No reason to get TOO excited - it’s just a Spotify playlist. That said, it’s a rather eclectic mix ranging from jazz to electronica to triphop and blues.

Here in Sweden, the grim season has commenced. The sun makes a brief appearance - most often shielded by clouds - for a few hours, and then descends into extended darkness. Muted colours, perpetual rain, winter blues, and the quiet hope for snow and a white christmas.

The mix mainly contains classic tracks - many of them with a solid blue note. But there’s also a glimmer of hope for brighter seasons to come.

“December Bliss” tracklist

1: “Penelope” - Pinback
2: “Chase The Sun” - Planet Funk
3: “Ballad Of The Sad Young Men” - The Rhythm Combination & Brass
4: “From Gagarin’s Point Of View” - Esbjörn Svensson Trio
5: “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” - Nina Simone
6: “Memories Of Green” - Vangelis
7: “A Song For You” - Donny Hathaway
8: “Som Glas” - Fläskkvartetten
9: “You’re The Storm” - The Cardigans
10: “Samson” - Regina Spektor
11: “Visa från Utanmyra” - Monica Zetterlund
12: “Reload It” - Kano
13: “Overcome” - Tricky
14: “So What” - Miles Davis
15: “Blues Run The Game” - Jackson C. Frank
16: “Neptune, the Mystic” - Gustav Holst
17: “Time After Time” - John Coltrane
18: “Mushaboom (k-os Mix)” - Feist
19: “Svefn - g - Englar” - Sigur Rós
20: “Everybody’s Changing” - Keane
21: “Stockholm Blues” - Tony Joe White
22: “The Farewell” - Nils Landgren, Esbjörn Svensson

Listen to it now » (Spotify required)

Admit it. You’ve also spent late evenings browsing through the vast musical offerings of Youtube. Being amazed by the talent, and shocked by the sheer quantity of awe-inspiring performances.

Now, meet the video mashup. Oskar just sent me this link: “Kutiman mixes Youtube“. It completely blew me away.

Kutiman has assembled a plethora of clips, then created new compositions based on these clips. From massive funk to spaced out dub, it’s a highly addictive 7-track tribute to music. And the mother of all music video mashups.

Watch it now »

Eight full months of silence. From 1st of July 2008 to 10th of March 2009. What’s been brewing since? Well, lots.

The majority of my bandwidth has been spent on managing the marketing efforts of VNL – the inventors of microtelecom. Music has taken the backseat during this period, out of necessity.

But there are new developments on the horizon. I had the good luck of getting to know Tanvi Shah, of Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack fame, last year. So we’re looking into some new compositions. Have also been tinkering with the upcoming Robot Princess music project. And Ashar, Oliver and myself are planning to compose new tracks for Ashar shortly.

So, to sum up, 2009 is looking to become a more musically eventful year than 2008. Stay tuned! Oh, and if you want to follow me on Twitter – head over to twitter.com/stroft.

Amidst packed bags, with a glass of cold Elderberry juice, a newly potted Hibiscus resting on the terrace and Istanbul sleeping, I’m winding down for the day.

This year has so far meant finding new melodies, time compression, unimaginable beauty, massive change and countless lessons learned. And spending far too many (to be desirable) hours in the air.

We’re now in the eye of the storm. Which, for us, means moving across three continents. From Istanbul to Delhi, via Stockholm.

The studio is packed up in an old Dunderdon bag, bar the Yamaha studio monitors. Countless cables have been disconnected, carefully wound up and packed in suitable compartments. Literally, metaphorically.

Change is difficult. Letting go is equally hard, and often part of the former. It never gets easier to say goodbye, but you eventually learn that many endings are but transitions to new beginnings.

So we’re heading further east. To Delhi, where there are peacocks and huge boulevards. Where Hindi is spoken alongside English, and the Rose of Althea blossoms.

Hoşça kalın. Namaste!

After a few months of blogging hiatus, we’re back!

The main reason for the break is spelled “VNL“. It’s the Indian company I’m working at since last year, doing all types of digital design & marketing.

Billions of people, mainly in rural areas in countries like India, don’t have access to mobile telephony. So we’re building an entirely new type of mobile communication infrastructure that will help them get connected. And it’s all solar powered. So there are both powerful social and environmental dividends to the whole thing.

Want to know more? Then pop over to the VNL website at www.vnl.in. I’m also writing VNL’s blog “The Microtelecom Revolution“. If you’re into clean technology, sustainability and new technology – the microtelecom revolution may be your thing.

Also want to take the opportunity to plug Velocity – hands down the best marketing agency for tech companies. They’re based in London and consist of a small team with the brain power of millions. Check them out at at velocitypartners.co.uk.

What about the music, man?

Aside from VNL, I’ve of course been producing lots of new music that will soon appear here on the site for your downloading pleasure.

My dear friend Oskar (www.dread.se) is currently sorting out some minor bugs in the music player. That should hopefully be done this week. When he’s done, I’ll add more music to the player. And blog about some of the new tracks.

So, 2008 is looking to be a quite interesting year! It’s certain off to a quick start.

Stay tuned.

My friend Kristian, who’s doing marvelous things at Spotify, gave me a highly desired beta-invite to Spotify this week. And I’m amazed. Ever since Pandora shut down, I’ve been looking for a good alternative. Sure, there’s last.fm and many others. But they just don’t do it for me.

