Big thanks to Ivan for putting the effort into soliciting and compiling the material from his readership. And thanks, especially, for picking my stuff for volume one. Congratulation to all the other producers, too.

More info and download:
http://www.hiphopisread.com/2010/06/beat-tape-volume-1.html

Best Albums

The XX — XX
Thanks to my friend, Tony, who first mentioned this band to me. The XX are a young bunch who make lean pop music consisting of boy/girl vocals, hand-played drum machines and perfectly placed guitar lines. This album quickly became a habit.
The XX — Islands: Download audio file (XX_Islands.mp3)
The XX — Night Time: Download audio file (XX_NightTime.mp3)
The XX — VCR: Download audio file (XX_VCR.mp3)

Mos Def — The Ecstatic
Mos Def has never quite delivered a studio album to match his great cameos and collaborations. There are no radio-worthy hits here, but this is his most consistently interesting album in years. The combo of Mos Def with Madlib is very very satisfying.
Mos Def — Auditorium ft. Slick Rick: Download audio file (MosDef_Auditorium.mp3)
Mos Def — Revelations: Download audio file (MosDef_Revelations.mp3)

King Midas Sound — Waiting for You
At the meeting point of dubstep and Lovers Rock this full-length from King Midas Sound expands on the ideas put forth on their handful of singles. Atmospheric yet heavy. The weight of the bass lends physicality to each track, anchoring down the gently floating falsetto.
King Midas Sound — Cool Out: Download audio file (KingMidasSound_CoolOut.mp3)
King Midas Sound — Dahlin': Download audio file (KingMidasSound_Dahlin.mp3)

Tim Hecker — An Imaginary Country
Masterful ambient drone texture explorations. Perfect balance of gentle and abrasive sonic timbres. This work manages to seem empty and emotional simultaneously.
Tim Hecker — The Inner Shore: Download audio file (TimHecker_TheInnerShore.mp3)

Tortoise — Beacons of Ancestorship
"Post-rock" stalwarts Tortoise expanded their sound once again while retaining their core strength of polyrhythmic elasticity. Tortoise came fuzzier in 2009.
Tortoise — High Class Slim Came Floatin' In: Download audio file (Tortoise_HighClassSlim.mp3)
Tortoise — Northern Something: Download audio file (Tortoise_NorthernSomething.mp3)

The Flaming Lips — Embryonic
The Flaming Lips also came fuzzier in 2009. Gritty, overdriven drum sounds gave a low rent haze to the album. Sounding almost like a rehearsal tape sometimes, Embryonic reminded me of Six Finger Satellite circa Severe Exposure and Miles Davis' Bitches Brew with a dash of Can's Tago Mago or early Pink Floyd. But buried in the fuzz is Wayne Coyne's dreamy earnestness which floats up out of the muck to hook your heart and keep you afloat.
The Flaming Lips — The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine: Download audio file (FlamingLips_TheSparrowLooksUp.mp3)

Father Divine — Requiem for Intellect
Here's what I wrote in my amazon review:

Disclosure: I played in a band with Joe Ferrara from 1992–1995.

My friendship with the singer/songwriter/creative force behind Father Divine may indicate potential bias to some, but I think the association is far enough in the past to give me some critical distance.

The music of Requiem for Intellect is a significant step forward from Great American Pastime. While still stylistically recognizable as the same musical mind at work, there is added textural and rhythmic density in the new music. And it gets heavy when it needs to.

This is music informed by everything from Big Black to Dazzlingkillmen to 90s downtown NYC jazz skronk. And yet, melody still stands front-and-center. Intelligent, unpredictable, unconventional, challenging. But these are SONGS.

The album is sonically fantastic, as well. The guitar tones are especially noteworthy. I bought the mp3s so I am missing out on some fidelity but there is a great level of detail to the production and mixing that really lends the songs depth and layers without getting in the way.

Bravo, padre.

Father Divine — Idyll for a Botched Frontier: Download audio file (FatherDivine_IdyllForABotchedFrontier.mp3)
Father Divine — Vox Lupine: Download audio file (FatherDivine_VoxLupine.mp3)
Father Divine — Don't Know Mind (It Means Nothing): Download audio file (FatherDivine_DontKnowMind.mp3)

Shlomo — Shlomoshun
Yes, yet another apple fallen from the Dilla tree… reminds me of Flying Lotus, Samiyam, Ras G, etc. but I went back to this more than I went back to Nosaj Thing's album. Not groundbreaking, I'll admit, but I like the songs.
Shlomo — Ghosts: Download audio file (Shlomo_Ghosts.mp3)
Shlomo — Hot Boxing the Cockpit: Download audio file (Shlomo_HotBoxingTheCockpit.mp3)

Grizzly Bear — Veckatimest
I didn't pay much attention to this band before this year, but my ears have been opened. Lush arrangements, interesting vocal harmonies, unusual chord changes… this is like pop music played by a progressive rock band. Slightly psychedelic at times, but decidedly poppy always. Quite enjoyable.
Grizzly Bear — Two Weeks: Download audio file (GrizzlyBear_TwoWeeks.mp3)

Mika Vainio — Vandal
Itchy pounding electronics from Mika Vainio. More akin to Pan Sonic than to his other solo releases.
Mika Vainio — Teutons: Download audio file (Vainio_Teutons.mp3)

