Sky Barstow – “It’s Circular” (Peppermill)

20 comments

• "volumina", the peppermill-release before barstow is beautiful sh*t too: wideopen psychedelic-beatlesque pop, absolutely mindblowing...

  and i still wonder why nobody here reported about "the box".

  martin said on
  2. Jun 2009 at 2:02 pm
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• "the box" is an impressive project, still i don't fancy most of the tunes featured on there. a condensed compilation would have been a better choice for the mill!

  Bettina Rhymes said on
  2. Jun 2009 at 10:51 pm
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• maybe you're right and that's a serious point which would have been a main argument in the imaginary review.

  [but why are reviews nowadays only about hypeing a release? where's it gone, the gold old music review which is even sometimes killing an album?
  if the music industry is in crisis, it's also because of the loads of non-critical reviews...]

  martin said on
  3. Jun 2009 at 12:23 pm
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• people keep asking why there's no scorching reviews here on phlow... well the answer's pretty simple: why waste time on a bad netaudio release? you don't have to warn people to spend money on the download, and it's already hard enough to keep track of the good releases... basically it's a time issue, you know?

  Bettina Rhymes said on
  3. Jun 2009 at 12:34 pm
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• i didn't mean that's a problem for phlow - it's a general problem for music journalism [and therewith for the music industry] because the perception of what people think is a "review" changes.
  in former days a review was something like a "criticism" - sometimes good and sometimes bad critics, nowadays a review is only a different "kind of hype".
  so if all the folks out there can only choose between various hypes they're gonna get bored sooner or later.
  the final result is that people won't read the so called reviews anymore because they don't need no more hype, i think.

  anyway, this album [barstow] is great stuff and everybody should download/enjoy it!

  martin said on
  3. Jun 2009 at 1:30 pm
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• sometimes I think of Phlow Magazine as some sort of meta-label. our trademark is the - hopefully - good and interesting selection of music worth listening to.

  in the old days of reviewing music - and i've done that for two years hardcore as an editor - people send music stuff in. nowadays with free music (creative commons music) the game changed. there's too much music out there, so people need a filter and some sort of guidance to find the delicious stuff. nobody wants to waste serious time on some boring music.

  that's where phlow and our editors come in.

  and while the people expect to find good music on phlow, we have to find it. i totally agree with sven: why wasting time with bad music and give it a stage.

  and we are not hyping, we are advising and sharing our own taste.

  mo. said on
  3. Jun 2009 at 3:47 pm
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• i appreciate your work very much, thanx for suggesting all that great music! and i agree that phlow-mag is more a kind of meta-netlabel than anything else.
  maybe i made a mistake with comparing the work of phlow-mag with folkloric journalism. that seems to be one of the most illusive fallacies nowadays: advertising/generating attention is NOT journalism [and vice versa].

  btw i really like that quote: "there's too much music out there" ...

  martin said on
  3. Jun 2009 at 11:14 pm
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• some interesting points here. i've always been a fan of zines that stick more to pointing out good stuff rather than wasting space criticising music they didn't enjoy. then again if there's something i'm looking forward to i'd like to hear about it either way. but i rely on more mainstream sites like pitchfork for that.

  as for consensing The Box, that's some interesting discussion as well. definitely it could have been extra strong if one picked out the best tracks, but with netlabels, when you ask people to create music for you for no pay, there's a bit of an obligation to include most of the submissions. i personally liked all the tracks we used but definitely there are highlights and with such a range of styles of course for most people there would be hits and misses.

  i consider phlow as a form of journalism, sort of a netlabel version of CMJ monthly which is where i used to get most of my recommendations from ages ago. i'd like to see more artist interviews though that would be cool.

  pk said on
  7. Jun 2009 at 12:50 am
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• sorry i meant "condensing"...

  pk said on
  7. Jun 2009 at 1:07 am
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• A salaried music journalist would expect to have to write reviews of albums that ranged from, in his opinion, the good to the bad; equally, the journalist's readers, who have paid to read his reviews in a magazine or a subscription-only website or TV channel, would expect to get objective reviews of all genres and standards of music. Remove the money from both sides of the equation (the journalist works for free, the consumer gets the review AND music for free) and it is perfectly understandable why Phlow's writers choose to review albums that chime with their tastes.

