The ultimate surround sound system?

The Fragmented Orchestra exhibition which we've sponsored has opened in Liverpool's FACT gallery and will be on until February 22nd.
We'll be posting composer Nick Ryan's final blogs on the piece this week. Read more

2008 - The year of the album?

Everyone loves a list, I know, but it's interesting that numerous publications and bloggers are listing their top 75 or 100 albums of the year rather than ruthlessly cutting it down to top 10's or 25's. Creatively, it's been a good year for the album despite the digital sales of single tracks still going up and I think this is reflected in the size of these lists.

Maybe due to the ubiquitousness of music everywhere at the moment, musicians are feeling the need to up their game to get heard. Like the resurgence of vinyl or quality packaging, there is a slow and steady backlash to the disposable nature of so much music at the moment and craftsmanship is definitely making a comeback.

Hopefully there will also be a change in the way people are choosing to listen and the quality of the download files available. We're trying to do our bit and going forward will be offering our B&W Music Club as 24bit FLAC downloads alongside the 16bit FLAC and ALC options.
Read more

A personal best tracks of 2008

It's the time of year where journalists and bloggers get all retrospective and reflect on a year in music. As a humble B&W employee, with a vested interested in music that all sounds good, I have compiled a list of ten tracks that sound great to me personally, and I would hope to anyone with a good sound system. Ofcourse, this neatly bypasses the argument of albums against single tracks, but that's something we will talk about in the future!

It would be great to have feedback from B&W lovers on what songs they have really enjoyed listening to this year. My basic set up, it should be added, is a pair of B&W XT2 speakers, PV1 subwoofer, Rotel amps, while personal ipod listening came through a pair of noise-reduction Sennheiser PXC 250 headphones.

In no particular order... actually most definitely in order going down


10. Vampire Weekend - Walcott
A joyous romp that sounds like it should come from a beach on the Caribbean, but actually comes from the US East Coast. The 'chopsticks' piano gives this song a life of its own.

9. The Verve – Sit and Wonder
An underwhelming comeback from the Wigan band had two glorious tracks that relived the Northern Soul and Urban Hymns glory days. This opener had all the classic Verve sound, and sounded all the more powerful through my system for it.

8. Elbow - Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver
One of the most heartening stories of the year was the final public recognition of this marvellous band, who have been forebearers in sound quality for years and were part of the Turn Me Up campaign, and previously recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios. This soaring track, about how ambition can drive you from those you love, is heartbreaking.



7. Bon Iver - Re: Stacks
How life affirming that this artist hid himself away and created such wonderful folky gems pining for a lost love. For all its quiet allure, the music sounds richer with each listen.



6. Laura Marling - Ghosts
An 18-year old from Reading in Britain's own 'Silicon Valley' came out of nowhere and released this wonderful single. Not all of her album's sound quality stands up on repeated listening but there is no denying the quality of her songwriting.



5. TV on the Radio - Halfway Home
From what will probably be the critics' favourite album of the year (including Billboard), this opening track encapsulates all the wonders they have currently been doing with guitars, and shows all the influences from rock, electronica, psychedelia, you name it.



4. Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan - Come On Over, Turn Me On
I recently watched these two in the Union Chapel in London, a venue that swells with sound and clarity. This song from Sunday at Devil Dirt was the standout. Mark Lanegan's deep baritone grumbling offsets Isobel Campbell's fey whispery voice. His voice alone almost manages to physically move the PV1 subwoofer - a feat in itself



3. Nick Cave – Dig Lazarus Dig!!!
Nick Cave has always sounded wonderful through his chameleon career, and this tale of the depraved Lazarus' travels around the States is storytelling through music at its best.



2. Fleet Foxes - Mykonos
There are beautiful harmonies in this song, so reminiscent of Beach Boys, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, especially in the second half. And this track was not even on their eponymous album, which included many equally beautiful acoustic gems.



1. Portishead - The Rip
The reason why this is track of the year to me is that it encapsulates what music this year has been about, mixing genres, away from the moribund and stagnating guitar rock. What starts out as a lilting acoustic number with Beth Gibbon's forlorn vocals is essentially repeated chorus and verse but again in an electronic version that vibrates with passion. And both 'versions' sound excellent through speakers and headphones.


