New World Notes

Watch Thomas Dolby Performing in High Fidelity and Decide if Social VR is the Future of Live Online Music

Notwithstanding some technical difficulties here and there, and occasional herky-jerky movement from his avatar, this is pretty impressive and mind-bending: Coming in live from his studio at Johns Hopkins in Maryland to High Fidelity's servers in San Francisco, in front of an audience of 200 or so avatars, here's pop star Thomas Dolby rigged to a full body VR rig, performing live in the virtual world last weekend. While he does his hit "Hyperactive" in this long clip (toward the end), he doesn't do "She Blinded Me With Science". However, High Fidelity's Ryan Downe does get the entire audience to shout "SCIENCE!" at the same time -- which in itself demonstrates how real time and low latency High Fidelity's technical performance is. (You can even hear a lot of audience chatter in the background, just as you would if you saw Dolby at a real world club venue.)

Back in 2006 when Suzanne Vega performed live in Second life in front of some 80 people, many people (i.e. me) were prompted to wonder if virtual world performances were the future of live music online. Clearly it was too early to ask that question back then -- during Vega's show, the system groaned to handle that many audience members -- but now, finally, is a good time to raise that topic again:

Star is Reborn: Rising EDM Vocalist Briefly Returns to Second Life to Test Out New Material Through His Avatar, Skye Galaxy

In case you missed it over the last few months, Skye Galaxy briefly returned to Second Life for a series of live performances. Touted across SL a decade ago as the virtual world's first breakout pop star for his great vocal stylings and songwriting, he went on to become just that with a viral live video performance, later flying to Europe to perform with a top DJ, among other milestones. (I'm intentionally not mentioning his real life name in case he wants to keep his avatar and real world brands separate.)  

"I came back for a bit, wanted to stretch the vocal cords and try out some new tunes," Skye's owner tells me over e-mail. If you missed his latest in-world shows (like the one above), there's a chance you might get another chance soon:

Watch: Xara Fiasco, Spectacular Singer Who Performs Originals Live in SL

Xara Fiasco is an Australia-based singer who performs original songs live from Second Life, and when I started watching this video above, I was somewhat skeptical until about 2:13 minutes in when she started belting out an original that pretty much blew me away. There's vocal range, there's emotional depth, there's some Tori Amos-eseque piano virtuosity, there's some Regina Spector-ish whispery inflections, there's some thrilling crescendos which light up the room.

Three minutes in, I knew I needed to blog this, but I have to conclude with a mystery:

Kickstart This: Keiko Takamura's Latest Album Project Inspired by Fables & Fable-Inspired Games "The Path” by Tale of Tales & "American McGee’s Alice"

Alice Knows Karate is the name of the latest Kickstarter-driven music project from Keiko Takamura, the Bay Area-based popstar who (as longtime NWN readers know), first launched her singing career over a decade ago by performing in Second Life, which went on to be featured in an MTV documentary.  A sharp and funny songwriter, she's remained true to her geek roots, performing at a couple SLCC conventions, creating this fantastic song inspired by Bioshock and using SL machinima for the music video, and co-funding a previous album with Linden Dollars.

If successfully Kickstarted, her Fablewave EP will also feature music inspired by games:

Chouchou, Pioneering Virtual World Music Duo, Launching 10 Year Anniversary Album Featuring Many Songs First Launched in Second Life

Chouchou is an indie duo with a pretty solid fanbase and a great, jazzy-ambient sound (think Massive Attack or Morcheeba with some J-Pop hooks) that's about to launch its 10 year anniversary album. (On February 23, to be exact -- follow them on Twitter for updates.) As longtime readers may remember, Chouchou originally launched in Second Life, with the two members performing live in SL from two parts of the world:

Though Japanese by birth, she tells me, juliet Heberle has lived in New York City for the last decade; Arabesque is based in Tokyo, and the two have never met in real life.  He transmits his music digitally, she records her vocals over them, and in Second Life, they perform live together while several thousand miles away.  "He hears what I hear," says juliet, "so I easily know what he wants for each song without asking him. I think that's why we can grow our music together."

