Siriusmo, Mosaik

By Emily Carney

In the last decade and a half, electronic dance music has been hijacked by French artists, the most famous of whom are likely Daft Punk. “French touch” music—originally associated with funked-up 1970s guitar flourishes, synth swoops, and thumping beats—morphed into something wholly futuristic sounding (for example, “Derezzed” from Daft Punk’s soundtrack to Tron: Legacy, and Digitalism’s “Zdarlight,” which was also a paean to Cassius’ producer Philippe Zdar). Although Digitalism originated in Germany, in many cases that country’s contributions to electronic music tended to be overlooked while French touch music took over everything.
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Frank Sinatra: Best of Vegas

By Emily Carney

Frank Sinatra’s unique brand of machismo and swagger may seem obsolete in 2011. However, his vocal influence is still very much felt; Austrian electro lounge crooner Louie Austen has been known to mix some old Sinatra classics into his current sets. Although big band music has lost its cult luster in the last few years (remember the “swing” revival in 1999, and the Tony Bennett popularity explosion of the mid-1990s?), Frank Sinatra’s voice and legend elevates him far above mere novelty status.
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Punk: Attitude On DVD

By Emily Carney

Don Letts, the director of the 2005 documentary Punk: Attitude, was the man who was most instrumental in bridging the gap between punk rock and dub reggae; without his influence, albums such as Public Image Ltd.’s Metal Box/Second Edition probably wouldn’t have existed, or have been as seminal. Letts made his first rock film, The Punk Rock Movie, in 1978; this effort, captured on a very of-its-time Super 8 camera, was quite murky and grainy, and even had a limited VHS tape release.
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Communications With Aliens: Q&A With Dr. Richard Doyle, Penn State

By Emily Carney

The original Voyager Golden Record

Recently, Popshifter reviewed the release Scrambles of Earth from Seeland Records. This recording consists of sounds from The Voyager Golden Record (sent into space on Voyager I and II in 1977 as sort of a message to extraterrestrials and as a space “time capsule”) allegedly remixed by some sort of extraterrestrial beings. The original record consisted of songs from all over the Earth, greetings from various then-contemporary world leaders, greetings in assorted foreign languages, and 116 images of Earth life.

I recently conducted a brief Q&A with Dr. Richard Doyle, English faculty member of Penn State University, about the various transmissions which comprise this audio recording. Dr. Doyle has been described as a “Rhetorician of Alien Communication,” so I had no doubt that his answers would be enigmatic and curiosity-arousing at best. Dr. Doyle did not fail to surprise me with his answers from our brief interview.
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But I Don’t Wanna Be In The Army: Private Benjamin

By Emily Carney

Being a Navy veteran, I have an abiding interest in military-themed films of any sort, so I decided to re-watch 1980’s Private Benjamin. While it’s no G.I. Jane (perhaps the greatest female-in-the-military film, in which we see Demi Moore become the baddest, hardest Navy SEAL ever), it does have its hilarious moments (and its anxiety-provoking, PTSD-inducing moments, for me).
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Trio The Band: Their Greatest Hit

By Emily Carney

Trio is a band generally known for two momentous things. First, they were obviously a trio (consisting of singer Stephan Remmler, guitarist Gert Krawinkel, and drummer Peter Behrens). Second, they had one of the biggest hits of 1982, even if you’ve never heard of them before reading this little tribute.
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Scrambles of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, Remixed by Extraterrestrials

By Emily Carney

In 1977, two separate US spacecraft, Voyager I and Voyager II, were sent into space to explore the solar system and, ostensibly, any worlds that perhaps existed beyond the one with which we are most familiar.

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The Rotary Phone of Doom: My Top Five Scariest Things

By Emily Carney

5. Recurring dreams about high school

I have had the same dream continually over the last few years. It’s about high school. Mind you, it’s not a bittersweet, Breakfast Club-style reminiscence; the dream involves me having to go BACK to high school after being informed not-so-politely BY MAIL that I had somehow “forgotten” to attain my high school diploma. The same thing happens in every damn dream: for some reason, I start skipping classes, I fail most of them, and thus I become trapped in high school, never being able to get out. Suddenly, the halcyon greenish-blue corridors of good old East Lake High school become a horror show on par with Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. By the way, I generally had a good high school experience in real life, so I have no idea where this dream is coming from.
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Les Oraliens, Or How I Found The Scariest YouTube Video Ever

By Emily Carney

Obviously, I am more than familiar with what scares me the most in my real life; in my attempts to look for “scary” videos for this issue of Popshifter, I stumbled across a lot of scenes from horror films, bad attempts at karaoke, videos of methamphetamine addicts doing their “thing,” clips of “actor”/mess Paz de la Huerta, and of course Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video (which I never watched until I was in my twenties. . . no kidding).

However, I can’t say that any of these actually frightened me; at most, they were mildly amusing. So, I became blocked on what to do for this article. . . that is, until last night, when I discovered a masterpiece of an absolutely terrifying kids’ show.
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The Unsung Heroes of Krautrock: The Neu! Vinyl Box Set

By Emily Carney

I guess this story begins with Kraftwerk, where a lot of musical stories begin—and end. I’ve been obsessed with Kraftwerk since I was a kid—I can remember having the Bavarian picnic scene from Trans-Europa Express on my wall for years—but I hadn’t heard their “Krautrock” efforts until quite recently (well, in the last decade). After getting into the first two Kraftwerk records, I became curious about Neu!, who actually began as an offshoot of Kraftwerk circa 1971.
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