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Michael Patrick Brady |
My review of the Canon Vixia HF100 digital camcorder was posted today at LAPTOP Magazine.
This is the first of several pieces I will be doing for LAPTOP, mostly focused on digital cameras and camcorders. I've been doing a lot of product reviews lately, both for LAPTOP and for Digital Camera HQ, and it has been a lot of fun playing with the gadgets.
My review of Vijay Iyer's Tragicomic ran today at PopMatters.
I was looking forward to this, having gotten taste of Iyer's work (and influences) from his (sadly now expired yet still helpful) mixtape contribution over at Destination: Out. Also, his saxophone player on this record is Rudresh Manhanthappa, who I found exceptional on Amir ElSaffar's Two Rivers.
Thankfully, Tragicomic lived up to my expectations.
My review of the self-titled Fern Knight album ran today at PopMatters.
Fern Knight bears many of the same themes as Margaret Wienk's previous work: the fairy-tale darkness of Seven Years of Severed Limbs, the wistful longing of Blithewold, and the folklore fantasy of Music for Witches and Alchemists. On those albums, however, she seemed to occupy a world of her own creation, a beautifully luminous storyland that gave organic life to her touching lyrics and musical imagery.
On Fern Knight, that's where the action begins, but for the first time Wienk moves into the real world, with a trilogy of songs about actual places, natural landmarks that serve as kind of a portal between her fantasy and our reality.
My feature, Digital Cameras for the Road, was published today at Forbes.com.
Hopefully people find it helpful as summer approaches and they begin to plan their vacations. I've put together a collection of cameras that will suit most everybody, from budget-minded casual shooters to high-end photophiles.
Today, the good people at ALARM Magazine saw fit to free my feature on violinist/composer Eyvind Kang from the confines of print and allow it to be disseminated on the web. You should still buy the magazine: lots of good content, plus some top-notch art direction.
I spoke to Mr. Kang way back in November, if I recall correctly, and the release of ALARM #30 led me to revisit both The Yelm Sessions which was the main topic of our conversation and Athlantis, his musical setting of the renaissance writings of Giordano Bruno.
My review of Svn Fngrs, the new mini-album from Black Francis, ran today at PopMatters.
I've been intermittently following the post-Pixies Frank Black solo career. Frankly, it's hard to keep up with his output. Usually when I hear one of his 21st century albums I wish he had taken a little more time with it to do some editing, some condensing of material.
Surely he could have made one excellent album using the best tracks from the merely good Black Letter Days and Devil's Workshop instead of simultaneously releasing three-albums worth of material on the same day. It's excessive!
A few of my Forbes.com articles have found new homes recently. "Sharpening Up Your New HDTV" is now featured at MSN.com. My international fame spreads further: Canada's Canoe.ca and The Globe and Mail have both snagged my most recent piece, "Playing to Win on HDTV." Perhaps most exciting is the appearance of "Top Deals on Digital Cameras" (or "Les meilleures affaires dans les appareils photos") at Le Figaro, one of France's daily newspapers. [04.16.08]
Update: "Playing to Win on HDTV" has now also been picked up by MSN.com and a few of my PopMatters reviews have been blurbed by the Maine's Sun Journal, KansasCity.com, Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader, and San Antonio's 210SA. [04.21.08]
Update: "Playing to Win on HDTV." has now been picked up by Yahoo! Video Games. The blurb of Black Francis' Svn Fngrs has gone on to be syndicated in a lot of places thanks to the McClatchy-Tribune Wire Service. [04.25.08]
ALARM Magazine #30 is now available on your local newsstand (it's true, I've seen it), and you should pick it up because it contains a very excellent feature I wrote on composer, violinist, and lover of renaissance literature Eyvind Kang. We mostly discussed his latest release on Tzadik, The Yelm Sessions; an avant-garde concoction of sublime strings and paranoid electronic squalls.
I've also got a review of The Balustrade Ensemble's Capsules pending for ALARM, keep an eye out for that. [04.15.08]
My latest article for Forbes.com, Playing To Win On HDTV, was published today.
In it, I tackle the question of whether or not it's worth it to invest in an HDTV that features game mode, and the answer is a resounding… maybe. Gaming lag is definitely a problem on some HDTVs, but with the right setup, the average video game player probably won't notice a significant problem.
Today, I received Vijay Iyer's Tragicomic (Sunnyside) and the new self-titled release from Fern Knight (VHF Records), which I will be reviewing for PopMatters. I'm extremely excited to listen to Fern Knight; I've been a fan of Margie Wienk's work since Seven Years of Severed Limbs and have had the pleasure of writing about each of her releases since. She's an exceptional songwriter and hopefully the new album will bring her added exposure and renown. Check out the interview I did with Margie for Paste back when her last album came out. [04.06.08]
An assortment of features and articles on HDTV, Digital Cameras, and Camcorders that I've written for various publications.
I'm a Boston-based writer and editor, currently contributing to Forbes.com (Technology), PopMatters (Books + Music), and ALARM (Music). You can find my resume here, and my full list of published works here.
