Friday 29 March 2013

ANGRY ME

Here's an angry FANTASTICALLY intelligent song by Sole. People piss me off. They piss me off too Sole and when I get too pissed off, I go running. I don't think its available yet, or I can't figure out how to download it, so I'll have to wait to run to this. Genre: rap BPM: 88. Oh and barefooters, don't you like his name?


Saturday 16 March 2013

Mixed Up

Here's another list of song from the amazing music site EpitonicAll tracks are available for free and legal download. Click on the song name to start the download, the band name to be taken to the page about the band on Epitonic. The BPM is around 90, so perfect for a 180 SPM run.

Everything on the list is American and there is no theme this month, just a mixed up list of songs I like. I've added a video when I could find one, so that you can have a listen without downloading.

No Parties by Fergus & Geronimo 87bpm
These guys are from Texas, but they sound English. This is a fun, driving, smart almost comical track. Lyrics are intelligent, or at least very timely. Genre: experimental rock.



Lasers Vs. Lizards by Blasted Canyons 92bpm
From San Francisco. Fast, hard, short. Genre: hard-rock.


Croquet by Bitch and Animal 94bpm
Bitch and Animal are, well were, signed to Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe Records label. I discovered them when they opened for Ani at a show in Munich, Germany in 2004. They are so adorable and funny and serious and entertaining. I was charmed. In this song I think they are taking the piss of rap songs. I fucking love that! Genre: queercore.

Cold Feet by Lost Lander 93bpm
American from the Pacific Northwest totally sound like they do, well in the folk-rock sense not the grunge sense. Sweet song, lyrics will appeal to introverts. Genre: indie-folk.


Highest Echo by Pontiak 88bpm
Pontiak are brothers from Warrenton, Virgina, USA. The track has a bit of a long intro, it really kicks in at 38secs, so might be interesting to trim. Genre: rock

The Breathing Machine by Greenhorse 87bpm
Like dark grey clouds on the horizon, this track feels like it is ushering in some gloom. They are in the L.A. scene, but according to Epitonic also have connections to London and South Africa. Genre: electronic rock. During my search for more info on this band I discovered that they did a cover of the Ellie Goulding song Lights. It is really different from the original. Even though Ellie's in the same category of stuff I don't like (Ke$ha, ...) she is a runner and so I'm allowed to like her and still be cool. Here's the video of that cover, its not runnable but worth a listen.




Wednesday 13 March 2013

Hardwired at 94 BPM

Just wanted to give a heads up on a recent episode of Radiolab that I found really, really interesting: Speedy Beat.

In the episode they talk about music and BPM. It turns out tests have shown that our brains try to speed up slow music and slow down fast music.  The experiement went something like this.  They had people listen to a short sample of music at a certain BPM telling them to hit the next beat right after the sample stops.  If the BPM is slow they tend to hit that next beat just a bit too early.  If the BPM is fast the human taps the next beat a little bit too slow.  This made the researchers think that our brains are pushing towards a sort of perfect BPM.  So of course the most interesting result is the turnover point, the BPM where we finally get it just right.  Drum roll please...it's 94.  That's my favourite SPM to run to.  And very close to the SPM that maximises running efficiency.  I don't think this is a coincidence, we are 'born to run' and our evolutionary advantage is endurance running. No wonder the SPM that maximises our efficiency is deeply hardwired in our brains.

Oh and sometimes I listen to spoken word stuff while running like Radiolab!