This Is An Exercise
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This Is An Exercise
''This Is an Exercise'' is an album by experimental electropop artist Anna Oxygen, released in 2006 on Kill Rock Stars. Allmusic described the album as "just as fascinating as it is chilly and alienating. In her songs, Oxygen explores some of the same issues of authenticity, creation, and consumption that Tracy + the Plastics do, but with a sci-fi/fantasy bent." Production and release Oxygen composed the album herself, also handling piano, primary vocals, and sequencing. It also featured Melissa Collins on cello, Andy Gertz on accordion, and guest vocalists Kitty Jenson, Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn & Ginger Takahashi. Portland artist Jona Bechtolt helped Oxygen with the cover art. It was released on February 21, 2006 on Kill Rock Stars. Critical reception The album met with a mixed reception, with a number of reviewers writing about the album with acclaim. In a positive review for the '' Phoenix New Times'', Ray Cummings called the album "dancey." About Oxygen's vocals, Cummings ...
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Album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual Phonograph record#78 rpm disc developments, 78 rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP record, long-playing (LP) records played at  revolutions per minute, rpm. The album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption from the mid-1960s to the early 21st century, a period known as the album era. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The 8-track tape was the first tape format widely used alongside vinyl from 1965 until being phased out by 1983 and was gradually supplanted by the cassette tape during the 1970s and early 1980s; the populari ...
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Anna Oxygen
Anna Jordan Huff is an American multi-media artist, composer, producer and actress best known by her stage name Anna Oxygen. After starting her music career as a member of the Space Ballerinas, a synthpop group then based in Olympia, she recorded her debut solo album '' All Your Faded Things'' (2003) with producer Justin Trosper, before releasing her second album '' This Is an Exercise'' (2006) on the Kill Rock Stars label. Her albums have featured guest vocalists such as Beth Ditto and Mirah. Currently based in Ithaca, New York, Huff has appeared as a guest artist on recordings by groups such as The Microphones. Huff is also a member of Cloud Eye Control, a performance art group, and is a member of the psychedelic folk group Day/Moon. Her feature film debut as an actress was the 2005 film '' Police Beat'', and she has written for a number of film soundtracks, including the three films ''This World Made Itself'', ''Myth and Infrastructure,'' and ''Dreaming of Lucid Living'' ...
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Electropop
Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a revival of popularity and influence in the late 2000s. History Early 1980s During the early 1980s, British artists such as Gary Numan, the Human League, Soft Cell, John Foxx and Visage helped pioneer a new synth-pop style that drew more heavily from electronic music and emphasized primary usage of synthesizers. 21st century Britney Spears' influential fifth studio album '' Blackout'' (2007) incorporated elements of the genre, catapulting electropop to mainstream significance. The media in 2009 ran articles proclaiming a new era of different electropop stars, and indeed the times saw a rise in popularity of several electropop artists. In the Sound of 2009 poll of 130 music experts conducted for the BBC, ten of the top fifteen artist ...
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Kill Rock Stars
Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson, and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally known for its commitment to underground punk rock bands and the Olympia area music scene. History Sampson and Moon initially started the label because, in Moon's words, "I just wanted to put out my friends' records because nobody was putting out my friends' records. And to put out spoken word 7-inch records." KRS-101 (the label's first release) was in fact a split 7-inch spoken-word record with Kathleen Hanna and Slim Moon; other "Wordcore" releases followed. The first major release was a compilation of Olympia-area bands simply titled ''Kill Rock Stars'' (''Stars Kill Rock'' and ''Rock Stars Kill'' would follow in the same compilation series) and featured Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Unwound, Nirvana, Mecca Normal, Heavens to Betsy, The Nation o ...
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All Your Faded Things
''All Your Faded Things'' is an album released by Anna Oxygen on July 22, 2003 under the Cold Crush Records label. It was produced by Justin Trosper. Critical reception Wrote MacKenzie Wilson of Allmusic in a review for the album, Oxygen is "enjoyably cheeky in delivering her own dance-pop formula." Calling the album synthpop, the review also praised the "minimalist approach" of the production, which led to a "fluid, full sound well-suited for both dance and indie rock fans." Also, "she adds a bit of sauce to the new-millennium electroclash stage and celebrates the delicious design of classic new wave." Track listing #"Baby Blue" – 2:49 #"Red Horse Cafe" – 2:56 #"Psychedelic Dance Party" – 1:49 #"Aviva" – 2:01 #"Scientist" – 2:22 #"Mine All Mine" – 1:32 #"Loose to the Tight" – 2:15 #"Spectacle" – 2:50 #"Nerve Angels Two" – 2:15 #"Primary Colors" – 1:32 #"Painted Yellow Crown" – 2:19 #"Man on the Screen" – 2:10 #"Nerve Angels Three" – 1:49 #"Ponytails" â ...