There we have it, you may agree, you may disagree, but this is just the personal viewpoint of someone who is passionate about sound, who would love to hear other top 10s that hopefully other B&W lovers will seek out to listen to.
Read more

The Fragmented Orchestra Pt II

Hello again.

I was in such a rush to get the Everton site installed yesterday that I didn't get a chance to properly explain the project to you. Whilst there will soon be a vast amount of information about the project on our website in the meantime here's a very short explanation:

The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge distributed musical structure modelled on the firing of the human brain's neurons. Twenty four sites around the UK are connected to each other to form a 'neural' network. The sonic information captured at these sites is transmitted over the Internet, causing other sites to 'fire'.

The collective composition can be heard at the central performance space at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) in Liverpool and simultaneously at the 24 sites, allowing the participant to hear their effect on the composition.

At the central performance space, at FACT in Liverpool, the composition will be performed through 24 Bowers and Wikins speakers that are suspended from the ceiling of Gallery 1. Each speaker derives it's source from one of the 24 sites.

The work is conceived and created by Nick Ryan, Jane Grant and John Matthias and is the winner of the PRS Foundation New Music Award 2008.

For the last month or so John, Jane and I have been travelling the length and breadth of the UK installing a 'soundbox' in each of the 24 sites. The boxes are responsible for the capture, transmission and playback of sound captured at each and every site.( I'll be posting an entry about some of the technology involved in our site equipment at a later date).

We now have all sites installed and up and running live. I installed Everton yesterday and popped into FACT briefly to check out how the build of the performance space in gallery 1 was progressing. It was all very exciting to see the 24 speakers suspended from the roof.

I returned to London last night to resolve some issues with the connection at 2 sites and I'm currently on a train back to Liverpool to continue work on the gallery - lots to do before the launch tomorrow night! The team at FACT gave been working over night so I'm looking forward to seeing the gallery again later on....

Nick Ryan
Read more

A class in sonic appreciation

I blogged earlier about the Deep Listening roundtable conference in New York. You can now watch it here.
Chaired by Greg Calbi, the mastering engineer at legendary Sterling Sound, NY whose 70’s output alone includes classic albums by Springsteen (Born to Run), Lennon (Walls and Bridges) and Bowie (Young Americans) not to mention later work with The Ramones, Patti Smith and Talking Heads through to Paul Simon and Emmylou Harris – it is a fascinating class in sound appreciation.

In his introduction he touches on why sound is so important to him and why he thinks a lot of people today are missing out:

“This is the challenge in 2008, as more and more people especially young people are missing the opportunity to hear the potential of really high definition audio - distorted live concerts, MP3’s on ipods with earbuds, oversimplified sound from mini systems, musical junk food.
Listening in the modern way doesn’t mean musical experiences won’t be meaningful and wondrous but the door to their imaginations can be open wider. We must promote within our business a product which is truly state of the art, truly satisfying, geared to maximum sonic quality, not just portability, convenience and ease of purchase – which is where our entire business has been going for the last 5 -10 years.
Only by supporting and promoting new technologies – and in the case of vinyl, an old technology – will market forces provide them for us. So, we have to be the ones promoting this with our demand.”

Recommended listening for anyone who cares about how things sound. Read more

The Fragmented Orchestra

Hi. This is my first posting on Sound of Music. B&W have asked me to write a blog in the run up to the launch of The Fragmented Orchestra project.

The Fragmented Orchestra is a huge UK wide music project and winner of the PRSF new music award 2008.

B&W are generously sponsoring our central performance space in Liverpool with 24 of their finest loudspeakers!

You can read a detailed description of the project at http://www.thefragmentedorchestra.com/ and or watch a video here.
I'm currently in a cab on my way to install one of our soundboxes at Everton Football club in Liverpool.
I'll let you know how I get on.... Read more

Amazon MP3 finally launches in the UK

Amazon are now offering DRM-free MP3's on their UK site. Although it's nice to see a proper challenge to iTunes it would be nicer if they could offer a higher quality file - currently 256kps - (7digital offers 320kps which is marginally better) for their more discerning buyers.
Given the loyalty of Amazon's customerbase and the incredibly cheap prices they are currently showing, it will be interesting to see how iTunes react to this. Read more

Deep Listening - Free conference on Sound Quality in NY

If you care about sound quality and live in New York, you should really get to this free seminar at the Piloctetes Centre - Deep Listening: Why Audio Quality Matters. Something we discuss alot in our Lab podcasts.
It's on the 6th December.

