2014 Album Top 20

It’s a little late, I know, but here is my album top 20 for 2014.

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1. Damien Rice – My Favourite Faded Fantasy
2. Ben Howard – I Forget Where We Were
3. The War On Drugs – Lost In The Dream
4. Ryan Adams – Ryan Adams
5. Hallo Venray – Show

6. Conor Oberst – Upside Down Mountain
7. Elbow – The Take Off and Landing of Everything
8. Yuko – Long Sleeves Cause Accidents
9. Marketa Irglova – Muna
10. Samaris – Silkidrangar

11. The Gaslight Anthem – Get Hurt
12. Zita Swoon Group – New Old World
13. Dunan Idaho – Riddles
14. Thom Yorke – Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes
15. Magnus – Where Neon Goes to Die

16. Bruce Springsteen – High Hopes
17. Ginman/Eivor – The Color of Dark
18. Hauschka – Abandoned City / I Close My Eyes
19. Counting Crows – Somewhere Under Wonderland
20. Yann Tiersen – Infinity

Albums that I thought were really good but just haven’ t listened to enough yet:

Boy & Bear – Harlequin dream
Angel Olsen – Burn your fire for no witness
Spoon – They want my soul
Keaton Henson – Romantic works

How does a single atom sound?

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How does a single atom sound? We don’t know (yet), but Researchers at Columbia University and Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology managed to capture a single phonon, the sound an atom makes when is excited.

Phonons might actually be interesting in the field of quantum computing, because they move much slower than photons and, therefore, are easier to manipulate.

In comparison to photons, phonons have several striking features. Their speed of propagation is around 10^5 times lower, and their wavelength at a given frequency correspondingly shorter,” the researchers wrote in Science. “The slow speed means that qubits can be tuned much faster [than photons] … this enables new dynamic schemes for trapping and processing quanta.

Read the full story here: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/scientists-have-captured-the-sound-one-atom-makes

 

Ghosts or acoustics?

During Halloween in Indianapolis, the Acoustical Society of America held a special session titled “Acoustic Trick-or-Treat: Eerie Noises, Spooky Speech, and Creative Masking.” One of the talks in this session was by Miriam Kolar of Amherst College, and she talked about the special acoustics in a 3000-year-old ceremonial center, known as Chavín de Huántar, in the Peruvian Andes. The acoustic phenomena observed at the site might have been interpreted as an embodiment of the instruments played during ceromonies or an intervention by a higher power. Read the full article at Physics Today or visit the project’s website.

Steve Albini discusses the music industry

In this keynote at the Face the Music Conference in Melbourne, famous recording engineer Steve Albini discusses the current state of the music industry, and how he believes recent developments are actually good for music (read: bands and fans). Interesting stuff!

If you don’t feel like watching the movie, The Guardian has a full transcript of his presentation for you to read.