Ice cubes are small, roughly cube-shaped pieces of ice, conventionally used to cool beverages. Ice cubes are often preferred over crushed ice because they melt more slowly; they are standard in mixed drinks that call for ice, in which case the drink is said to be "on the rocks."
Ice cubes are produced domestically by filling an ice cube tray with water and placing it in a freezer. Many freezers also come equipped with an icemaker, which produces ice cubes automatically and stores them in a bin from which they can be dispensed directly into a glass. Ice cubes out of a tray are generally longer and thinner, requiring less force to remove them from the tray and thereby reducing the likelihood of the cube becoming stuck in the dispenser.
There are also dedicated ice-maker machines used to produce ice cubes for laboratories and academic use. Ice cubes are also produced commercially and sold in bulk; these ice cubes, despite their name, are often cylindrical, and may have holes through the center. An interesting characteristic of commercially made ice cubes is that they are completely clear, lacking the clouding found in the center of domestically made ice cubes.
Cloudy ice cubes result when water is frozen quickly, or when the water is high in dissolved solids. When water is cooled to its freezing point, and ice starts to form, dissolved gases can no longer stay in solution and come out as microscopic bubbles. However, as ice floats in water, once there is enough ice to form a layer on the surface, the ice layer traps all bubbles within the ice cube. Commercial ice-makers use a flowing source of purified water to make ice with cooling elements at the bottom, allowing the bubbles to be washed away from the top as the cube grows.
Melting ice cubes sometimes precipitate white flakes, commonly known as "floaties". This is calcium carbonate which is present in many water supplies and is completely harmless.
Ice cubes can also be crushed or sheared into irregularly-shaped flakes, adding an interesting aesthetic effect to some cocktails. Crushed ice is also used when faster cooling is desired, since the rate of cooling is governed by the number and average radius of the ice particles.
Hi everyone! Unfortunately I'm a little too busy at the moment to update this blog.
If you want great music, check out any of the blogs on my Blog Roll to the right, or just go to my Hype Machine playlist.
Part of the reason I'm leaving this blog for a bit is because I'm starting a new blog. It's NOT a music blog: more of an "ideas blog." Another reason: I'm broke. Need to make that skrilla, ya heard?
I've covered Aeroplane before -- they're a Worst Beatle favorite. Well here are some more tracks from these funky, funky Belgian house producers. God I love the retro disco space funk on those fuckin pads! Makes me want to dance!
Pretty late on this one, but it's a goodie. I've bagged on Tiesto before from migrating from his status as Trance God (before he dropped the "DJ" in his name Diddy-style) to watered-down commercial pop-dance crap with pseudo-electro influences and a lot of his trance roots still remaining ... BUT, I really like this song. Maybe Tiesto's still got it. Pictured above are Canadian identical twins Tegan and Sara (who both kinda look like Sharon Stone to me.)
"I never claim to be an artist. I can't even sing, you know?"
Uffie can't sing, and she can't really rap. One could say she has an exclusive record deal because of who she knows, and she knows people because of who she was Ed Bangin' (sorry, bad pun). But damn, she's honest about it.
"I'm a lost child, don't you see? I look good, you want me, buy my CD, and Google me. You work hard, I live sweet."
"If I get popular, I know it ain't fair."
Her first LP, Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans, was released today. The best track is Difficult, produced by SebastiAn and with a VERY catchy hook. The rest of the album is a lovable mess.
Being a fan of mashups, I'm sick of the Jay-Z acapella being put to just about goddamn everything. Seriously! There are thousands of acapellas out there -- and dozens of Jay-Z ones -- so why this same old acapella? Earlier I posted a mashup with The Dap Kings that was pretty sweet.
But this ain't an acapella, it's a cover. And it's damn good. It's barroom country, with banjo and big drums.
"Tricky" Stuart, known as The-Dream, could be my favorite pop songwriter. He cowrote and coproduced the hella catchy megahit "Umbrella" that Rihanna ended up singing, but I prefer his own material. His new album Love King comes out soon. Judging from the first single, Love King, it sounds a lot like his previous stuff -- which is a good thing. Expect lots of "AYYYYYY"s.
