Via: VideoSift

YouTube seems to be testing some sort of live, user generated playlist sharing. Multiple users are logged into a page with a classic chat room interface on the right, video player on the left, and along the top is a stream of clips that other users have watched or added.

Google’s influence is starting to show, “TestTube”, “Google Labs”, very interesting…

http://www.youtube.com/testtube

Here’s a description of “streams”

http://www.youtube.com/stream?s=2031617

My thoughts on shiny new music from North America…

The Besnard Lakes, The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar): The album has one of those stickers on the front that tells you what the band sounds like, not unlike those labels on wine that tell you to expect “a lilac undertone and a strong finish of tobacco.” In this case, we are told to expect hints of Roy Orbison, Beach Boys, “the ambition of Gospeed You! Black Emperor,” and a curious reference to that creepy blonde woman whose songs are in many David Lynch movies, Julee Cruise. The first line of the first song, “Disaster,” is delivered with so much Brian Wilson-esque falsetto delicacy that its enough to convince you that Canadian lad-singer Jace Lasek must be related to the Hermosa Beach native. But thankfully, because a little Beach Boys influence goes a long way, the song deepens and ripens into something more soft, subtle and languid than Wilson and company would ever allow. The rest of the album showcases lots of beautiful moments, like the glorious frustration of “Devastation,” an orchestral stomp anchored by a burning synth line and a women’s choir, but if the Besnard Lakes have a failing, it’s in being too polite, too studied in its uber-structured experimental pop. Yeah, it touches on Orbison, Wilson — hell, I’ll even give you the Julee Cruise — but the Besnard Lakes need to get wicked and bite off a big, messy chunk of something. References approved by the Montreal intelligentsia are a fine place to start, but if only they’d taken it one step further.

Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury (Re-Up Gang/Zomba): Boy, this record sure has a lot of hype surrounding it, and sometimes its obvious why, other times… not so much. Brothers Pusha T and Malice were early associates of the Neptunes, for one, and while this album was long-delayed in label purgatory, Clipse released many a mix tape, generating lots of buzz for their Virginny hip hop. Lots of references to cocaine and accoutrements of the drug trade, like Pyrex (for measuring all that snow, yo) show up, like, maybe every other line. And the album does capture this certain dark, slippery underworld. The stand-out track is “Ride Around Shining,” a minimalist snake of a song. It’s the usual pro-bling fare as far as lyrics go, but it’s wound up tight by a simple pushing beat and this rippling harp sample that sparkles menacingly like broken glass. At its worst, Hell Hath No Fury is a typical stroll through a rapper’s paradise of bitches and bling. But at its best, Hell Hath No Fury is like an episode of HBO’s The Wire – stark and brooding. Every once in a while, a flash of hope lights up the whole sorry world that Clipse and The Wire’s Baltimore seems to inhabit. But it is quick and then the world descends into darkness again, darker than ever before.

Clipse - New World