Recommended reading, news, and so forth elsewhere:
● Archive.org No Longer Producing 64kpbs MP3s: The massive storehouse of cultural data announces on April 14 that, among other upgrades, it is no longer providing 64kbps MP3 compressions of its audio holdings: "This was a judgement call [sic] — given how poor the sound quality is for these files and the fact that most people are getting more and more bandwidth to their devices and computers." It probably makes sense, but given how many people are accessing files via their phones, and with even a 3G connection being of middling speed, I've found 64kbps to be of value to previewing things, and for listening to spoken-word audio.
● Covers for (not of) the Term Netlabel Releases: A designer at bitphitz.org created "covers" for all the free albums released thus far by the netlabel Term, which is run by Taylor Deupree as a sideline to his 12k record label (at 12k.com/term).
● ‘DJ Hero’ Announced (engadget.com): New Guitar Hero-style video game with a DJ interface (a turntable controller that resembles a stripped down Technics 1200). Description of DJ Hero says it allows "'original mixes' of songs," further blurring the space between gaming and music-making. (The djhero.com website is still just in a holding pattern.)
● Manhola Dargis on Jim Jarmusch‘s ‘The Limits of Control’ (nytimes.com): "Philip Glass has said that repetitive music 'must be listened to as a pure sound-event, an act without any dramatic structure.' At least for its first hour, before its repetition strategy turns tedious, the same could be said of 'The Limits of Control,' a nondramatic work best appreciated as a pure image-and-sound event." … The album's score, it's worth mentioning, is credited to Boris.
● Plumbing the Beatles‘s "I Want You (She’s So Heavy)" (www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes): Detailed notes by Alan W. Pollack on the famously repetitive Beatles song. I still remember my mother asking me many years ago whether something was wrong with my turntable, due to all the repetition. That repetition — which foretold sludge metal (Earth, Boris) and minimal techno (Monolake, Alva Noto), among other since codified forms — was probably my first taste of minimalism as a child.
More online resources at disquiet.com/elsewhere.