Beirut announces new album details, maybe decides to take it easy with that whole Euro-Balkan-folk-French-pop thing

By Mr P on Jun 7 2011

Yesterday, Apple revealed details on its much-anticipated iCloud service. Turns out, you won’t be able to sync your white headphones to the cloud, but you will be able to sync photos, books, documents, apps, emails, calendars, and contacts, all available for download via “the cloud” from any iOS connected device like an iPhone, iPad, and iPod.

Music, however, is being handled a little differently. Rather than having your iTunes library appear magically on all your devices, it will simply be made “available” in the cloud. You’ll have access to your music, but you’ll have to re-download in order to listen to what you want, when you want. While this means no uploading and no USB cables, it also means you won’t be able to stream as many songs to your device as with Google’s and Amazon’s rival cloud services. In fact, you won’t be able to stream at all. And because only your purchased-through-iTunes music will be made available, it’s more like your ‘iTunes purchase history’ will be in the cloud to, you know, look at and re-download.

In addition to iCloud (which is free), you can purchase the much-touted iTunes Match for $24.99/year, which will essentially scan and then “match” 5,000 songs, whether purchased through the iTunes store or not, to Apple’s servers. The process is said to only take minutes. Pay another $25 and you can match 20,000 more songs. If Apple can’t match a song (which is probable since it only currently has licenses with the majors), then you have to individually upload the tracks as you would with Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive. Without licenses from the independents, this could be as big of a pain as uploading to Google for us indie-oriented listeners (i.e., pretty much all of you reading this). And for those of you who are more into the Eureka! stuff? Haha, get the fuck outta here, LOSER.

Meanwhile, there are hardware considerations to take into account. iCloud only works on iOS 4.3.3 or higher, which means only certain devices will be included. New Verizon iPhone customers, for instance, are out of the iCloud. Also, iTunes Match’s requirement is iOS 5, which means that if you’ve got an old Apple device, you better start saving up for something that can handle the new OS or hope that your device will get an upgrade.

All this is to say that Apple is treating the cloud much differently than Google. Whereas Google wants the cloud to essentially be your computer, from which you’ll stream all your files from various web-connected devices, Apple is treating the cloud for storage, syncing, and downloading. Since Apple is so dependent on its various hardware for its success, this makes sense: concentrate the clouds over Apple Island and its denizens will be even more dependent. For the rest of you who use iTunes but not Apple’s hardware, the message is clear: if you like our software, buy our fairly new hardware for access to the iCloud and really new hardware for iTunes Match. Might cost some money, but hey, at least you’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that the major music groups are cool with your iCloud/iTunes Match listening habits.

In other news, I’m still trying to upload my music to also-not-that-impressive Google Music….

• Apple: http://www.apple.com
• Subsonic: http://www.subsonic.org

By Kid Midnight on Jun 7 2011

No longer just a man with dozens of albums, critical praise, and worldwide acclaim, Mats Gustafsson has now been announced as the 2011 recipient of the Nordic Council Music Prize. Let all of us at TMT say: “Congrats, Mats, you won the 2011 Nordic Council Music Prize!” I’m sure that you’ve already been bathed in praise and champagne but, if you want a private session with me, I’m always happy to bathe you in whatever liquid you prefer.

The famed composer and saxophonist, who will officially receive the prize at November’s Nordic Council Session in Denmark, completed all of the necessary tests and met all of the 2011 NCMP qualifications set up by this year’s theme:

An individual musician (instrumentalists or vocalists), who has achieved innovation in music with improvisation as a bearing element, and whose efforts are co-creative and important for the form, sound and context of the musical expression. The nominees must have attracted attention on the national, Nordic or international stage during last year (2010).

For over two decades Mats Gustafsson been one of the big names in improvised music,” says the NCMP Adjudicating Committee. “With his innovative saxophone playing he is constantly bursting the limits of the musical genres that we need to assign to music which we have not met before… We recommend that you open your hearts and let yourself be enchanted by Mats Gustafsson’s musical universe.

Yes, please, follow the above instruction.

• Mats Gustafsson: http://matsgus.com