  I do the same. As Mo says, it takes time to find music; it takes even longer to listen to it; and longer still before it can be evaluated. Why promote something for free that you don't think is very good when that precious time can be used for enthusing about something else? I have little interest in writing about music that doesn't please me; I have the freedom to adopt that attitude because I have no obligation to readers who have paid to read my ramblings - all I can do is say, "I liked this, I hope you like it too."

  It also makes things a lot more cheerful. :) The Creative Commons & netlabel world is a happy one. It's not naive - how could it be when the idea of free music is such a controversial one? - but it is also largely free of commercial constraints. It is fun. (Unlike this diatribe!)

  Besides, I'm an idiot with dubious taste. Take no notice of me and rely on excellent sites like Phlow. I know some people are thinking of starting a more comprehensive website that features objective reviews, so there is definitely a need out there for less saccharine writing. Or why not start a site yourself and write your own evaluations? That's what CC is all about. :)

  Thank you for the stimulating comments.

  Catching The Waves said on
  8. Jun 2009 at 6:29 pm
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• Sorry, I forgot to mention one site that takes the time and effort to write stringent reviews:

  Another Goddamn Music Blog

  http://siriststylee.wordpress.com/

  AGMB has a character all of its own. The CC world is full of differing views and it's all the better for it. End of lecture. :)

  Catching The Waves said on
  8. Jun 2009 at 6:35 pm
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• ok then, but i'm still not sure about aspect of monetary profit here. is journalism essentially something that really cannot be seperated from profit? if it does work with music why shouldn't it work with journalism?
  in my opinion even free music deserves to be criticized [maybe phlow's way to criticize music is not to mention it]...

  "Works of art themself are a process, and they unfold their essence in time. It is processual. Media of this art-unfolding are comments and criticism. One can realize
  the importance of the criticism for the unfolding of the works best by that history does not automatically, as it is still a very common stereotype, ensure that the veracity of the works is produced, but that the process, by which truth and falsity of the works is snatched from the poor randomness of the public favor and historical preferences, has his place in the explanatory contexts which criticism offers."
  T.W. Adorno: "Reflexionen über Musikkritik" (Reflections on Music Criticism) in: Kaufmann "Symposion für Musikkritik" (1968), p.8

  :)

  martin said on
  8. Jun 2009 at 11:12 pm
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• maybe phlow's way to criticize music is not to mention it

  that's it :) to ignore something is the most powerful review.

  mo. said on
  8. Jun 2009 at 11:45 pm
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• i'm sorry mo., but you're wrong or let's say: i disagree with you, because:
  to ignore free music does not require much power.

  martin said on
  9. Jun 2009 at 12:05 am
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• This is an interesting debate. :) I am extremely grateful to all artists who release their work for free. In an ideal world, I would review everything I heard but that would be logistically impossible. It is much more efficient, to use a cold word, to concentrate on those albums that I have enjoyed. Phlow's philosophy is shared by Catching The Waves: my silence speaks volumes. (To be clear, I'm under no illusions of grandeur - I'm just an online idiot whose selections reflect his personal taste.) It's still early days for the CC movement, but one day there might be enough music lovers reviewing free albums to allow the curious to read a number of reviews and so make an informed decision as to what to download.

  Catching The Waves said on
  9. Jun 2009 at 12:26 am
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• "illusions" should be "delusion" (or something equally illiterate)

  Mo, when can we have an "edit" button? :)

  Catching The Waves said on
  9. Jun 2009 at 12:29 am
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• really interesting discussion here. my 5 cents: as Applezup (netaudio filejockey project), i have been featured at printed media mags such as Trax here in spain, but i must say i was further more flattered when mo wrote about one of my mixes on phlow. i'm also convinced i got much more listeners from here. i also agree on the 'filtering' attitude carried from serious positive blogs. i rather listen to quite confident taste suggestions rather than exploring into thousands of rss feeds. music like water. music everywhere... what to spend your precious fewer minutes on?

  applejux said on
  10. Jun 2009 at 11:40 pm
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• must say it was also a good addiction strategy! i have been reading since then. :)

  applejux said on
  10. Jun 2009 at 11:41 pm
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• well, i was totally wrong with what i thought about the role of traditional music journalism, seems it's completely dead already:
  http://blip.tv/file/2250992/

  martin said on
  23. Jun 2009 at 6:36 pm
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• excellent talk, and after that german preacher twittering the whole old testament, one of the first twitter account getting me interested following :) thanks

  Bettina Rhymes said on
  23. Jun 2009 at 9:18 pm
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