So that’s good, and the experimenting/learning of a new tool keeps the creative juices flowing and the skills sharp. Am just waiting on a replacement battery for my tired old MacBook so I can carry a studio with me wherever I go. There’s something Renoise has that tools like Logic and Ableton Live lack that just makes laptop composition easy and fun.

Now to memorise those keyboard shortcuts…

Apologies. Been slacking in the blogging department. This is at least partially due to a current flurry of music-based activity and therefore a rapidly shrinking attention span where other things are concerned. Watch this space, new tunes on the way.

Hang on – I thought – fifteen quid? How is that possible?

Instant purchase. As a way of counteracting the discography torrents for back-catalogue artists, that type of deal is incredibly good thinking on iTunes’ part. I went looking for one song, which would have cost me somewhere in the range of £0.79-£0.99, and instead I ended up spending 15 times that amount, and get a nice stash of new-to-me music. Everybody wins in that situation, plus it’s opened my eyes to the idea that there might be more of these collections for other artists, feeding back into the cycle.

Music has a hard time of it at the moment, mostly I think due to public perception of the value of it. I don’t think the problems with DRM in the past did the industry any favours whatsoever, but how can three-minute pop songs compete with a game getting millions of minutes of playtime worldwide every day, available for £0.10 less?

But £15? For damn close to 70 songs? And good ones at that? Count me in.

Maybe the cold is killing them. I don’t know. It’s never normally this difficult, normally technology and I get on just fine.

I’ve got a couple of painting ideas in my head that need to come out soon. I’ll post them here when they’re done.

Reznor’s experimental side led to the alternate reality game around his album Year Zero, which was fascinating not only for the concept but for the consistency and depth of its execution, and I think that could be taken further. That was 2007 after all, the CD hadn’t completely died (and even then he did some really interesting shit with heat-sensitive ink on the medium itself, pushing its artistic capabilities even further).

I’m thinking hyperlinks in metadata, QR codes in embedded artwork, linking to a site with background information on the composition/creator, stem files for remixing, a forum where listeners can share their experience of the file, whatever. Hyperlinks everywhere, data within data about data.

We’re still stuck on this radio mentality of music being a passive experience. Music is sound, but MP3′s are data, and there’s a lot more that you can do with data than merely move air around.

That will be the determining factor in the sale-vs-streaming debate, I think. Can you turn the data into an experience further than just the music?

Their store’s back online now though, so I downloaded the sampler last night and have been listening all morning. I loved the Social Network’s score, it was one of my musical highlights last year even before I saw the movie, so I had high hopes for this one.

So far it’s good, it feels like a collision between Ghosts I-IV and the softer Fragile era Nine Inch Nails material, with that gloriously creepy electro/acoustic aesthetic that ran through TSN’s score. It sounds more grown-up than anything Trent has done in ages.

Plus, the iTunes preorder comes with a fucking marvellous cover of Led Zep’s Immigrant Song, sung by Karen O. If that doesn’t get your blood pumping then you’re already dead.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | Store.

Iron Man Gets the Shakes and Other Superheroic Animated GIFs | Underwire | Wired.com.