I find myself drifting again. Drifting off on a mental tangent, not resisting the pull towards light, ethereal nirvana. Going somewhere new, floating away. There it is, again. Just out of the corner of my eye! Just lurking once again on the frequency of pure thought.

No matter where I am, there’s always one face I know. Thank you, pravda. Be here with me, now and always.

So, here’s an update of the previous version [v2.6] of Black Smoke by pravda23, my creativity plugin. New piano melody, fatter bassline, longer arrangement. If you’ve just joined us, pravda23 and I create music which updates like software. This is a more recent update and takes cues from dark, broody artists like Trentemøller, performed with live piano. Enjoy.

Black Smoke [v3.0]

right click / save target…

Video: Black Smoke

An original one by pravda23. Apparently, there actually is a sea on the moon. It’s called the Sea of Tranquility. I was under the impression that the moon was a lifeless planet, devoid of water. Shows you’re never too stupid to learn, huh!

Video: Lunar Sea

Usually it’s just me and my best imaginary friend pravda23, but a Facebook photo recently confirmed that a real-world friend, Lebadi, spotted pravda23 with his own two eyes, at a clothing store in Long St, Cape Town. A third-party sighting is about as rare as a paid gig, so it appears that I’m not the only one that’s being willingly controlled by a plugin.

Remember Alex van Heerden, one of Cape Town’s darling trumpeters who died recently at the age of 35? pravda23 and I have discovered that he was pioneering a new form of minimal techno, using Khoisan and Xhosa clicks as part of the percussion.

Listen to Bushtech

Alex van Heerden – Komaggas 1912

Rushed ambient house cover of Audioslave’s ‘Like a Stone’ off their self-titled debut album. Maybe it’s the pravda23 protocol making decisions as usual, but I just love picking songs about death and angels and willpower and making decisions for yourself.

Video: Audioslave – Like A Stone

A quick update on the previous versions of Bored in Heaven, taking us up to version 3.0 of The Kuleshov Effect. This was originally a downtempo guitar track before I got bitchslapped by pravda23 [what exactly is pravda23?] and told to stop being so moody. Drum n bass inspired, with large, string ensemble breaks, and an Orbital / James Bond soundtrack feel. Probably do live violin with this one. Break it down.

Bored in Heaven [v3.0]

right click / save target…

How does updating your music work?

Pixels used to be a feature of digitalism, but artist Christian Faur’s obviously got a creativity plugin of his own. Faur creates detailed visual artworks by stacking wax crayons into a hardboard tray. The colourful kids’ favourites act as tiny, discrete bits of visual information, creating some next-level artwork. By the way, ‘pixel’ is short for ‘picture element’.

The QR Code for www.pravda23.com

Meeting online user pravda23 in 2005 [An Unbelievably True Story] gave me a personal experience of physical, real-world interaction with a plugin. I realised that since the Dawning of the First Prototype, everyday relationships with web domains, avatars, forum handles and social networking profiles was soon to become part of the essence of urban society. Next time you’re standing in the latte queue, you may be standing behind a Mozilla add-on (although not likely, as they tend to stick to herbal tea.)

Well, it’s about time someone did something about the shockingly short length of the signs on ladies’ restrooms. It takes Balls to be a Mrs these days…

Getting your music (or pravda23‘s, technically) into your friend’s MP3 collection is the way to get heard. They won’t play it for years, but everyone wants bragging rights to an early ‘ripped’ copy when you start to get somewhere. Make sure you know some learned facts about promoting your music.