1ST FEB 2014 - BURNING PRISMA NEW RELEASE - INVERSIONS

The new BURNING PRISMA release, ‘Inversions’ is now available for streaming and download:

http://burningprisma.bandcamp.com/

It features sounds and textures from the debut album, reconstructed by one half of BURNING PRISMA - RO’N

Cheers!

BEST MUSIC OF 2013

Everyone loves lists, yeah?

2013 - Best Music

1. The Weeknd - Wanderlust
2. Kanye West - Yeezus
3. Autre Ne Veut - Anxiety
4. Odesza - My Friends Never Die
5. Moderat - II
6. Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven
7. Griz - Rebel Era
8. Gesaffelstein - Aleph
9. Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream
10. Rob - Maniac (Soundtrack)
11. Hucci - Rose Gold
12. Mount Kimbie - Cold Spring Fault Less Youth
13. A$AP ROCKY - LONG.LIVE.A$AP
14. Disclosure - Settle
15. Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus
16. Death Grips - Government Plates
17. James Blake - Overgrown
18. The Haxan Cloak - Excavation
19. Kid 606 - Going back to Kali Yuga
20. Mogwai - Les Revenants (Soundtrack)
21. Paper Diamond - Paragon
22. Umberto - Confrontations
23. Dean Blunt - Stone Island

Previous years:

2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008
2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003  

Call Me Maybe (Cover)

Having a laugh and put this together:

18TH MAY 2013 - BURNING PRISMA ALBUM RELEASE

The BURNING PRISMA self titled album is now available for streaming and download:

http://burningprisma.bandcamp.com/

We've been working on this for two years.  We hope you enjoy it.

We also have a video for one of the tracks:



Cheers!

VERY VERY SOON

2012 - End of Year Chart

The year is drawing to a close, so here is a thing:

Best Music of 2012

(in no real order)

The Weeknd - Trilogy
How To Dress Well - Total Loss
Clams Casino - Instrumental Mixtape 2
Zammuto - Zammuto
Julia Holter - Ekstasis
Xiu Xiu - Always
Traxman - Da Mind Of Traxman
Slime Code - Sculpture
Liars - WIXIW
Rusko - Songs
XXYYXX - Mystify
Vatican Shadow - Kneel Before Religious Icons
Demdike Stare - Elemental
LHF - Keepers of the Light
Nathan Fake - Steam Days
Metro Zu - MINK RUG
XXL - Düde
JJ DOOM - Keys to the Kuffs
Holy Other - Held
Gaslamp Killer - Breakthrough
Filastine - LOOT
Dudes - Dudes Finds The Higgs Boson
Fantastic Mr. Fox - San'en
Boys Noize - Out of the Black
The Caretaker - Patience (After Sebald)
SKVLL•P∆R†¥ - Noctuary


My Most Listened to Track of 2012:

The Weeknd - Same Old Song


Best gig:

Chilly Gonzales with the BBC Symphony Orchestra @ The Barbican


That's it.  Join me in 2013 for more of the same

Previous charts:

2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003

CRITICAL BEST - WORK IN PROGRESS

As the collab I've been working on is pretty much finished (we're just finalising the artwork), I thought it was time to start making music as Critical Best again

Here's the first new CB material in nearly 2 years. Still very much a work in progress, though (and I've not even heard it through speakers yet!)...

http://soundcloud.com/criticalbest/primacy-work-in-progress 

SOON

http://www.last.fm/music/Burning+Prisma

Scottish Rap

An old college mate now runs a magazine / review site, which recently done a feature on Scottish Rap (where he mentioned my old documentary).  Check it out:

http://flickermagazine.co.uk/features/scottishrap.html

ME Versus PITBULL

While I was working on my (our) new stuff, I got a so much RnB stuck in my head, I had to do this:

And you can download it here, too:

http://soundcloud.com/nolikecrumbs/marco-van-bastard-pitbull-give

Enjoy

HAPPY LANDING

http://about.me/criticalbest

http://flavors.me/criticalbest

Have at it

2011 - Best Music

It's that time of year again

Not had a chance to listen to as much as usual this year, it's been a hectic one.  Here's what I've liked, though