Meet Spotify. This is, hands down, the best streaming player I’ve ever encountered. The user interface is intuitive, the sound quality is excellent, the music selection is enormous. So far, I haven’t found a single bug or flaw that has annoyed me.

Sure, the genre selection is not as fine-tuned as it could be. Sometimes completely unrelated music enters your stream. But even if that’s unintended, it can be quite refreshing. To encounter something fresh and unexpected.

And that’s really what Spotify is all about: musical wandering. You make a few selections, then enter on a musical journey. A journey that looks very promising.

I’ve had Spotify open since I first downloaded the app. And I have no plans to shut it down. It’s simply too good, too addictive, too inspirational.

So, bravo Spotify! You’re on to something powerful.

Über-talented sound genius Alex Berg serves up a wonderfully fluid after hours mix: tennishero.se/oktmix.mp3.

Tracklist:

1. Quadrion – Karusu
2. Marc Antona – One more sugar
3. Riley Reinhold – Lights in my eyes (Patrice Baumel Mokum remix)
4. Salomon & Stimming – Feuervogel (Guido Schneider remix)
5. Lazy Fat People – Low profile (2000 and one remix)
6. Dennis Ferrer ft. Malena Perez – I can’t go under
7. D’Malicous – Dark tradition
8. Stimming – Funkworm
9. Ante Perry & Babylon Robots – Der urknall

Goodness all over. Go get it now!

We are all participants in one of humanity’s largest mistakes. A global economy purely run on greed. Consumer greed, company greed and market greed. The cure is spelled holistic economics.

I’ve long argued that, from both a microeconomic and macroeconomic perspective, the framework for modern economics is far too one-dimensional. Far too single-minded.

How so? Well, companies are singularly focused on making enough profit to satisfy market expectations. Anything else is commonly besides the point.

Market expectations are high. And are singularly focused on making companies perform for optimal growth and profit.

That would be all hunky-dory if two things didn’t exist;

• Human dependence on a habitable biosphere
• A human workforce

These two things require companies to take into consideration externalities such as;

• Environmental impact
• Effects of working conditions

If they don’t, we will eventually end up where we’re heading right now. Which is in Hellsville. And I mean that in two ways:

• An uninhabitable planet
• Angry people. And we don’t like angry people, do we?

So, we need to insert another dimension into the global economic excel spreadsheet.

Sustainability.

This is how E.F. Schumacher puts it:

“[A modern economist] is used to measuring the ’standard of living’ by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is ‘better off’ than a man who consumes less.

A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. . . . The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity.”

He’s not the only one that thinks along these terms. Masanobu Fukuoka (author of “The One-Straw Revolution” and the pioneer of natural farming) puts it like this;

“If we throw mother nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork.”

It’s really quite simple. You need to sow in order to reap. If you only reap, your land will eventually become barren.

Sure, you can use artificial methods of stimulation.

Such as implanting the illusion of happiness and self-fullfillment in the western sense – consumption.

Not in the slightly more balanced sense of attaining a higher state of consciousness or realizing that our purpose is to seek out happiness through means we already own.

You can drink 10 cups of coffee to cram for an exam or to meet a deadline. But eventually, the body shuts down and you will need to sleep.

You can drive for another couple of miles with the reserve tank indicator blinking. But eventually, your car will stop.

There are natural buffer zones in all ecosystems. But along the beguiling 5-lane highway that modern economics has paved, there are unfortunately very few service stations.

Challenge everything.

To collectively change, we don’t perhaps have to go to such lengths as Victor Papanek – a strong advocate of responsible design, who designed a $4 TV set and a transistor radio powered by a burning candle.

But we do have the responsibility to do good. To contribute. We are not here to take, but to give.

Theodore Roosevelt said in his Nobel Lecture;

“We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly goodwill one for another.

Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy.

We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary.

No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong.

No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.”

It all starts with a simple question. What can I do?

If you’re a student, what can you do to make others aware that there are alternatives to the conventional truth?

If you’re a farmer, what can you do to make sure your land can survive through generations?

If you’re a construction engineer, what can you do to inform about and practically use alternative materials and building techniques?

If you’re a web designer, what can you do to optimize page load times and reduce energy consumption?

If you’re a shopaholic, what can you do to reduce the environmental impact of your shopping – what alternative products can you purchase?

If you’re the owner of a company, what can you do to minimize your company’s ecological footprint (energy consumption, waste, manufacturing impact) and build for sustainability?

If you are managing wealth, how can you invest towards ecologically sensible growth?

As simple as that. What can I do? A new, holistic system starts there.

J. Krishnamurti said;

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

Let’s make him proud.

On a final note, a filmatization of Carl Sagan’s text “Pale blue dot“:

Footnote: Thanks to Udit, Sandip, Farhan and Gülsen for valuable insights and comments.

Now, here’s some seriously good news. HiPER – A UK-based nuclear fusion research project – has just received approval from the European Union.

If successful, the already promising project has the potential to help end our energy crisis.

Wikipedia has comprehensive info on both HiPER and nuclear fusion.

These are exactly the sorts of projects that we’ll see emerging in the coming years.

I, for one, welcome our new (jazz)fusion overlords.

There’s something addictive about Dan Deacon. The same kind of spontaneous energy that makes a 5-year old suddenly burst out in an improvised song.

Also, the guy is nuts. Seriously. But in a good way.

Found via everyoneforever.com