The .ogg in Spain falls mainly on the data disc

whoa whoa, codeblooded back in new york. Already? strange. Also, as soon as I got back, that feeling came creeping back - shouldn't you be doing something all the time?? I tried to step back and pace myself, which came in the form of reading the Sunday Times at the pub, and the name "happy hour" started to make a lot more sense.


Taking it easy is a time honored tradition or Europe, some countries more than others, but I had the pleasure of casually strolling about Barcelona (very slowly) for a few days during some continental travels just before my return to the USA. After sitting in a cafe writing and sipping coffee, just across the idyllic plaza, I moseyed into the CCCB (Centre de Cultura Contemporania do Barcelona) and into the last day of one of the March edition of their series of NOW events.

The group that most interested me was Platoniq, and I spoke with them (in broken Spanish and english) about some of the new media projects they were working on. In this case it was music related stuff that caught my eye.


Burn.fm is a radio/streaming project they have been working on, and were giving live demonstrations about how to upload or stream one's own content and create a show. As I understood, burn.fm functions as an online radio station, with its programs being broadcast internationally. Users can sign up for a weekly time slot to broadcast their own material, either streaming it live using the burn.fm software, or uploading it to their server ahead of time. As they say "BURN.FM combines an audioweblog which allows to publish playlists and comments, with live brodcasts."


Burn Station was the other project they had there as well - a mobile unit for public discovery and dissemination of independent, copyleft music. It has 3 user consoles that run on their custom music database software, organized by record label. The big ol' speakers mounted to the thing broadcast the live stream from burn.fm. Each console is navigated with a Playstation controller, which, while a bit difficult to get used to at first, really sold me on the project. With the commands of browsing folders, tracks, and adding songs to my playlist simplified to simple button actions, the whole process seemed a lot more accessible, and focused on churning a large number of folks through. Like the way anyone can pick up the sticks and play a bit of Street Fighter, it felt really easy to browse this huge database, quickly preview a number of songs, and then they burn you a disk of .ogg files of all the tracks you picked. As with burn.fm, most of the tunes in their database were from net-based electronic artists. Ranging from more dance stuff, to weird noise, minimal glitch, and some dub, but all solidly electronic. The guys running the project expressed that in the future they certainly want to have many other kinds of music represented. At this point, the console's database is manually maintained by Platoniq, but they were talking about a program that would allow for artists to upload to the server themselves, using forms that would make sure all relevant information gets in the right place and keeps the database up-to-date and full of variety.

But it was a great way to quickly learn about the sound of a label by previewing a number of their artists and getting to go home 15 minutes later with a data CD full of their stuff. The best part is that Platoniq developed burn station as a mobile public unit, something that could travel anywhere, public events, concerts, street fairs, protests, and function on a simple enough program and interface that language would be no barrier. Its already a fantastic way for independent and net-based musicians to get exposure, and will get better - they even showed me plans for a smaller unit that would fit on the back of a moped.
Check their travel plans to see when the Burn Station will come to a city near you.



On a related note, check out the Music Blackhole project by my man Jamie Dubs, the guy also behind the WNYU archives, and apparently a number of newly launched websites. Always up on his music projects. And I got him the job at Eyebeam (hah!).