I like music a lot. I enjoy listening to it, let it grow on me, let it define me for that moment. Maybe I build up a connection to a certain song because of my mood, or because of the memories I’ve attached to it over time. Discovering music has changed a lot the last years. There are great online services helping you find amazing gems from all over the globe. But I realized one thing: this whole thing around timing and newness of music is slowly fading away. It’s not important anymore if you discover this band right after they released their new EP, or if you heard that song on the radio the first day it aired. Here are a bunch of music discovery services I use myself in no particular order:

Of course you remember Primer. That film from 2004 that would keep you puzzled for days. After nine years Shane Carruth is back with a new project, Upstream Color. Go watch it, don’t read anything else. https://vimeo.com/57342043

Anticipation

While most film critics collectively claim one shouldn’t spoil more then the plot outline for this movie that already has been published, I’m going to stop here and wait for the film to play at Berlinale with only this quote:

Last week my friend Peter Bihr tweeted about this Gotye mashup that was being played at the Wired 2012 conference. Yes- we’ve all about died of how many times this track has been played on the radio, tv, well everywhere and ALL THE TIME, but I must admit my interest was raised when I found out Wally De Backer (aka Gotye) was giving this mashup “back to the internet”. You’ll find a writeup of this talk here.

Browsing my Spotify playlists I stumbled upon this great album again zZz - Running with the Beast. I saw them once years ago as a support act and was really impressed by the energy and performance these guys were putting up. A bit later they released their album Running with the Beast, for which Roel Wouters aka Xelor has made this awesome video. I agree, it’s pushing quite some moral boundaries but I think that’s mostly because of the switching of contexts, both creative and biological. There is an animal welfare statement on Roel’s website to make sure you won’t loose any sleep. If you want to know more, check out todayandtomorrow for more posters and the ‘making of’ video. This video is 3 years old so no HD quality unfortunately, but still a great watch. Enjoy.

Erased Tapes did a tour featuring Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds and Winged Victory for the Sullen. I attended one of their shows in Berlin and it was amazing. This should give you a good impression:

Check out more of their music on their site or SoundCloud profile.

My good friends Claudio and Ian are doing an amazing job with their band called Mighty Oaks. A recent feature by ARD during the Reeperbahn festival in Hamburg shows that these guys are seriously kicking ass. Mighty Oaks, remember that name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvbPtmi_I5g They’re currently working on their first album, keep an eye on their website and SoundCloud profile.

The last months I have been helping out my friends Kamiel & Martijn with the launch of their new company called Blom & Blom.

Homepage design by Till Wiedeck In their own words:

Blom & Blom is about two brothers. Two brothers who share a passion for forgotten items from forgotten places. Unique items. Items that once had an industrial life, but have now been abandoned; left to perish. Items with a rich, and almost epic history. Items that deserve a new life.

Seems like since Carice van Houten has been featured in Game of Thrones she’s been kicking ass lately. This sums that all up: a music video for Anthony & the Johnsons featuring Willem Dafoe & Carice van Houten. Filmed at Schiphol. Enjoy.

Today MailChimp, the cool kids who know email over at Atlanta, have released a study: Email on Mobile Devices. While working on an email project over at SoundCloud, I’ve seen some other companies doing some efforts to display their transactional emails nicely on mobile. Then Campaign Monitor published a blogpost on how to make Twitters email notifications compatible on mobile. This proved my gut feeling, but I didn’t had the numbers.

Summary

While the research is not going so deep on the subject and the studies are quite simple, there are some things that I find worth noting: While Return Path published a study saying Mobile email open rates increase with 34%, we now have a complete overview in this document.