Best of 2011

Rustie - Glass Swords
High Park - All Day
Water Borders - Harbored Mantras
Amon Tobin - ISAM
Balam Acab - Wander / Wonder
Zomby - Dedication
Xander Harris - Urban Gothic
GusGus - Arabian Horse
GL▲SS †33†H / ℑ⊇≥◊≤⊆ℜ - Split
Thundercat - The Golden Age Of Apocalypse
Prurient - Bermuda Drain
Patten - GLAQJO XAACSSO
Nero - Welcome Reality
Chilly Gonzales - The Unspeakable
Mark Fell - Manitutshu
Hype Williams - One Nation
Hudson Mohawke - Satin Panthers
Holy Other - With U
Fed. - Lion Conversion
Cut Hands - Afro Noise, Vol. 1
The Caretaker - An empty bliss beyond this World
Cex - Tiny Creature
The Captain Kirk On LSD Experience - Eternal Sauerkraut Warmachine
Alva Noto - Univrs
The Weeknd - Echoes of Silence
Clotaire 1er - We Are Bad Mother Fuckers

Tune of the year

Sabrepulse - Close To Me

http://youtu.be/YIC1aK6CleE

That's us for another year - be excellent to each other, y'all


Here's the links to previous years charts:

2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003

BOOK YOUR FACE

Critical Best, now available on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/criticalbest

A Silent Swaying Breath

Hey, I did some audio textures for this:

http://music.audiogourmet.co.uk/album/a-silent-swaying-breath 

All profits go towards folks affected by the summer UK riots / community projects.

It's nice and ambient - have a listen if you like that sort of thing.  Bonus points if you can identify anything of mine...

BURNING PRISMA

I had mentioned previously that I'd been collaborating on some music with a mate of mine.  Well, we've just unleashed a couple of tracks into the wild, and submitted them to Bleep's 'Filtered' competion.  We're going to releasing stuff under the name 'Burning Prisma'

You can listen to the 2 tracks here:

Defectors - http://soundcloud.com/burningprisma/defectors

Extrapolated Message - http://soundcloud.com/burningprisma/extrapolated-message

Have a listen, and see what you think.  We'll be doing a proper release of our stuff at some point, but work continues at the moment

A NICE CHEERY MIX

A coupla weeks ago, I picked up a load of new vinyl. Had a play on the decks today, and thought I'd do a "nice cheery mix" since the sun's come back out. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you want to look at it a different way), it turned out pretty much the opposite of cheery. There's some nasty hardcore and breakcore on there (the DJ Floorclearer track is a particular belter).

You can stream and download it here - http://soundcloud.com/nolikecrumbs/a-nice-cheery-mix

Tracklist:

Team Doyobi - Skylight Red Omega
DJ Balli - Cutting The Throat of a Boyscout
LFO Demon - My Rotten Body
DJ Producer - Obituary
DJ Floorclearer - Strangle The Giant Elephant
Duran Duran Duran - Face Blast
Danny C - Scrawny

Enjoy!

'"Test 01'"

SO, my last.fm page has a track on it, that I have no recollection of making:

http://www.last.fm/music/Critical+Best/_/Test+01

It's called 'Test 01', and it's over 40 minutes long. Evidently, 7 people have listened to it, some of them multiple times.

Does anyone have it? Seriously, it's not on any of my hard drives, and I really don't remember making a 40 minute track...

COLLAB

It's been pretty quiet at Circus Hands towers with regards to blog worthy items - been planning my wedding, and getting stuck in at work. But I have still found time, over the last 6 months, to colloborate with a good friend of mine on some music type stuff. It's shaping up rather nicely - so I will keep you all updated when things progress to a listenable state.

One more thing - there's now a mobile adapted version of this page, for viewing on your phone an' that. It should all work automatically if you you check this on for your phone I think

Ta ra

CRITICALBEST.CO.UK

Oh hey, looky here:

criticalbest.co.uk

I'll be doing some proper stuff with it shortly, hopefully.

Got the laptop back, fixed - it's all good. Working on some new stuff as we speak...

CATASTROPHIC HDD FAILURE

Well, in a severe case of deja vu, I must report that my laptop hard disk is currently suffering a catastrophic failure.

Bad news
-It was only 3 months old
-The drive is failing so bad it failed to image, meaning I will need to re-install everything when I get it replaced =S
-I was actually in the midst of making new music - a collaboration with a very good friend. And we were making some fine progress

Good news
-It's still under warranty, so I'm sending it back to get the drive replaced tomorrow
-Even though the imaging failed, I managed to back everything up. Phew
-I've got this spare Ubuntu laptop, which is chugging along nicely

Fucking nightmare, though. I've got some software running under Wine on this laptop, so I may be able to make some daft noises, at least, while I get all this shit sorted out

Carry on!