Wordless Wednesday: Tide Pools at Botanical Beach

New to Me: Other Lives, Mind the Gap [EP]

I finally got around to downloading Other Lives' latest offering, their four song EP titled, Mind the Gap, last week. The EP includes three new songs, "Take Us Alive", "Dead Can" and "Dust Bowl" and a version of "Tamer Animals" remixed by Atoms for Peace (Thom Yorke/Flea/Nigel Godrich), all for the cost of a coffee and doughnut.

Other Lives have been one of my favourite bands since I first heard their debut self-titled album, released in 2009, and this EP just helps drive that point home. In particular, the opener, "Take Us Alive", has all the winning ingredients that make their songs so endearing and unique - rich orchestration, dramatic percussion, lots of layers.

It's a mystery why I've waited so long to purchase Mind the Gap - my only guess is that I've been so wrapped up in Other Lives' last full length release, Tamer Animals, that I simply didn't expect there could be more. I'm glad the band has taken the time to put out a little something in advance of their next album, it's been a great addition to my collection and is already in heavy rotation on my playlists.

P.S. I've only had the chance to catch Other Lives in concert once and they sounded just as amazing live as they do on their recorded albums. I'd highly recommend taking in one of their live shows, if you ever get the chance.

Wordless Wednesday: My favourite park bench

SXSW 2013: Day 2

Just wanted to share a couple of pics that I snapped on day 2 at SXSW. Though they might seem somewhat disparate, I think they both reflect the atmosphere that makes SX a second-to-none festival.

I started off the day with Tim Berners-Lee's presentation on Open Web. I was surprised by the number of "Who is Tim Berners-Lee?" inquiries I heard in the lineup going into the presentation. For those who don't know, Berners-Lee is credited with being the inventor of the World Wide Web. You can find my live tweets from his session below. The man talks a mile a minute and every sentence was packed with 2-3 points that I might consider to be the most profound thing I've ever heard.

At the end of the day I came across this fun little scene on Sixth near the conference center (pic below). The sun was setting, the day sessions were winding down, and the parties were just getting started. These dancers and their zombie marching band were wandering up and down the streets getting everyone riled up for the fun night ahead.

SXSW 2013, Day 1

I spent most of the day settling in and getting oriented but I managed to fit in 3 sessions: Bre Pettis (of MakerBot) unveiled his company's new product, the Digitizer, during his opening remarks of the festival; Poynter's presentation on their recent study of news-reading habits of tablet users included some useful insights; and I picked up lots of helpful tips in the Google and Bing session on improving search ranking.

SXSWi 2013 is off to a great start. Though the festival gets bigger every year, the organizers seem to do a bang-up job of making sure things run more smoothly than they did the last time around.

SXSWi 2013 got off to a great start, despite the uncooperative weather.