I should add that if you can't get to NY you can watch it live on their website if you visit it during the event. The roundtable is scheduled to start at 2.30pm. Read more

Exclusive live Dengue Fever event

We were very lucky to be able to attend an invitation-only evening at Real World Studios last week along with some B&W Music Club members who had won invites.
After drinks in the wooden studio, Peter Gabriel introduced the extraordinary West Coast psychedelic/Cambodian pop hybrid that is Dengue Fever in the glass fronted large studio.

The sound was exactly as it should have been - loud but really warm and clear. The event was recorded (and filmed in 3D!) and we're hoping some of the material will end up on their B&W Music Club album due early next year.

We'll be offering more chances to attend events and live concerts to B&W Music Club members throughout next year. Read more

Kind of Blue - again

Creative Review have featured some lovely examples of new music packaging in one of their recent blogs.

One of the interesting results of the prevalence of digital music has been the renewed interest in the high end reissues and packaging of vinyl. The media focus on Radiohead's innovative marketing campaign for In Rainbows was mainly about who did or didn't pay but more interesting is the number of deluxe versions they were able to sell after the furore had died down.

If packaging continues to be this innovative and thoughtful then there will clearly be room for high end products as well as free downloads.
The 50th anniversary reissue of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue - which includes a 5.1 mix, vinyl, a book, outtakes and a documentary - though a lovely package, is the 8th reissue of this classic album since 1984 and would have benefited from a free download option too. Read more

Preparing for Skellig – Tod Machover (MIT Professor and Society of Sound Fellow)

I’m in Newcastle-on-Tyne right now, in the final stage of rehearsals for my Skellig opera which premieres here at the Sage Gateshead next Monday and runs from November 24-29.
Newcastle is a lot smaller than Boston, where I live, but it has a familiar feel of an East-West running river that empties into the ocean with two contrasting cities on each bank (Newcastle/Gateshead, Boston/Cambridge), and blasts of wind from the sea that cause the weather to change often, the sky to be dazzlingly blue when the weather is nice, and one to be almost blown off the street and into the river when the weather isn’t so nice.

Skellig is a bit of an unusual project (as – I guess – most of mine tend to be)



because it is an opera created for a non-opera house. It is by far the largest project that the Sage – a spectacular music complex designed by Norman Foster that opened in 2004 - has mounted. This means that we are stretching the Sage’s production capacity (augmented by an army of audio and theatrical consultants, as well as two fantastic students of mine from the MIT Media Lab) to the limits, and also that I’ve had to think about creating a piece that immediately appeals to almost anyone – since there is no obvious “opera” audience here, and since much of the audience will not likely know much or anything about my previous work – while retaining all the qualities that make my music, well…..mine!

It both helps and is slightly scary that the opera is based on David Almond’s very popular (especially with tweens and teens) novel: helpful because many people know the brand and the story, scary for the same reasons – while composing the opera I kept imagining lovers being bent out of shape by what I had done with 'their story'. It’s that kind of book.
But as everything takes shape – yesterday was our first rehearsal with singers, orchestra and electronics together – I am increasingly confident that the piece just might work on these various levels. It was just thrilling to hear the music well up into physical space that had been only trapped in my head for the past year or so. The melodies and the overall flow seem to carry people along, and there is plenty of complexity and craziness – especially in the hybrid audio textures combining acoustics and electronics, and both real and “musical” sounds – to interest those who listen below the surface.

