I posted this on the rM community - reposting here. Comment there or here - fine with me! (I have already responded to a question over there so you might want to pop over there for a sec...)
http://relaxedmachinery.ning.com/profiles/blogs/kinetoscope-five-001-musings-on-music-todayI thought I'd relaunch my 'kinetoscope' series of blogs and post one now and then. This blog is primarily about music, either current, future, or past experiences.

Interesting times with music and the internet lately. Of course, everyone had noticed this... but the barrier to release is pretty much zero now. You don't have to go through 'gatekeeper' labels to get your music out there. Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Youtube, Vimeo, CD Baby, Tunecore, Netlabels, and Achive.org all provide many easy outlets, either free, freemium, or cost based models.
The bar is so many rungs lower, we really couldn't have a limbo party.
I think this is great. Technology and people have provided the ideas to new distribution models. Listeners have shifted in droves to listening on ipods and now the shift to the cloud is in massive swing.
The only downside, and it's a small downside compared to the ability for anyone with the drive to go do it to make it happen... is there is no longer a clear path to getting heard by a lot of people. There are so many paths up the mountain, and so many people making that climb - that it's easy to get lost in the avalanche of artists and releases every day.
I think that's where labels come in to play now... a label can be the tastemaker, gate keeper, curator, whatever word you want to use. You pretty much know that a release on my label, Relaxed Machinery, is going to be ambient in one of ambient's many forms. You know Lotuspike, Hypnos, DataObscura, AD21, Groove, Timeroom, Feedback Loop, Earth Mantra, etc. etc. etc... they've created identies. By working with certain artist, having a vision...
Podcasts and reviewers and bloggers can all serve that same purpose... being curator, tastemaker, gate keeper... if you find someone's who's opinions you trust - they can be go to sources for who next to listen to. It's interesting how wonderful this world of music truly is now.
Before the internet... I was lucky to find 2 or 3 people locally who knew half the artists I love. Now you're all at my fingertips here on Relaxed Machinery Community - or the Hypnos Forum - or whereever...
Where are we heading... we have to be heading to better file quality. FLAC solves this - but it's not available on ipods which are the single largest portable player - and FLAC through the cloud I doubt is ready for primetime. I love to buy FLAC's because now I have a source file as good as CD - literally bit by bit as good as CD - and I can convert it to my ipod for easy listening at work - but hear the full audio spectrum at home in my studio.
Ok that's enough musing for today.
I look forward to your comments and questions - and thank you for indulging me!
John K-N
owner / artist
Relaxed Machinery - organic .: ambient
http://relaxedmachinery.com image: I took at Springdale Cemetery, Peoria, IL, USA - full image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johei/3949289628/#in/set-72157622317938639