matt

matt

Digital Music Collection

It seems almost silly to write about a music collection, but then I’m reminded that many people don’t have one — especially a digital one. Most folks listen to music from streaming services and rarely buy physical or digital music.…

If music was agriculture, the best songs would be giant pumpkins or prize tomatoes. Album cuts, potatoes and carrots. Tours would be the grain harvest.

Lowell, MA

I took the day off for jury duty and we got out early. It was a beautiful day, so I spent an hour or so walking around downtown Lowell.

Single-file URL Shortener

Recently I decided it would be fun to write a URL shortener. Something I can run on my domain to share shortened URLs that redirect to a longer one. (If you want to skip the blah-bidy-blah, here is the code.)

I finished reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell today. This book has a very unique nested structure, with six stories of completely different context, time and narrative style each unfolding to climax points in chronological order, then unraveling to completion…

Stereolab at Royale, Boston

Stereolab at Royale Boston

Although I’ve been listening to Stereolab pretty consistently since the 90s, I somehow never managed to see them live until now. I’ve always appreciated this band’s quirky song names, retro vibe, mesmerizing jams and vocal counterpoint.

Rae & Christian — Blazing The Crop

Rae & Christian - Sleepwalking cover

Several layers deep in a YouTube music surf, I ended up at this video about the Mutek electronic music festival in Montreal, which I’d never heard of. I definitely have to get to that. In the video, Hans Thomann picks…

Water From Your Eyes

Water From Your Eyes Live on YouTube video thumbnail

Water From Your Eyes is making some of the most interesting and original rock happening right now, though they amusingly refer to themselves as indie pop. The band just started touring their new album, It’s a Beautiful Place. Here they…

The Social Website

botanical sketch

What if personal websites could replace traditional social media networks as the primary vehicle for sharing content on the Internet?

Midi Sequencer in Python

I’ve always thought it would be cool to be able to compose music in code. There are some languages out there that do this, but I was more interested in direct midi programming than in a DSL for composing music.…