Eyes and Ears – November 2013

Sometimes I post videos of tracks I like on this blog, but I’ve decided not just to  make it something more regular, but a more complete books and tracks listing as well. Without much further ado, welcome to the Eyes and Ears section, November 2013.

Tracks

Madeon – The City from Jonty Egginton on Vimeo.

Madeon, who got famous worldwide almost overnight, released this track a year ago already, but the City’s vid is less known. More tracks from Madeon can be found here.

This band is famous all over the UK yet for some reason utterly unknown elsewhere. This track “Offshore” is an old one and was first released on the Café del Mar volume 4 before being published in their first album, “Far from the maddening crowds”. The video is nice too and it’s a nice combo.

This group is less known… But never disappoints me. The Verbrilli Sound is a deep ambient, Trip-Hop and occasionnally Drum&Bass collective that produces well chiseled and outworldy tracks. I picked this one just to keep the audience in tempo… The Verbrilli Sound is on SoundCloud too.

 Books

Listening to the tracks above here’s an eclectic reading list of mine, made of books I’m currently reading or that I’ve finished reading recently.

• Culture and Empire, by Pieter Hintjens: a great hindsight about how technology is changing our society, written by an unconvential thinker, technologist, CEO and activist… and a friend too.
• Les Vikings, by Régis Boyer. For the moment this book is only in French.  It’s not just the latest book about the Vikings, but this is a book about why we have such a daunting perception of who and what they were.
• “It is what it is” by Rumi, one of the greatest Sufi Muslim thinkers of the 13th century. I’m only listing the wikipedia page here because  depending on what edition you want, your search could turn on Amazon or to your local university. I read it in French this Summer and it was a profoundly enlightening and even more surprisingly soothing read. And speaking from someone who is not a Muslim, I can say this book is for everybody. and talks to the heart of everyone.
• “Choices of one” by Timothy Zahn, the latest StarWars book by this great sci-fi author. Published in 2012 this book is as usual enthralling and is some sort of a follow-up to “Allegiance”, also by the same author.

That’s all folks for this month. May your eyes and ears enjoy these tracks and books as much as mine did!