I am especially pleased with how the teenage chorus is rising to the task. Since Skellig is a coming-of-age story about a young boy and girl (age ca. 13) – admittedly stranger than it sounds, since they meet a decrepit homeless person who turns out to be an angel! – I decided to recruit an untrained group of teens for each production, to sing alongside some of the world’s top professional singers, and along with the excellent Northern Sinfonia orchestra and plenty of electronics. Most of these teens can’t read music, but they’ve been working for months to learn the opera’s sounds, melodies, harmonies and movements – often aided by an “audio score” which guides them while they sing – and yesterday really showed their stuff. We did the first run-through of the opera with all forces together, and in spite of absolutely brilliant and moving performances by each of our principals, the chorus literally blew everyone away. They made creepy sounds of insects, birds, wind and “the world”, morphed from background to foreground with great ease, and sang their big musical numbers with lovely sound and intense passion that soared above the orchestra and conveyed all the emotions that I had intended. The fact that we were able to interest and train such a group of non-professional young people and to integrate them into such a high-level production, confirms my deep conviction that music must be for everyone and anyone, and that all can participate to powerful effect given the right context and the right tools.
Read more

Young Musician of the Year Finalist exclusive recording

We were looking for a classical artist to be represented in our B&W Music Club and a senior engineer at Abbey Road suggested young pianist Benjamin Grosvenor.
Having won the Keyboard Final of the BBC young Musician of the Year in 2004 age eleven, Benjamin has been growing steadily in stature with two documentaries and a number of critical acclaimed appearances at Carnegie Hall, The Barbican and the Royal Albert Hall amongst others under his belt.

He signed a development deal with EMI but up until now had yet to record anything. Usually all our Music Club albums are recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World but Benjamin wanted a different kind of space and settled on the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin school. There he has recorded a beautifully judged selection of music including Chopin, Brahms and Kapustin exclusively for us. Listening to the recording here, it’s hard to believe that a sixteen year old can play with such poise and confidence.

Available for one month from the 21st November, this is an exceptional album and one we’re very proud to have commissioned.

Read more

Music With Everything?

There's an interesting debate on Music Tank at the moment on the perennial question of how we should be delivering new music.

Celestial jukeboxes, Nokia’s Comes With Music – it all gives me an overwhelming sense of inertia. Rather than discovering a wealth of new music to love and cherish I end up with option paralysis. The more choice we’re offered the less choice I feel I have.
How would I decide which of my instantly accessible 3 million songs to listen to first?

The focus always seems to be on the volume of music offered rather than the quality –if I thought the music had been chosen with some thought and made available as a decent file size it would be far more attractive but as it is, there’s too much of it with such varying quality that I don’t want any of it.

If you’ve ever been to an Eat All You Can buffet in Las Vegas, you’ll know how I feel. Read more

Tod Machover - The Future of Music

Tod Machover: cutting edge composer, a Professor of Music and Media at MIT’s renowned Media Lab and a Fellow of B&W’s Society of Sound. Tod is in the UK in November for two exciting events: a lecture in London on the Future of Music and the premier of his new opera Skellig at The Sage Gateshead.The keynote address takes place at the Royal Society of Arts on 11th November, and while admission is free it’s important to book your place in advance. Tod will discuss the boom in user-created content and even the phenomenon that is Guitar Hero.

Email lectures@rsa.org.uk to book your place.The 24th of the month sees the premier of Tod’s opera Skellig. Based on the book by David Almond, who wrote the libretto, Skellig tells the mysterious story of a world-weary angel who regains his wings through the care and belief of two young people.

Performances are on Monday 24th, Tuesday 25th, Thursday 27th, Friday 28th and Saturday 29th November at 7pm. Tickets are £19.50 or £5 for under 19s, seniors £2 off and students half price – to find out more or book online at www.thesagegateshead.org/skellig or call 0191 443 4661. Read more

Isn't it heartening when the Mercury Award winning album gets me a Turn Me Up thumbs up?

Listening to Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid, the Mercury Prize winning-album the other day, and nonchalantly reading the insert that comes with it, it was heartening to see had the following declaration in there:

"Turn Me Up!™ To preserve the excitement, emotion and dynamics of the original performances this record is intentionally quieter than some. For full enjoyment simply Turn Me Up!"



It's evident through the album, especially on the opening track 'Starlings', which has a classic quiet-loud-quiet moment, that this is an artist who clearly appreciates the complexities of music making. I also suggest listening to his radio show on BBC 6Music if you wish to find out about similar artists, new as well as old. It's a hidden secret in the listening schedules that now needs to be shared more. Read more