PS3 Does Well In Japan, X-box 360 Left Out…

…in the cold, apparently.

I have been doing a lot of reading lately on news articles such as these mainly because I look for perspective on the gaming industry. Well, I found an interesting one in this article. Apparently Sony’s PS3 has, for the first time since launch, sold more in Japan than Nintendo’s Wii. I thought that was pretty amazing considering PS3’s launch was a horrible, horrible lesson in supply and demand, as well as proper pricing, as you have seen from the more recent $100 price drop on the PS3.
Also, and probably more importantly, X-box 360 is having compatibility
issues with Halo 3, according to the article, gamers are complaining
that it’s not fully compatible with the hardware. As if that wasn’t bad
enough, there is also a class-action lawsuit that has been filed by
said gamers. On top of console “meltdowns”, literally, as well as
breakdowns, Microsoft has put aside somewhere in the neighborhood of $1
billion to address the issue.

Also, for you investors out there, EA and Activision stock is up. Huzzah!

For more information, please read the article itself, as well as check out the forum thread I’ve started over at OverClocked Remix for discussion.

Free Shit: tronic koi, zainetica, speak, distruc, p&j comp., regantor, et al

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/2697/1195590538898km4.png

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tronic_koi_-_hot_kog-(20k229)-2007. tronic_koi
(which is short for ‘heaven or the kingdom of god’) from nagold,
germany debutes on 20kbps with a poignant downtempo ep fitting
consummately to current november days. seven drop-dead gorgeous
mini-tracks, somewhere between ambient and electro, are waiting for
you. tronic_koi is also known as kristellar.
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pic by h0l

Message>>
A Monotonik debut from UK-based electronic music artist Distruc, whom
you might know from releases on Hippocamp and his co-founding of
Japanese electronic japesters the Freeta Corrective, as well as his
debut physical album ‘Clip & Glide’, released on Australian label
Artists Known As.

In any case, his debut EP for us, ‘Junctions’, is a
satisfyingly crunchy set of almost electro-tinged, pure headphone
listening idm, which we continue to cherish like we’re Gollum, and
‘Path’ sets it up beautifully, all loops of life and whooping drums.

All of the long, flowing tracks work wonderfully, but ‘Unlock’ is
another highlight, with mechanical percussion and sweeping chord
repetition, plus a surprisingly funky robotic bassline at play. Things
finish out with ‘Crossings’, another bass-heavy jam through Detroit vs.
idm super-pure sine wave skronk – and we are happy.

Download Distruc’s ‘Junctions EP’ from:
1. “Path” – (d/l archive.org support.nl scene.org)
2. “Unlock” – (d/l archive.org support.nl scene.org)
3. “Slumber” – (d/l archive.org support.nl scene.org)
4. “Crossings” – (d/l archive.org support.nl scene.org)

..or download the entire release [.ZIP link], stream, or review the track at its Internet Archive release page.

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Gimme the cuteness! i want it!!

[pj001] — 2007-09-19
We are proud to present: Pantoufle Tagada
Some words about it:

We’ve
been taking our time to contact artists we appreciated to be sure to
deliver some lovely tunes that would definitly give the artistic line
of this netlabel.

So here we are with our first release named “Pantoufle Tagada“, a nice launching compilation for the sake of cuteness

The cuteness will transport you on a pony ride from Purusha’s
(Ogredung) progtoytronica to papercutz’s (Apegenine) childtronica, from
Doroasako’s progressive folktronica to El zoolÛgico’s pizzicato ,
passing by Original Recipe’s (Vinyl Republik) fresh pianopop to
kaneel’s (Camomille, Ogredung) “joie de vivre” glitchtronics, vim’s
(Monotonik) spring melodies to fah’s (Ronin) analog cute-acid without
forgetting surasshu’s (Apegenine, Camomille) electro music with video
game gimmicks while balùn people (Aerotone) are coming up with their
cutey electropop and dot tape dot (spar.RK, NatureBliss) rejoins with
his toy harp and trumpet experiments. In the meantime, makunouchi bento
(Camomille, Ogredung, One) will delight your ears during a sweet and
tender music box interlude for your christmas parties while Nej will
come up with some sweet electropop and treacle (BEE Records) will bring
back the groove to some cutetronica.

