The Download Munkey : Download This, Download That :)

For those that still confuse Euro-house with proper techno, this post is really not for you

Check out this 1:40 min video clip edited from video footage taken during Japanese DJ Takuya Kashiwada’s two hour set at the Under Water Bar Praha (Niigata) on 03 Nov 2007. I think it perfectly sums up the reasons why I still love techno after listening to this genre since 2000 (although the current minimal craze is slightly distressing )

First track played is fellow Japanese producer Takaaki Itoh’s Shadow Play, followed by Hideyuki Eto’s Permutations and finally two copies of Studio 1’s old skool minimal track Green.

The fact that multiple techno tracks can usually be layered on top of each other coupled with the genre’s suitabilty for turntable and mixer trickery sets it apart from most other electronic music genres which tend to favour either fluid mixing or turntable antics but seldom both (with the exception of perhaps drum n’ bass e.g DJs like DJ Hype)

The full 2 hour set by Takuya Kashiwada which spans multiple genres of techno can be downloaded from Japanese techno/house label Asian Dynasty’s site which happens to be the very same label that homegrown electronic music producers/DJs Angela Flame and Case Woo release their tracks on. Check out the tracklist which includes tracks like Damon Wild’s Avion, Ian O’Brien’s melodic Jarrett’s Blues, Octave One’s lush Detroit classic Blackwater, Fumiya Tanaka’s percussive Talking Drums and of course, Takaaki Itoh’s Shadow Play and Studio 1’s Green.

His earlier 40 Tracks Abuse Mix from 2004 which is also downloadable from Asian Dynasty contains even more funky minimalistic techno - especially the final track : Captain Funk’s O.Y.M.

Also check out the other newer mixes on Asian Dynasty, my firm favourites being Dualtek’s energetic set at the massive Awakenings 2007 festival in Amsterdam and Toshihiro Komine’s digitally mixed house/electro/techno set at Tokyo’s Womb club. Notable tracks in the latter mix include Kei Kohara’s uplifting house track Anklet remixed by Yasu.exe from the Heavenly Reworks EP (below) and Locutus’s shuffling Datch Dragon

© Asian Dynasty

If I’m correct, the artwork for the Heavenly Reworks EP was done by Roy Gerritsen of Boompje Studios who has designed several of the sleeve artworks for Asian Dynasty’s releases such as the Perfect Strangers EP. (below)

© Asian Dynasty

Download Takuya Kashiwada’s Under Water Bar Praha set, other mixes or check out Asian Dynasty releases on Beatport and Juno Records.

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
MP3 Samples of Some Older Electronic Music Faves @ Juno Records
Resident Advisor Podcasts - Quality Electronic Music Mixes
Make Your Own Tracks with Orange Mixer
Saiko Electronic Music Generator
Ken Ishii - Extra MV @ YouTube

YouTube is a pretty nice site to find and listen to songs that you can’t buy from shops like the excellent Canon Rock arranged by Jerry C and performed by Jeong-Hyun Lim aka funtwo a couple of years back. Being the usual slowcoach, I only discovered it a few weeks ago

It’s all fine when you have internet access to listen to songs like these, but what if you want to listen to them on an MP3 player on the way to work?

Convert them to MP3s of course Here’s how:

1. In YouTube, copy the URL link on the video page.

   

2. Go to www.videodl.org, paste the link we copied in step 1 and click Get It!

   

3. Wait for a while and a Download Link will appear. If the page does not display the Download Link, refresh the page and click on the Get It! link again.

   

4. Right click and choose Save Target As … to save the file somewhere you can remember because this YouTube file contains the MP3 that we want. Remember to rename it as xxx.flv.
5. Download eRightSoft’s Super transcoder (Windows only). Look for a link labelled Download and Use and scroll all the way to the bottom on the next page to download the 25+ MB installer.
6. After installing Super, start it and you should see a screen like the one below.

   

7. The settings should be as follows:
   • Select MP3 from the dropdown list for the Output Container
   • * VERY IMPORTANT * - ensure that DirectShow Encode is NOT checked. Flash video which is the format that YouTube uses to store video, cannot be decoded by DirectShow, that’s why this has to be off.
   • At the blue Audio section, the default settings are set to 44100 Khz, 128 kbps, Stereo ala CD quality audio. You can change these settings but remember that the output quality is dependent on the original audio source in the YouTube video.

8. Right click anywhere in Super to display the menu and click on Output File Saving Management to select the output directory for your brand new MP3.

   

9. To extract the audio in our YouTube video to MP3s, right click again to display the menu, click on Add Multimedia Files and select the YouTube video we saved in step 4.
10. Click on Encode (Active Files) at the bottom and enjoy!

BTW, correct me if I’m wrong but ripping copyrighted songs from YouTube is considered illegal in most places. Use the above info at your own discretion

MORE @ THE DOWNLOAD MUNKEY:
BestPractice 1.01 - Speed Up or Slow Down Audio
MediaCoder - Alternative Media Transcoder
Downloading Movie Trailers from Apple Trailers (I)
Downloading Movie Trailers from Apple Trailers (II)

A visual feast for fans of Japanese animation. Very quirky (and old) music video for Japanese techno artist Ken Ishii for the whirring, bleepy track “Extra” released in 1995.

Directed by Koji Morimoto (credits include Akira, Macross Plus, Animatrix), the video won the best dance music video at MTV Europe 1995.

Here’s a link to a recent post @ A Visual Gallery of Sorts which reminded me of the MV in the first place. YouTube link included at the above site, of course

For more “Extra” goodness, check out www.kojimorimoto.net for additional concepts and artwork for this particular MV.

Some screen captures from an MPEG2 version of the video I unearthed from my harddisk - no idea where I got it from though. Thankfully, the YouTube version doesn’t have the seizure-inducing flashing of the MPEG2 version

No points for guessing for which artist this MV is for

Weird character No. 1

Virtual reality

Product placement for Sony TV?

Blood flows rather freely in this video

More weird characters

Yep, I know this is very old news for many because I found it while clearing stuff in my harddisks but for the benefit of the remaining 5 people on Earth who still haven’t seen this advertisement at YouTube, it’s time to celebrate every little good thing in life with Thailand’s Cheers Beer.

© Cheers Beer

Woo Hoo! It’s Friday today. Cheers!

Tokyo Confidential is a short documentary-like film on the more quirky aspects of Japanese modern culture. I watched it at the Substation in Dec 2005 during the Panasonic-MDA Digital Film Fiesta 2005. The film itself has been uploaded to YouTube (where else?) by the director/producer/cameraman himself, Anthony Koithra, so there shouldn’t be any issues with copyright and IP stuff.

Anyway, the film is 13:05 minutes long and for those who are only interested in the highlights of this film, check out this part on Japanese vehicle modding scene from 2 mins to 4mins. The modifications they do to their vans have to be seen to be believed

What Batman would probably drive in Japan

9:30 mins into the film, you can get a glimpse of really fresh sushi prepared by a very entertaining and skilful sushi chef at Sushizanmai Restaurant in the Tokyo’s Tsukijishijo District.

The Japanese definition of ‘Fresh’

For photos of the real sushi, check out The Travelling Hungryboy.

It’s a pity that picture quality of the film is quite low due to the conversion to Flash Video so don’t miss it if you have a chance to view the actual video.