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Experimental Music
Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, institutionalized compositional, performing, and aesthetic conventions in music. Elements of experimental music include Indeterminacy in music, indeterminate music, in which the composer introduces the elements of chance or unpredictability with regard to either the composition or its performance. Artists may also approach a hybrid of disparate styles or incorporate unorthodox and unique elements. The practice became prominent in the mid-20th century, particularly in Europe and North America. John Cage was one of the earliest composers to use the term and one of experimental music's primary innovators, utilizing Indeterminacy (music), indeterminacy techniques and seeking unknown outcomes. In France, as early as 1953, Pierre Schaeffer had ...
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Electropop
Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a revival of popularity and influence in the late 2000s. History Early 1980s During the early 1980s, British artists such as Gary Numan, the Human League, Soft Cell, John Foxx and Visage helped pioneer a new synth-pop style that drew more heavily from electronic music and emphasized primary usage of synthesizers. 21st century Britney Spears' influential fifth studio album '' Blackout'' (2007) incorporated elements of the genre, catapulting electropop to mainstream significance. The media in 2009 ran articles proclaiming a new era of different electropop stars, and indeed the times saw a rise in popularity of several electropop artists. In the Sound of 2009 poll of 130 music experts conducted for the BBC, ten of the top fifteen artist ...
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Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ...
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Tracy + The Plastics
Tracy + the Plastics is an American electropop and video project group from Olympia, Washington, United States. The members include Nikki Romanos on keyboard, Cola on drums, and Tracy as the lead vocals. Although the name implied the group was made up of a lead singer and back up musicians, all three characters were performed by Wynne Greenwood, a lesbian feminist artist using video projection, who calls herself a representative of the "lesbo for disco" generation. About Tracy + the Plastics' music consisted of a Boss DR-5 drum machine, an Akai 612 disc sampler, and combines lo-fi filmmaking, performance art, Devo-styled songs, and feminist and queer politics in an entertaining package. During live performances Nikki and Cola would perform and exist only through projected video previously recorded, and through the performance, the band members would communicate with each other Tracy + the Plastics was the ultimate result of two other projects Wynne created, the first of these b ...
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Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn
Mirah (born Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn) is an American musician and songwriter based in Brooklyn, New York. After getting her start in the music scene of Olympia, Washington in the late 1990s, she released a number of well-received solo albums on K Records, including '' You Think It's Like This but Really It's Like This'' (2000) and ''Advisory Committee'' (2002). Her 2009 album ''(a)spera'' peaked on the ''Billboard'' Top Heatseekers chart at #46, while her 2011 collaborative album '' Thao + Mirah'' peaked at #7. She has released eleven full-length solo and collaborative recordings, numerous EP's and 7" vinyl records, and has contributed tracks to a wide variety of compilations. Mirah has collaborated with artists such as Phil Elvrum of The Microphones, Tune-Yards, Susie Ibarra, Jherek Bischoff and Thao Nguyen. Her style encompasses indie pop, acoustic, and experimental pop. According to '' The Rumpus'' in 2011, "Mirah's early records...are DIY mini-masterpieces that e ...
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Jona Bechtolt
Jona Bechtolt (born December 2, 1980) is an electronic musician and multimedia artist based in Portland, Oregon, Portland, Oregon, United States, best known for his band Yacht (band), YΔCHT. He is a former member of The Badger King, Dirty Projectors, and The Blow. YΔCHT began in 2003 as a vehicle for his solo work, but in 2008 became a duo with the addition of singer Claire L. Evans. Background Bechtolt was born in Madison, Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin and was raised in Astoria, Oregon, Astoria, Oregon. Bechtolt began playing music as a teenager. He never attended high school, instead opting to play drums and tour the U.S. with his brother Joel Bechtolt in their punk rock, punk band, Allegro. He started working with electronic music, electronics in the late 1990s. He has been a vegetarian for most of his life and a vegan since 2000. YACHT In January 2006, Yacht was commissioned for two performances for the New York City, New York based art and technology platform Rhizome (org ...
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Phoenix New Times
''Phoenix New Times'' is a free digital and print media company based in Phoenix, Arizona. ''New Times'' publishes daily online coverage of local news, restaurants, music and arts, as well as longform narrative journalism. A weekly print issue circulates every Thursday. The company has been owned by Voice Media Group since January 2013, when a group of senior executives bought out the founding owners. David Hudnall was named editor-in-chief of Phoenix New Times in January 2020. Founding The paper was founded in 1970 by a group of students at Arizona State University, led by Frank Fiore, Karen Lofgren, Michael Lacey, Bruce Stasium, Nick Stupey, Gayle Pyfrom, Hal Smith, and later, Jim Larkin, as a counterculture response to the Kent State shootings in the spring of that year. Gary Brennan played a role in its creation. According to the 20th Anniversary issue of the ''New Times'', published on May 2, 1990, Fiore suggested that the anti-war crowd put out its own paper. The first ...
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