See also: https://edcyphers.com/2025/04/04/video-of-the-week-the-kiffness-hold-onto-my-fur-talking-cat-song/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2022/10/02/video-of-the-week-how-to-make-a-song-with-your-neighbours-cat/
Art is the music we make from the bewildered cry of being alive. ~Maria Popova
09 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: lonely cat, sometimes I'm alone, the kiffness
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2025/04/04/video-of-the-week-the-kiffness-hold-onto-my-fur-talking-cat-song/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2022/10/02/video-of-the-week-how-to-make-a-song-with-your-neighbours-cat/
09 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: argentina, modular, soledad rodriguez zubieta
(via Discogs) By Sam Tornow
Don’t call Soledad Rodríguez Zubieta a DJ. She prefers the term “Selector — a small, but important distinction.
The Argentine artist, entrepreneur, and influencer has built a career through careful, intentional curation. After earning a psychology degree from The University of Buenos Aires, she worked in radio at 95.9 FM, managed festival events, and founded Modular, a bespoke music curation company catering to brands, restaurants, and hotels around the world.
Behind the decks, she’s played internationally, performing in cities like New York, Miami, Madrid, and South America. If you’re outside Buenos Aires, you might know her from Instagram. As of publication, Zubieta, who uses the tag “SRZ” for most of her artistic work, has amassed 212,000 followers in just a few years of serious engagement.
Her curatorial eye extends to social media, where followers admire her mid-century modern listening room in a recently renovated 1920s, English-style home. The space has all the makings of eye candy — hundreds, perhaps thousands of records placed on custom-built block shelving, warm lamp lighting, a speaker visualizer, and the must-have for any vibey listening room — an Eames chair (she’s not afraid to admit it’s a replica, she’d rather spend the money on records.) In what appears to be a separate area of her home, there are 4,000-5,000 CDs beautifully cataloged along the length of a wall.
People aren’t just drawn to her space — Zubieta also serves as a go-to source for music discovery. She regularly shares album recommendations, curating selections under different themes. In one video, she highlights rising Brazilian artists like Pulma, Bruno Berle, Sessa, Ana Frango Elétrico, and Gabriel Da Rosa. In another, she spotlights essential Argentine indie records, including Silencio by Los Encargados, Flopa Manza Minimal by Flopa, Manza, Minimal, La Misma Tierra by Copiloto Pilato, and Sentidos Congelados by La Sobrecarga — her longtime white whale. “I found it by chance at a fair in a park, at a good price, and I even knew the seller, who gave me a discount. Absolute happiness when something like that happens.”
Curating comes naturally to her — it’s in her DNA. She has been obsessed with music for as long as she can remember, shaping her role as a tastemaker since childhood.
“I was the one making mixtapes for friends, always wanting to share music,” Zubieta said. “That’s the motivation behind what I do. I try to remember what first drove me — loving a song so much that I wanted others to feel the same way. It’s nice to keep that in mind because, in the end, that’s still what I do at work and on social media.”
Read more: https://www.discogs.com/digs/features/vinylogue-srz/
07 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: haku, mono no aware
The young Okinawan 4-piece girl group Haku set the internet on fire with a video of the band covering a song called “Mono No Aware”.
As the performance, which is essentially a string of tongue twisters in Japanese, was presumably recorded on a lark, there is (so far at least) no official release of the song by the band.
Since the video has become the addiction of viewers from Asia to Mexico and seemingly everywhere else, the inability of fans to satisfy their craving by downloading or adding the tune to a playlist is a perfect example of the concept of mono no aware, a term meaning “a sensitivity to ephemera” or “a Japanese concept that describes an awareness of impermanence and the beauty found in the fleeting nature of existence, often evoking a gentle sadness or wistfulness”.
For CD collectors (ahem) it’s enough to drive one crazy–or of course to develop one’s sense of mono no aware.
But in the absence of downloads or hard copies, the video is, as the kids say, “everything”.
06 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: my father's body, over the rhine
Over the Rhine: “My Father’s Body” (2014)
Blood Oranges in the Snow was the third holiday-themed release from prolific Ohio-based indie folk group Over the Rhine.
As so-called “Christmas music” goes, their homespun, thoughtful Americana–touching as it does only lightly at times on holiday themes–is as far from the Mariah Carey scene as one can get.
Refreshingly honest. Devastatingly real.
My father’s body lies beneath the snow
High on a hill in Holmes County, Ohio
From there you can look out across the fields
A farmer guides his horses home as day to darkness bends
And finally yieldsDad’s gravestone holds the words Be Still My Soul
A song we sang together long ago
And there were times we even shared one hymnbook
His right hand and my left hand side-by-side holding pages
Of musicBut now his hands hold nothing but the earth
Hands that held me moments after my birth
And so we must all finally surrender
As we release our grip upon whatever we hold dear
And call familiarMy father’s body lies beneath the snow
And I’m still learning how to let him go
I’ve come to know him better since he’s gone
And often wondered if or how I could’ve been a different
Better sonMy father’s body lies beneath the snow
Sometimes on Christmas Eve that’s where I go
I hear faint Christmas bells from far away
Ring out all the unspoken words I’ve never found within myself
To say
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2016/12/09/songs-you-may-have-missed-604/
05 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: badfinger, come and get it, paul mccartney, pete ham
05 Apr 2025 Leave a comment
in Recommended Albums Tags: ozomatli, street signs
Ozomatli: Street Signs (2004)
How can one describe LA-based Latin rock band Ozomatli to the uninitiated?
Not in a word or two.
They blend traditional Latin styles with modern rock, funk, jazz, hip-hop, reggae, salsa and, on this their third full-length album, North African and Middle Eastern sounds.
Oh, and the Prague Symphony.
It’s a lot. But it all amalgamates surprisingly well into a multicultural mix that really catches fire in a live setting.
This band can put across an anthemic English-language rock song, croon a hermosa balada en español, and throw a great dance party.
This is the sound of musical inclusivity.
Listen to: “Love and Hope”
Listen to: “(Who Discovered) America?”
Listen to: “Te Estoy Buscando”
Listen to: “Santiago”
Listen to: “Cuando Canto”
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2013/06/19/songs-you-may-have-missed-428/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2025/12/19/songs-you-may-have-missed-807/