this compilation will act like the exact time-travel machine you needed
to bring you back some childhood reminiscences, so we hope you’ll enjoy
this 55 minutes long launching compilation as much as we enjoyed
setting this all up.

download and enjoy:

[track 01] Purusha – Rabirabi
[track 02] dot tape dot – farpa (toy harp & plastic trumpet serenade)
[track 03] Doroasako – Je reviendrai
[track 04] Makunouchi Bento – Two Mechanical Snowghosts
[track 05] Original Recipe – Puppy
[track 06] Nej – Tell You
[track 07] Balùn – Alicia
[track 08] El zoolÛgico – Penguin and Sea Lion
[track 09] Vim – That Smell of Spring Rain
[track 10] kaneel – Pyjama Lapin
[track 11] Surasshu – 5 a.m.
[track 12] Treacle – Stereotape
[track 13] Fah – I Hope You’re Happy With Me
[track 14] :papercutz – Lembras-te?

download the whole release here
download the whole artpack here
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PiSTON SOURCE
DOWNLOAD
PXTONE TO LISTEN TO THESE RELEASES!

2007.11.24 (PS026) [Regantor]
– The Mark of Cake
Three
delicious sandwiches and a cake for dessert.

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061 – Platonist – Electropic Heat

EU Mirror (thanks to GaMeBoX)
US Mirror (thanks to SGX)

– style : Electropic Dance
– prog : Schism Tracker CVS
– date : 23 nov 2007

060 – Void Pointer – The Arlect

EU Mirror (thanks to GaMeBoX)
US Mirror (thanks to SGX)

– style : Chill-Out/Tech
– prog : Renoise 1.8
– date : 16 nov 2007
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louisville chill sessions vol 1
23.11.2007 10:13:07
now available as download

as premiered on di.fm
the louisville chill session vol 1 – mixed by xerxes

1. deep forest – sweet lullaby (ambient mix)
2. bliss (feat lisbeth scott) – reveal
3. i awake – inferno
4. jon hopkins – contact note
5. cell – erasing pluto
6. sinead o’conner – troy (schiller mix)
7. carbon based lifeforms – world of sleepers
8. ulrich schnauss – goodbye
9. jaia – desert walk
10. gary jules – mad world (alternative version)

enjoy 🙂
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#227a-227f Zainetica / Winter Comes [stream]
Its been a fair old while since we had Zainetica featured on the
Collective, mainly due to the fact that ‘Winter Comes’ is an ep that
can only be released once a year and unfortunatley the release schedule
didn’t permit release in 2006 – so, finally, after a slight delay of
one year (!) we have a suitably winter themed ep for this time of year.
Mellow beats and grooves and some cool retro ambience as the tracks
melt into one another. Slight industrial tints here and there, a spot
of elektro and you have what makes a curiously interesting and
enjoyable release. Listen and bathe in the cold light of Zainetica.

download whole ep as ogg (.zip)
download album art download whole ep as mp3 (.zip) whole ep (.mp3) mirror

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

#228a-228f Speak / Mindsplit [stream]
Branching off in a completely different direction now @ Kahvi.
Something entirely refreshing comes in the form of a six track ep from
guest artist mindsplit. The ep is a dub oriented blast with elements of
ethnic percussion, idm and electronica and reggae beats. Slow paced but
interesting and diverse, Mindsplit sets the mood for the kahvi
‘christmas release week’ which will be happening from 17th to 21st
december. One release each day until the official kahvi christmas
release which will be released on friday 21st. Enjoy some cool and
dubbed vibes.

download whole ep as ogg (.zip)
download album art download whole ep as mp3 (.zip) whole ep (.mp3) mirror

Rest in peace, Reuben Kee

Well known remixer Reuben Kee and four others are missing and feared dead following a mishap at a dragon boat competition in Singapore.

Update: The bodies of Reuben Kee and the four other rowers have been recovered by Singaporian officials. (link)

Rest in peace, Reu. Our thoughts go out to you and your teammates, as well as your families and friends.

