Mars 500

I think we'll miss the deadline for this 'crew', but I reckon a copy of Superheroes of Space would provide great consolation and worthy distraction for these claustrophobia junkies:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7966731.stm

Under the Radar

When did the new logo go up? I've only just noticed it - another work of magic. I'm disappointed there isn't a Stephen Hawking silhouette in the orbit though ...






Hi Nick, thought I'd edit your post to let you see your idea...

Not really doing it for me (although looks more like Dr Strangelove). The original is way better - love the use of negative to fit the alien onto saturn TT. Very pleasing!

G

41 IML tracks

Science (13) + Sea (13) + Space (15) = 41 tracks!

That's immense. Bands have put out 'best ofs' on less. All in the space of a year too.

Still working on the Vincent Price impression. I am practicing on the way to work. Passers by must think I'm possessed.

Maybe I am.


Vince

Junk Holes and Space Hands

Barney's backing-track subject 'Space-Junk' couldn't be more relevant to all the crazy shit happening in orbit right now. That boy's got his finger on the pulse! If you haven't heard, the ridiculous International Space Platform (ISP) has been all but immobilized by a tiny piece of orbital flotsam - requiring teams of astronauts to perform dangerous and expensive space walks to repair damaged flaps. No doubt they'll need to be rescued by the Russians as usual, in their 1950s-era Soyuz spacecraft. But perhaps the Canadians have found an alternative to super-costly astronaut mechanics...

For my solo IML entry, I've been given Jim's fabulous backing track, the subject of which is DEXTRE - a Canadian robot hand, designed specifically as a remote maintainance droid for the ailing ISP. Check him out...

...hopefully, DEXTRE will be the first of a generation of space robots that replace humans and do a better job of exploring space.

gig. done. must. write. lyrics.

Just started work on my space track, a very contemporary slice of 'spacehousepop' from Dan G. Think I'm going lite this time, it seems appropriate after taking my last 2 IML tracks very seriously. The plan so far is to have some rap verses (in the style of King Tim 3rd ), a chorus sung by robots and a Vincent Price middle 8. I hope Dan won't mind.

The world of music doesn't have enough Vincent Price middle 8s and its time to add one more. Sure, he's dead, but who isn't these days? I guess this decision must, in some way, be influenced by my toying with the idea of watching a Michael Jackson show at the O2. At least, I was toying with it until my wife declared 'You 're not spending a hundred quid to watch a paedophile dance' and I guess, put like that, she probably has a point.


Shamon

Write your lyrics you bloody bastards

That was said in the spirit of Tim Dalton a la Flash Gordon. I'm not sure he ever said that but there you go,. Anyway for Dan W's excellent Record Time IV project I built a lyric writing machine. It's great, and you should try using it whilst writing lyrics for Superheroes of Space. It's called iLyricise because unless it's got an i in front of it, it isn't modern or online. Go and play with it

I've tapped "Laika" into it for the purposes of writing about ... Laika. In short iLyricise condenses a Wikipedia article about any subject into a list of words, ranked by how rarely those words appear in that article. What more can you want? What? What? Good night.

James Spader Is All Over Me

I don't know how he does it. I'll spend three months avoiding James Spader and then he'll suddenly pop up somewhere unexpected, usually late at night in some high art/soft porn cine-flick, or he'll send one of his clones out onto the street so that I think I've glimpsed him near Woolworths or Rumblelows or somewhere. Anyway, he's infiltrated the IML this time ...
On Monday I received my IML vocal assignment: a magnificent backing track from Julian, who did such a sensational job on our Robotnik track (which has been played on Radio Scilly, such is its high regard on the islands). Lots of vocal melodies usually come to me pretty quickly when I hear a backing track, but this one smoked me up all nice and foggy. I need to flex some different muscles this time. I am very excited about what might happen though.
Anyway, my theme is wormholes. A great theme. I did a little research, googling and the like, and one of the first things that came up was ... Stargate.
Spader, you c***.

Excerpt from the recording session for "Dave",
Chicago - Feb 27th - March 1st.

We finished mixing at 3:45pm still unsure about what we had made. A few more listens convinced us that the improbable racket we had strung together actually sounded like a song. My Orion III shuttle back to Milwaukee was at 5pm - and so with the aid of Eric's array of sci-fi gadgets, our collaborative backing-track was completed, and I returned safely back home to Earth.

This was the first time Eric and I have collaborated on writing and recording music - and the tight rendez-vouz window we had arranged demanded airtight scheduling and efficiency. After an initial music listening session, featuring Camel - Giorgio Moroder - Jeff Wayne's War of The Worlds and Focus, we agreed that a prog-disco approach was in order.

This was my first time working with Ableton Live - which is an unconventional but powerful DAW of the German persuasion. I think we really pushed it's capabilities, and were both doing a lot of manual-reading. The beauty of using Ableton's loop-based composition was that we could easily integrate our disparate parts fairly smoothly. Ableton's synths & plug-ins are sex - but we had the immoderate fruition of using Eric's incredible Moog Little Phatty - which integrated beautifully and gave some authentic progformances.

I hope Rob enjoys working on the track. I'm really looking forward to working on the AMAZING backing-tracks that I've recieved. This could easily be the best IML album to date. Stay on target!

The Space Project: Phase 2 Blueprints

Listed by musical composer, theme, recipient

Barney (Space Junk) to Eric and Tim T
Mike (Free Choice) to Ash
Ash (Gully Foyle) to Dan W
Greg (Alexey Leonov) to Kip
Dan G (Droids) to Greg
Rob (Voyager) to Craig
Incredible flight of birdman (Freeman Lowell) to Tim M
Joe and Greg (Yuri Gagarin) to Julian
Jim (Free choice) to Tim T
Kip (Laika) to Barney
Dan W (Free choice) to Kip
Tim T/Eric (Dave 2001) to Rob
Julian (Wormholes) to Birdman
Tim M (Pluto) to Dan W
Craig (free choice) to Julian
Joe (James Turrell) to Kelly