Best Compilation

5: 5 Years of Hyperdub
A five year retrospective release from Kode9's Hyperdub label. This double album contains one album of past releases and one album of new material. A new track from Burial is a highlight, but there is great music across the whole collection.
Burial — Fostercare: Download audio file (Burial_Fostercare.mp3)
L.V. — Turn Away: Download audio file (LV_TurnAway.mp3)

Best Mixtapes

Wiley — Race Against Time
"The most unusual star on the planet…" continues to hold my fascination. I am not very fond of the clubby songs, but a few of these tracks are jawdroppers for their sheer lyrical density.
Wiley — Off the Radar: Download audio file (Wiley_OffTheRadar.mp3)
Wiley — Hummer Activity: Download audio file (Wiley_HummerActivity.mp3)

The Niyat — Raxus Prime
Snap — Snappage Volume 1
Two mixtapes from Houston-based rappers. Snap is a part of The Niyat, so there is some overlap of material. There is some outstanding stuff in here that warrants further exploration.
Download Raxus Prime
Download Snappage Volume 1
The Niyat — Aintcha: Download audio file (Niyat_Aintcha.mp3)
Snap — Fly Away: Download audio file (Snap_FlyAway.mp3)
Snap — Vulgar Spit: Download audio file (Snap_VulgarSpit.mp3)

Not a problem with jQuery, EXCEPT that my table rows were being added with 'style="display:block"'.

What's wrong with that, you ask? Well, in Firefox the row was being appended to the table but it looked all scrunched into the first cell like so:

OK, fine. Let's give it a display property of "table-row." That should work, right? Yes, it works here but not in IE. IE hates this, in fact. IE wants to get a display of "block."

The solution turns out to be to set the display value to an empty string. Then, each browser will give the row its default value and everyone is happy.

source: http://cormacscode.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/show-hide-table-row-in-firefox-versus-ie/

I have prepared a trimmed down mix, without the backsells, PSAs and station IDs. Instead of a rambling 2 hour program, I have condensed things to about 40 minutes.

Hope you enjoy it. Tracklisting after the jump.

stream: Download audio file (halloween_mix_2009.mp3)
download: halloween_mix_2009.mp3 (54.15MB)

Tracklisting:

1. The Heidnick Maneouvre — Steroid Maximus
2. I Will Never Leave You — Third Sight
3. Black Sabbath — Snares
4. Night Vision — Distance
5. Tortured — Coki
6. Horror Show — Loefah
7. Know — Tech Itch
8. 7th Curse — Headhunter
9. Punisher (Loefah's SE25 Remix) — Pinch
10. Honour Kill — Luke Envoy
11. War in the Making — Broken Note
12. Filth — Skream
13. Implant — Tech Itch
14. Blood On My Hands — Shackleton
15. Ecstasy in Slow Motion — Spacemen 3

I have been a Google Reader for a good while now and I think it is a very fine web application. It does what I expect it to do and it does it well. It is utilitarian. It is useful. I use it daily.

But now, I find it even more enjoyable to use. Two greasemonkey scripts have turned my standard Reader interface into something beautiful and even more useable (imho).

Behold:
Helvetireader
+
Favicons for Google Reader

There are even instructions for using the scripts with Fluid. If you are not familiar with Fluid, it is a utility for creating site-specific browsers based on Safari (WebKit). Get familiar. You'll like it.

So go, make your Reader prettier (and subscribe to this blog's feed).

I used to search for this song at every record store I visited from around 1996–2000. It was not a new song at the time, but I really wanted it on 7-inch. Amoeba Records in San Francisco had a corner filled with shelves which were filled with long boxes of Jamaican singles and I would flip blindly through those records, not really knowing much about most of them.

I never found the record.

But today I stumbled on the song again in mp3 form! An old old itch has finally been scratched.

Simpleton — Coca Cola Shape
Download audio file (Simpleton_CocaColaShape.mp3)

My minidisc recorder had a battery leak and now it is broken.

If you plan on storing something for a while, remove the battery before placing in storage.

RTFM, my friends. RTFM. And, also, follow your own advice.

Dubstepforum Underground Producers Mix by Bronta Scorpio
http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=1221461&highlight=#1221461

Apparently, Photoshop's inability to save PNG-8 with alpha transparency is not a limitation of PNG-8 but a limitation in Photoshop.

For years, I have been operating under the assumption that I need to use PNG-24 to achieve transparency effects in my web projects. This is usually a compromise in terms of file size and browser compatibility (requiring ie-specific hacks). But it doesn't have to be…

[Enter Fireworks]

Fireworks to the rescue:

• Open your big Photoshop-exported PNG-24 with nice alpha transparency in Fireworks.
• Change the file format to PNG-8.
• Change the transparency option to "alpha transparency"
• Rebuild and export your PNG-8
• Revel in the MUCH smaller file size

Bonus points for ie6 compatibility!

Learned this from Brenelz's screencast which was linked on NetTuts

Though it's not best practice to resize images in the browser this could really be useful in the right situation:

 
img { -ms-interpolation-mode: bicubic; }
 

This little snippet will vastly improve the image resizing abilities of ie — bringing it closer to the resized image quality experienced with Firefox or Safari.

example

[seen at devthought via css-tricks]