On an entirely similar musical note...

We all know who Radiohead is. We all know who Jay-Z is. But who knew about Jaydiohead? Yes, yet another album mixing Jay-Z's Black Album with another artist has been released. I was never a huge fan of The Grey Album, and it hardly needs to be said that I hated Linkin Park + Jay-Z. But something about mixing Radiohead and Jay-Z was very appealing. And it's unbelievably great.

Like Illinoize, these songs sound like they were originally written for each other, which is rather hard to accomplish with Radiohead songs like "The National Anthem," "I Might Be Wrong," and I have to say that the "Black Swan" mix is unbelievable. On the second album, there are 2 fantastic mixes of "There There" and "Backdrifts."
There are 2 albums for free download.

On an entirely different music note...

...(no pun intended).

Usually when I hear new music it takes me a few listens and then I generally think a few tunes on an album are pretty "dece".  Rarely, if ever, do I fall in love "at first sight".  However, with what I'm about to introduce you all to, that is exactly what happened.

So we all know Sufjan Stevens.  Over the past few weeks I've come to really appreciate his incredible talent - multiple instruments, incredible voice, thought-provoking and mind-blowing lyrics, etc etc etc.  And we all know a variety of popular hip-hop artists as well - guys we've listened to like Outkast, Grand Puba, Aesop Rock, and Blackalicious (Gift of Gab).  Enter in a little-known Montreal-based producer named Tor.  So pedestrian, in fact, that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia page to which I can link.

Yet, what Tor produces when he mixes said hip-hop artists with the musical genius that Sufjan embodies is something of the gods.  Illinoize is pure genius - so impressive a mix project that I, quite literally, fell in love immediately.  It just sounds so natural - "it's hard to imagine either track any other way".  Critics rave.

Best part? Download it for free. You can even get the lossless CD-quality Flac file format.  What more could you ask for?

Spectrograms

So as all of you know I listen to way too much music and take my music collection wayyy too seriously, so I doubt that you'll be surprised to learn that I've been experimenting with some music analysis programs this summer, and I've made some cool discoveries revolving around spectrograms of various songs. There are a few computer geniuses in the music world, and two of the top ones are Richard James (Aphex Twin) and Trent Reznor (NIN). Check out some of the images I found in spectrographic analysis of some of their songs...
This first image is from the end of Nine Inch Nail's "The Warning," off of Year Zero.
Pretty cool, if you guys have the song just listen to the static in the last few seconds, that's what the image represents.
Next is the end of Aphex Twin's Windowlicker.
This is the little swirly sound at the end of the song. I'd also like to suggest that you all watch the music video for the song, it's quite fucked up but also pretty funny and cool.
By far the coolest image I found is in the song:

which is typically just called "equation." This is the second track off of the Windowlicker EP.


Yes, that is Richard James' face. This is also at the end of the song.
So I'll definitely keep looking for more stuff like this, but I can't really think of other artists who are technically as ridiculous as NIN or AFX.