different than anything you’ve likely heard. Much of it will remind you of other things, but not any particular style of music. This is music that is less influenced, say, by Jazz, than by listening to an old jazz album on a victrola in the next room.

Like Billie Holiday in her later years, Siera’s voice is constantly on the verge of a whisper about to break, but somehow always stays just within the bounds of melodious. On the track “Beautiful Boyz” she sings a duet with Antony of Antony and The Johnsons and it’s a match made in Heaven (okay… the Heaven of freaks…). Despite the crackling, almost faltering quality of her style throughout the album, there are moments that you realize that, yes, this woman really did used to sing opera. She’s a master of her voice and knows all of the rules in and out… just so that she can break them and write her own. She is at one moment drunken and foggy and the next angelic and powerful.

It’s that dichotomy which takes Noah’s Ark out of the realm of “just plain weird” to “brilliant.” This isn’t an experimental album in the traditional sense. That is, they don’t just cobble this stuff together and it ends up sounding good. This is good because they are targeting a particular sound, or feeling, and experiment with anything and everything to achieve that vision. The last time I felt this way about an album was when I first heard Portishead’s Dummy. There’s probably a lot of comparisons that could be made with that album as well, but really the most striking resemblance is their innovation without sacrificing quality.

So, with an album this different it wouldn’t be fair to have you go out and buy it without first hearing a sample. Luckily Touch & Go Records, and insound have got you covered.

• Noah’s Ark (5.07MB MP3)
• Good Friday from their first album, La Maison de Mon Rêve (4.2MB MP3)

You can buy the album in the usual places including insound, Amazon, and iTunes. Again, I highly recommend this one with the caveat that you understand you should not attempt to listen to it while on LSD. If you do, I’m not responsible for the outcome.

The EFF has a great article up about some recent statements by RIAA during the on-going DMCA rule-making proceedings.

It seems the RIAA doesn’t have a very good memory, or at least are hoping that no one else does. Although they actually said that ripping CDs was legal during the ill-fated Grokster case, their new statements are in direct opposition.

I love this bit from the EFF:

If I understand what the RIAA is saying, “perfectly lawful” means “lawful until we change our mind.” So your ability to continue to make copies of your own CDs on your own iPod is entirely a matter of their sufferance. What about all the indie label CDs? Do you have to ask each of them for permission before ripping your CDs? And what about all the major label artists who control their own copyrights? Do we all need to ask them, as well?

You can also read a lot more about this at arstechnica.

And just one note for those who may not be aware: RIAA does not *make* or *enforce* any laws. The government does, and they are *not* part of the government. Just FYI: they like to call things “crimes” that they think should be illegal.

I just came across Podbop.org. This is one of the most amazing information aggregators I’ve ever seen, and a huge boon to any iPN reader. It’s as simple as they come. You just enter your city and it gives you back a list of bands that will be playing in your area along with a link to the gig info at Eventful, plus free MP3s from the bands. You can also subscribe to your city’s list via RSS. Now, even if you just got the list of shows in your feed reader, the site would kick ass, but get this… you can plug the feed into your podcatcher, and get each of the MP3s as a podcast.

God, I love this stuff.

Have you seen ma.gnolia.com? If you’re familiar with del.icio.us or other social bookmarking sites you’ll get the gist of the site. If you’re not familiar with social bookmarking, Magnolia’s definitely the first one you should try.

“Find and save your favorite website bookmarks with Ma.gnolia.com so you can get them from any computer, any time. And that’s only the start.

“In Ma.gnolia you’ll join a welcoming community of people and interest groups, all of them showing you what they’ve found on the web. If you’ve never tried social bookmarking before, you’re at the the right place to start.

“Joining Ma.gnolia is free, and so quick you’ll see what all the hype is about in just moments.”

It’s missing some features that I’m hoping they’ll eventually add, but even with that in mind, I have to say that it’s now going to be my default bookmarking system. It’s really pretty (yes, I’m a sucker for a pretty site), and super user friendly.

One feature I love is the Groups. I love them so much that I went ahead and started one that I’d like all my readers to check out, join, and contribute to. It’s called Free & Legal Music Downloads (the short group name is ‘freemusic’). I’ve (of course) added iPod Nirvana to the list, but I’d love for anyone and everyone to come and link to sites and files of all kinds.

I’ll probably be starting a few more public groups so keep an eye on my profile (vertigo25) over there.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) wrote a really great tip today about how to make wishlists in iTunes; a feature which is “missing” from the iTunes Music Store.

Their tip is good, but they end it at making a playlist on your local machine. After reading the article, I thought… well… what about turning it into an iMix, so that you could share it with the world? Turns out, it works.

The great thing about making an iMix Wishlist is that through some finagling, people can actually gift the music to you. Because this is bit tricky, I thought I’d give further instructions on how to go about this.

First, do what TUAW says. Create a playlist called something like “iPod Nirvana’s Wishlist.”

Then go through the iTunes Music Store and find stuff you like. Drag it over to your playlist.

When you’re done window shopping, select the playlist and a little arrow will show up next to it. Click that arrow. A little window will pop up that gives you the options of canceling, “Give Playlist,” or “Create iMix.” You want to click “Create iMix.”

Follow the instructions there.

So, now your playlist is available to the world. You can even email it to people by using the “Tell A Friend” link, or link to it on your website by control clicking (or right clicking for you two button people).

But how do they buy it for you?

Easy.

All they need to do is go to your iMix, and click on one of the arrows next to a track name or album name. At the top of the screen, next to the album artwork there will be a link that says, “Gift This Music.” When they click that link the background will turn green and all of the “Add Song” buttons will be turned in to “Gift Song” buttons. They just click the track you want, and enter your email address.

To make things easier for them, you may want to include instructions in your email or on your website… or even right there in the iMix description. Something like:

Feeling generous? Feel free to buy something for me. Just click one of the arrows next to a track name. Then click “Gift This Music” in the resulting screen. Find the track you want to buy me in the new playlist, and click the “Gift Song” button. My email address is vertigo25 at gmail dot com.

And of course, I have set up my own wishlist. You can see it (and buy me stuff) here

BTW… I don’t recommend putting your personal email address in the description. The one I put is my catch-all that I don’t mind if it gets spammed or someone tries to stalk me through it :)

Oh… and one other thing. iMixes only “live” for a month. So you may want to make new ones periodically.