In fact, some years ago they were once rated the top music group in Second Life. So unsurprisingly, this new album features many songs first launched during their SL performances:

Unwind This Weekend With Proteus, a Procedurally-Generated World of Art, Music, and Life

Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

The criticism that's been leveled against Ed Key and David Kanaga's retro, artistic, musical exploration game Proteus since its release a few weeks ago probably sounds all too familiar to fans of Second Life (who account for a significant chunk of NWN's audience.) The friendlier discussions are full of questions like "what are you supposed to do", "where do you go" and "isn't this boring" while others have even compared it to a screensaver, or refused to think of it as a game at all.

This is why, even though Hamlet briefly covered Proteus earlier this month, I felt compelled to return to it for a much more in-depth look. Surely if any one community could understand and agree on what makes Proteus so special, it would be ours.

Cull TV Helps Catapult Indie Musician Toward Stardom

Katherine de Leon and John Hurliman at Cull TV HQ

Cull TV, the new, user-curated music video streaming service from Linden Lab and Second Life alum, has only been live for a few months, but it's already helped an indie performer get a big break: Jesse Israel of Cantora Records recently came across the Cull stream of young Harlem hiphop performer Azealia Banks, liked what he heard, and hired her to perform at the label's CMJ afterparty, a performance which in turn got a good review on Pitchfork, a blog that often breaks out rising indie stars. This happened in October, but I only got word about it last week during a visit with Cull's founders, Katherine de Leon and John Hurliman, at their SOMA office. They spoke with a lot of passion about Cull giving indie artists a new way to promote their music online, and were thrilled to see Azealia fast on the rise. As record mogul Israel puts it, "I love that it was a music startup that first showed Cantora about Azealia."

Here's her top track on Cull, and it's really great. (NSFW warning: contains salty language, provokes irresistible desire to dance your ass off.) There's a some indie musicians big in Second Life who are about as great, and now that Cull can stream in-world, I bet it could become a handy new tool to get their music to a larger audience, in SL and beyond.

Isle of Tune, Brilliant User-Generated Music Sharing Toy, Comes to the iPad - and I've Got 3 Free Copies for Readers!

Isle of Tune, the totally clever SimCity-meets-music-making web toy that I blogged about last year, is now available for the iPad, which is a perfect form factor for it, and frankly, now seems like a lovely tribute to the user creativity made possible by the late Steve Jobs. Here's a trailer:

 

It comes with a "Direct Share" system so you can share your island with Game Center friends, which also means you can form a community of Isle of Tune island makers and enjoyers. But wait, there's more: Jim Hall, Isle of Tune's creator, very coolly gave me 3 redemption codes for free copies of the game, for readers. Get them while you can below!

Immersiva Songs: Original Music Inspired By Metaverse Art

ColeMarie Soleil often performs her own live music in Second Life, and she's one of the world's best singers, with a voice that's rich with textures, some whispery and aching, some taut and strong. She recently discovered the SL artwork of Bryn Oh, most especially Ms. Oh's island, Immersiva, home to fantastic sculptures, poignant stories of loss and discovery, and strange mechanical creatures. She found a new muse. In subsequent weeks, Ms. Soleil's been creating numerous machinima set in Immersiva, many accompanied by music she herself composed and performed. Above is one of my favorites; here's another, called "Rusted Gears".

The lyrics to these songs are actually taken from poems that Byrn has embedded throughout Immersiva, ColeMarie tells me. "I just made noise to them," she adds. There I think she's being modest. Because while you'll often hear fan music about a particular virtual world, it's rare to hear music inspired by the creative work of an avatar within it; rarer still that it should be as plangent as the songs of ColeMarie Soleil, singing about the creations of Bryn Oh. "She is the single most talented artist I think I've ever met in SL or RL," Soleil tells me. "I think that people get too caught up in the mechanical aspect of her work. The emotion in her art is very human, she's just expressing it in her own style I think."