If you like Flying Lotus or experimental hip hop in general, you'll probably like this remix by BoomBaptist. It's dark, wonky, with pitched down hip hop vocals and effects in the right places. Remember the original of this track? It sampled the Godzilla soundtrack -- and yes, I'm talking about the Godzilla movie from the 1990s.
Sampling Monsters of Folk -- the indie super-group with Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Bright Eyes, and M. Ward -- is a great call for The Roots. The Roots have some of the sickest mixtape material of any hip hop group, and this is no exception. Dark, smooth, and beautiful, this is great hip hop.
A-Trak just released the second installment of his freakish electro house and southern hip-hop hybrid experiment.
This is nutty stuff. I don't think it always works, but when it does, it's brilliant. It's well mixed, it's kind of weird, and it's a joy for a mashup, hip hop, and electro lover like myself. Hell, I've made hip-hop mashes with the Siriusmo remix of Bag Raider's Shoot Stars too!
Highly recommended if you're of my musical persuasion, but not for everyone. Then again, if you don't agree with my musical tastes, why are you reading my blog?
I've posted a couple Skrillex remixes just a few days ago, and I've posted the Bad Romance remix a while ago. But Skrillex, from LA, is one of my favorite electro producers right now, so I thought he deserved a post all to himself.
He makes wild electro bangers with lots of eclectic sounds, including 8-bit, dubstep, and yes, trance. Skrillex uses all those old trance sounds everyone thought had died in 2002. I think this is such an interesting direction, and it takes a lot to keep some of these songs from sounding cheesy. But overall I think he pulls it off.
The Alejandro remix, his latest, is a good example. The breakdown sounds like circa-2000 trance, with that cheesy little breakbeat during the build. But the drop....goddamn! It goes hard. Such a surprising track!
The Black Eyed Peas remix is more consistent. Sounds like it was influenced by Wolfgang Gartner to me, and that's a very good thing. The Bad Romance remixes are top notch, of course, being what Skrillex is most known for. Keep an eye on Skrillex this year, he's doing big things.
Punchy guitar chords, a drum machine, lyrics about heartbreak, DNA, and outerspace, and a quirky but loveable indie pop-rock voice that reminds me of Built to Spill's Doug Martsch, Midlake's Tim Smith, and Grandaddy's Jason Lytle are what make up Darwin Deez's awesome self-titled release.
Self-described as "happy music for sad people," "white music for black people," and "indie rock with a side of calisthenics." Listen below. So far, this is one of my favorite albums of 2010.
For today, we've got the latest Bruno Mars single and two mashups. And what do you think? John Lennon girl. Sexy or not?
In other news, I'm finally about to graduate from college. Being the age I am makes me wonder what kind of music I'll be listening to when I'm middle aged or older. Will I keep up with the latest music? Or will I resort to listening only to what I know and love? Time will tell.
I love, love, love this song. Alan Wilkis, who's previously done fantastic remixes of The Temper Trap and Swayze, turns this kind-of-melancholy Phantogram track into bubblegum indie pop for sunny days and lazy afternoons. Watch out for Alan Wilkis, he is a top-rate producer who doesn't deserve to be lumped together with the majority of Web 2.0 bedroom remixers and mash up "artists" clogging up Hype Machine. I would love to hear a full album produced by Wilkis.
Talent may not always make money, but on the Internet it is almost always recognized by somebody. I love the fact that independent bands with an original sound are out there, people like me can find them, and then people like us can enjoy them.
The Powder Kegs is from Philly. Their latest EP is considerably better than their first LP, maybe because it's produced by Brian McTear, who worked with the awesome neo-folk band Espers.
There's a lot that's awkward about the above photo, a lot that's good about La Mariposa, and a lot Vampire-Weekend-esque about Window On Your Wall.
The Beatles were no squares. They got drunk and partied hard. There were notorious for destroying hotel rooms. Their first gigs were Amsterdam strip clubs. So when I listen to these house remixes, I don't think "Sacrilege!" I think: yeah, they would've danced to this while smashed.
This is how you do a remix. I got to admit, this is one of the best house tracks I've heard in a while. It's funky, it's hip hop, it's got vocoder, it's fucking Uffie! I wouldn't put this on your iPod, but this is fantastic for DJs.