Please visit this thread at OCR for further information and to share your thoughts in this time of grieving: http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13286

zircon’s ”Antigravity” Remix Contest

zircon has announced in his newsletter a remix competition involving two tracks from his album Antigravity. We can infer from this that he’s probably got another album coming out late winter/early spring 2008:

“Starting today, you can download remix packs of both “Warhead” and “Mindbender” and create your own remixes of them. You’re welcome to distribute them as you please provided you credit me as the original artist, and there is no money involved; if you plan on selling your remix in some form, please talk to me first and we can work something out.”
“Additionally, I’m starting a friendly contest revolving around these
remix packs. If you complete a remix of either track – in any style you want – send it to [email protected]. I’ll compile all the remixes I get and on Feb 1, 2008, I’ll select two of them to be featured on my next album (and the winners will of course get a cut of the sales, too!) Alternatively, if there are too many good ones to pick from, I’ll open it up to the public to vote on.”

You can download the remix packs here:

http://www.zirconstudios.com/Mindbender%20Remix%20Pack.rar
http://www.zirconstudios.com/Warhead%20Remix%20Pack.rar

You can read more and discuss it with zircon in the OCR Thread.

Free Shit: Eeben, Shnab, Hertzca, piston source comp., Freeman, Keith303

Didn’t have enough stuff for 1 week, but now there’s plenty of material for the two weeks since the last Free Shit. Read on!
Aleksi Eeben – Five Fish Fingers
People who have been following my free links for a while should know about Aleksi Eeben (formerly known as Heatbeat) by now. His stuff ranges from crazy and spastic, to groovy, to total relaxation. This short EP does all of that, and is a sort of tribute to Debussy’s birthday which was a few months ago [it was created a while ago but is just now released on kahvi]. I’d recommend this if you’re a fan of Shnabubula, who in fact just released…

Samuel Ascher-Weiss – Ender’s Game
…a soundtrack inspired by characters from the popular “Ender’s Game” sci-fi book series, a story which I enjoyed quite a lot throughout my youth. This particular music by Shnabubula is a really cool mix of orchestra and some light electronic synths, with an incredibly creative dynamic composition that is totally unique to Sam. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like this, and it’s still cool as hell. Highly recommended [even if you haven’t read Ender’s Game yet… which you should].

hertzca_-_true_this_is_totally_untrue-(20k227)-2007. “time for true values! germans twinkling star in elektro-sky, Hertz-CA. (head of abulia concepts)
is back with a more than an hour live-mix of her own terrific swinged
up stuff, rife with bleep noises, squealing sounds and eclectic plop
rhythms. make up your minds!

(PS024) [Various
Artists] – 8-bit Tsunami

more 8-bit breaks from the only .ptcop netlabel ever, piston source. all the regular cool artists on this one
DOWNLOAD
PXTONE TO LISTEN TO THIS RELEASE!

Two new releases on Reunion, both really freaking good:
059 – Freeman – Way Out

EU Mirror (thanks to GaMeBoX)
US Mirror (thanks to SGX)

– style : Progressive/Chill-Out
– prog : Fruity 7
– date : 9 nov 2007

058 – keith303 – Evaluate Your Life

GuestRelease
EU Mirror (thanks to GaMeBoX)
US Mirror (thanks to SGX)

– style : Drum & Bass
– prog : Renoise 1.9rc2
– date : 2 nov 2007

And that’s all for this fortnight! I might stick to a bi-weekly schedule as there will be more content per column, but that’ll depend on how productive the week is :).

VGMusic.com announces Logo Contest

VGMusic announced last week that they are having a logo contest:

The Video Game Music Archive would like to have a logo of its very own. We would like to use the new logo not only as part of a redesign of our front page, but also on business cards, stationary, and anywhere else an organization logo might appear… can anyone say t-shirts! This is your chance to win a $100 store credit to CocoeBiz/VGM World.

See the Contest Page for rules, or to browse current submissions. Contest ends November 30, 2007 (23:59:59 Eastern Standard Time).