Here are some things I've found or been playing around with recently. Hope you enjoy!
I've been getting into synths recently. Although a real synth will forever be out of my budget I've been enjoying tinkering with my virtual synths.
The youtube channel Captain Pikant has a series on the history of various synths, so far only 4 but they are great watches. Their episode on the 303 sent be down an acid house rabbit hole (foreshaddowing). I really love the sound of the 303, just the perfect squeltch!
Charanjit Singh is an Indian session musician who was active from the 60s to his passing in 2015. He played a range of instruments such as guitar and synth. He was involved in the sound track of many bollywood films. He is also known as the god father of acid house 1. Dispite this reputation he seemed very modest about it all in interviews 2.
Bhairav from his album "Ten ragas to a disco beat" was the first I heard of him. It was one of the example songs used in the Pikant 303 video. It's undeniable groove really pulled me in. The sound pallete avoids sounding corny, due to great layering of evolving sounds and use of panning to make it feel like a world more than some machines booping together. The previlent rising and falling slides in the melody give it a feeling of flow that entranes you. From what I understand slides are an integral and required part of playing ragas, many of which require them when playing the raag. I'm keen to learn more about ragas and their influence on British music as it's something I know little about.
The rest of Ten ragas to a disco beat is equally entrancing. So much in sound design, melody writing, and hisory can be learnt from this album alone. It was orignially released in 1981 but was given a 2010 rerelease. For some reason spotify has deemed it a compelation album from 2004?? even Singhs name has been removed from the album art. Not sure what has gone on there. Either way, it's a great, ground breaking album that deserves to be remembered.
I later learnt that a band I love "Glass Beams" covered Bhairav. They absolutely killed it. You're doing yourself a disservice if you dont check it out IT'S SO GOOD!
Shifting gears somewhat, Google being a mess at the momemnt with AI, sponsered listing for random stuff, and generally not being great for privacy, I've wanted to get away from that and towards non-google based services. To this end I have started using Qwant.
Qwant is a french search engine that is largely based on Bing. According to grumpy redditors it's basically a proxy for Bing searches. Its buissness model is based around adverts however, as no user data is stored (apparently) the ads are contextual rather than personalised. These ads so far have not been too invasive except for a few searches where they dominated the top spots. Searching a country is the biggest offender of this, likely due to a partnership with Trip Advisor of all things.
Overall though my first experiences have been positive with Qwant. It feels like a step in the right direction away from Google. I can see myself swapping to another search engine, potentially one that is paid for like Kagi since it avoids many of by biggest gripes. That would take a better salary than I'm currently on and so I may be with Qwant for a little while.