I've blogged about Uffie before. I got to admit: not excited for her solo album. But, like usual, some more good remixes will surely come out of the woodwork.
Bruno Mars is best known for singing the hook to B.o.B.'s catchy-as-hell hit, Nothin' On You. I'm loving this guy. Check out his collab with Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes, and the Villains remix of Nothin On You is good for parties, ya dig?
Today I've got 3 great tracks to get your dirty stinking nasty freak on. The first is a remix of Love King, the first single from The-Dream's upcoming album. I love The-Dream and I love Ludacris, so this is a no-brainer, even though there isn't really a hook on this one. The other two tracks are bangin' remixes from peeps in The Glitch Mob. The Lollipop remix is especially "nasty".
Not too often do I post indie rock. When I first attended college, I was obsessed with the genre. I read Pitchfork religiously. I was downloading at least 4 albums a day. I can't even remember the names of half the bands I listened to during that period, which really says something.
When young people want to dance nowadays, they listen to hip-hop or house. And now many of them, when they want to relax, listen to rock! Rock used to be the raucous party music, but now it seems sedate, and pleasantly so.
Bill Evans is the poet of jazz pianists. His style is not only beautiful, it invites introspection. His slumped over posture on the piano, head down, evokes to us a depressed genius battling his demons with heroin, cigarettes, and music. But his music evokes to us ourselves.
My favorite thing to do on a Saturday morning is drink coffee, read a few poems, and listen to Bill.
The thoughtfulness, and the pain, that Bill Evans put into his music is evident by listening to just the first few bars of any Bill Evans ballad. So it's no surprise that it's also interesting to read what Evans himself wrote in the linear notes to Kind of Blue.
There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.
The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see well find something captured that escapes explanation.
This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflections, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician.
Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.
As the painter needs his framework of parchment, the improvising musical group needs its framework in time,. Miles Davis presents here frameworks which are exquisite in their simplicity and yet contain all that is necessary to stimulate performance with sure reference to the primary conception.
Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a "take."
This new remix of Wale's Pretty Girls is hot. Chris Brown and Fabolous are admittedly pretty wack, but when Chris starts going off about Leonardo da Vinci, Aristotle, and plus-sized models, it's almost enough to forgive him for beating the shit of out Rhianna. (Kidding!)
The Nas & Damian Marley collab album is out today. (April 20th)
It's smart for Nas to collab. His output after Illmatic has been famously irregular in terms of quality. And after selling out on his last album -- he wanted to call it "Nigger" but record execs informed him his album wouldn't sell at Wal Mart, what the fuck was he thinking, was he on drugs, etc... -- collabing with someone who sure seems "authentic" is smart.
I haven't heard the album yet, and I don't have high hopes for it, but I like "As We Enter" a lot. The energy exchanged between the two is a nice touch.
OK I've resisted posting this for a few weeks. Here's why.
I hate Metallica.
I post too many mashups as it is.
It's ... yet more Lady Gaga.
But despite all of these hurtles to leap over, I like this mashup. And at The Worst Beatle, it's my duty to provide you with the best music. So it would be positively criminal to deny you this fabulous "guilty pleasure".
This is another funky house track by Treasure Fingers.
I imagine this would go great mashed up with Three 6 Mafia's Stay High. I can hear it perfectly in my head, and if anyone does it, props to you. I'd make it myself once I buy a computer and stop borrowing my friend's net book.
DJ Kue, who has great remixes of both The Lonely Island hits, recently cranked out this edit.
Don't put this on your iPod, it's a bit repetitive, but it's wonderful to have a DJ-friendly edit of this B.O.B. jam. It's around 130 bpm but drops in tempo momentarily to play a cut of the original.
The latest Noisia album, Splitting the Atom, is interesting. It's part traditional drum and bass, part insanely hard electro, part house, part ambient IDM.
"Red Heat" is one of the housier tracks on the album -- it has that filtered nu-disco vibe with the hard electro sound of the last few years.
I like it a lot. It's funky, it's house-y, and most importantly, it goes fucking hard.
