PJH Studios

Author: Patrick

  • The Head and the Heart

    A debut album from a Seattle sextet is perfect for those late summer drives at dusk.  The sun fades into the horizon while warm shades of yellow, orange and red light up the sky.  The Head and the Heart’s self titled clocks in at 9 tracks, spanning 35 minutes.  In that time, the harmonies come together, comforting and uplifting with folksy pop arrangements reminiscent of the Beatles or Simon and Garfunkel.  In the Sounds Like section on their MySpace page, they list:  “melodies, harmonies, shakers, foot stomps, beautiful things, epic things.”

    The album begins with a sprightly track, Cats and Dogs with the timbre of Josiah Johnson’s vocals warming up to lead a backing of “ooo-ooo’s” as a kick drum thumps and the rest of the band joins in on the fun.  This seamlessly transitions to the next track, Coeur D’Alene where the keyboards and bass line drive the song’s catchy hook.  The rest of the album has a rhythm, steady and buoyant and never strains.  If anything, the album peaks with Lost In My Mind and glides to a safe landing during the last three tracks, closing with a reverent finale in Heaven Go Easy on Me.

    Here they are performing live for KEXP:

  • Jakob Dylan – Women and Country

    Jakob Dylan’s Women and Country album feels good on the first listen.  There’s no trying too hard, no songs with the familiar country, singer songwriter tropes.  It’s paced well, with diverse arrangements.  Nothing But the Whole Wide World and Holy Rollers for Love stand out.

  • Five for Fighting – Slice

    Five for Fighting’s Slice is more of the same piano pop balladry but with different lyrics. Safe, digestible and unoffensive.

  • Brett Favre is like the Internet

    In a great example of divergent thinking, Kottke collects a series of tweets by Tim Carmody comparing Brett Favre’s career to that of the Internet.

    In 1995, Favre wins the MVP, the Packers get to the NFC Championships, and Windows 95 brings the internet & graphic interface to the masses.

  • Of terminology and semantics

    Debates over terminology and semantics are for archivists and academics. If you’re interested in the living heart of what you do, focus on building things rather than talking about them.

    –Ryan Freitas

  • Extreme Photography

    Extreme Photography: The Hottest, Coldest, Fastest, Slowest, Nearest, Farthest, Brightest, Darkest, Largest, Smallest, Weirdest Images in the Universe… shows the physical and technological limits of photography. From volcanoes, Antarctic exhibitions, outer space, thermal, infrared, x-ray, MRI, examples are given as to the potential of the application, its practicality and a little bit of how-to thrown into the mix.

  • Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More

    Mumford & Sons Sigh No More paces a contemporary blend of folk, Americana, blue grass and rock across 48 minutes of diverse instrumentation.  Starting slowly with the title track, Sigh No More, the song builds into a foot stomping jam.  The lead vocals seem raw at time, but powerful and emotive with four part harmonies adding coolness to tracks such as The Cave, Winter Winds and Roll Away Your Stone.  Little Lion Man is a rocking, angry song, and Dust Bowl Dance tells a story straight out of Dorthea Lange’s Depression era photos.

    If there’s a comparison, Mumford & Sons could be an edgier Fleet Foxes but with a banjo and darker lyrics.

  • Words

    Follow along to the Words. Excellent use of transitions and word association.

  • Bob Dylan – Christmas in the Heart

    Christmas In the Heart, by Bob Dylan, is at times reverent (Little Drummer Boy, O’ Come All Ye Faithful, O’ Little Town of Bethlehem), fun (Here Comes Santa Claus) and comical in a lounge act, what the hell kind of way (The Christmas Blues, Must be Santa, Christmas Island). Sure, Christmas in the Heart contains a diverse set of songs and arrangements, but… as a whole comes across as a very skilled granpa playing songs for the grandkids.

  • iPad a tool to help those with autism

    Random, assorted specification lists can’t prepare for possibilities like this. A family in California is finding that their son with severe autism may be benefiting from interactions with an iPad.

    So when Leo took it in his small hands as if it were an old friend, and, with almost no training, whizzed through its apps like a technology virtuoso, his mother gasped in amazement.

    Scientific studies are still new but promising.

    So far, only one study is looking at the newer iPad. “Touch Technologies in the Classroom” is under way at Beverly Junior Public School in Toronto. Rhonda McEwen, an assistant professor at the iSchool at the University of Toronto who is running the study, introduced iPods and iPads into six classrooms of autistic students at the school in February.

    McEwen is still gathering data, but she says the feedback from a initial round of teacher interviews has been largely positive. One teacher said students’ attention spans seemed to be lengthening. Another had tears in her eyes when she explained that she had been working with a boy for two years, unsure of whether he understood language. “With the iPod, for the first time, he was able to demonstrate that he did understand,” McEwen says.