Capsule

Anthony Fantano is the creative genius of The Needle Drop. It is an influential YouTube channel, which over 1300 videos, 300,000 subscribers and get this, over 52.5 million views. He consistently pumps out entertaining album reviews and is an ongoing discussion and analysis of the music industry. We got to this point via 1) Fantano gives Swans a perfect score, 2) We Interview Gira, 3) Fantano vlogs about it 4) We interview Fantano here!

* “On the technical side, you guys have your shit together.” says Anthony Fantano

* We follow up on being a barista and “misguided accolades”

* Being a nerd and living a healthy style

* His musical upbringing and how he rates albums

* The role of a music critic in the future: a curator

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Michael Gira is the founding member of Swans. After three decades of challenging music of which remains entirely humanistic in nature. In 2010, Swans returned to the music scene and created three albums, each earning more acclaim than the last. With their 2014 release “To Be Kind” they continue on this track with high praise from the likes of NME, Spin and Pitchfork.

* The Needle Drop’s Anthony Fantano gave “To Be Kind” a perfect rating, while LiL gave it a 9.7/10

* On knowing when a track is right. Hint, it’s never right!

* Why “To Be Kind” clicks with today’s generation and society

* Gira listened to the first Jimmy Hendrix album on acid

* Performing at NXNE with St. Vincent and collaborating with her

* Gira highly recommends listening to Savages

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Apple’s annual WWDC event left the developers world in shock and awe a few days ago. Absolutely no new fancy hardware such as iPhones, iPads, Macs or “iWatch” were announced. It was all about software. It laid a refreshing and powerful new foundation for the future of the Apple ecosystem. And because Apple plays such as big role in pop-culture and the music scene, a severely jet-lagged Sean Chin and technology layman Andreas Babiolakis discuss and reflect on the impact of this special keynote.

* First some thoughts on Apple buying Beats Music and Recode interview with Eddie Cue and Jimmy Iovinne

* Apple unveils OSX 10.10 “Yosemite”, iOS 8,

* They introduce and shock developers with a brand new programming language, Swift

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Coldplay has been on the top of the charts, and in every bodies hearts since we can last remember. Now with the release of their sixth studio album entitled “Ghost Stories”, Coldplay find themselves at a crossroads of success. Andreas Babiolakis is joined by a special guest, and old friend, Jason Leung, writer and editor of “New Music For The Win”, to talk in depth about Coldplay’s new album Ghost Stories.

* Discuss the pros and cons of Coldplay’s new musical directions

* Difference of albums, what is missing and what is added.

* Enofication, Florence Effect etc.

* Inside scoop on CMW

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Joseph Mount is the lead singer of the Mercury prize nominated electronic pop group Metronomy. He chats with Sean and Andreas on the 30th episode of Capsule!

On reading album reviews and critics and people getting facts wrong

Discussing hand-drawn animation for “Reservoir” and other memorable music videos

Travelling and overcoming the fear of the glass floor in the CN Tower in Toronto

Origins of the song “The Most Immaculate Haircut”. Note: none of us have ever experienced an immaculate haircut yet

What the band does to mental and physically prepare for a long tour: Game of Thrones, True Detective, Grand Theft Auto, FIFA and clean underwear

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The LiL team wraps-up the 2014 edition of Canadian Music Week. Our panel includes Andreas Babiolakis, Sarah Rix (Int.), Dakota Arsenault and Sean Chin.

* We add our commentaries to the week long festival including each of our favourite moments and what we learned from this experience

* Notable concerts we checked out includes: M.I.A., Elliphant, Field Study, Justin Nozuka, Broods, The Box Tiger, Brody Dalle, City and Colour, Tegan & Sara and Television

* Sarah highly recommends checking out King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard

* Andreas had the chance to attend two amazing celebrity panels with Amanda Palmer and Nile Rodgers. And had the rare privilege of interviewing Tom Verlaine of Television

* Discussing the star-studded SiriusXM Indie awards show

* A super thank you goes out to the entire CMW and Audioblood team for all of their support and media access

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Fredrik Wallin is the bassist of Swedish electronic pop band Little Dragon. He talks with Sean Chin and Andreas Babiolakis about performing at Canadian Music Week and much more in this episode of Capsule!

* Discussing the bands tight relationship since high school and working together

* The state of the Swedish music scene

* Collaborating with other artists such as Big Boi and getting feedback from Andre 3000

* Differenting and evolving the sound of the band over the years

* Thoughts on Lorde, Iggy Azalea and Grimes versus Complex Magazine 

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Composer, writer, musician and transhumanist Agah Bahari returns to talk with Sean Chin and Andreas Babiolakis about the film Transcendence (2014), starring Johnny Depp.

* The Singularity is the moment when artificial intelligence develops to be greater than human intelligence. And when humans merge with the technology, as described by Ray Kurzweil. He predicts this will occur in 2045.

* Moore’s Law states that “the number of transistors incorporated in a ship will approximately double every 24 months.”

* Kurzweil takes 150 supplement pills daily. These include Coenzyme Q10, Phosphatidylcholine, and Vitamin D, which is also recommended by Dr. Rhonda Patrick on the Joe Rogan Experience.

* Futurism is being made popular by mainstream media such as Morgan Spurlock’s “Inside Man” episode on CNN.

* Genetic testing companies such as 23andMe are good for finding out your ancestral background, but don’t offer health reports anymore. And privacy is of great concern.

* Michio Kaku describes the Kardashev Scale of the 4 civilization types.

* Renewable energy sources as championed by visionaries and companies such as Elon Musk (Tesla, Space X, Solar City) and Apple. And future collection methods such as the Dyson Sphere 

* Society may think we live in an age of security. But the recent Heartbleed OpenSSL breach resulted in 900 Canadian SIN numbers stolen.

* We dive deeper into ethical and moral concerns with topics such as elitism, cloning, who owns the virtual you? Genetic choosing of offspring and who gets to part take in the singularity and who gets left behind

* Recommendations: Melancholia (2011), Black Mirror (TV), Being John Malkovich (1999)

Nirvana gets inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 

Discussing the fusion of different musical styles and misunderstanding innovation

Jack White attempts “world’s fastest released record” for #RecordStoreDay

Live in Limbo turns 5 years old!

Andreas interviews X Ambassadors

Don’t miss: CMW May 6-10, 2014 (NOTE: M.I.A. will be at Tattoo Queen West) & NXNE June 13-22, 2014

“Mother The World” by Swans

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The Strumbellas is a newly minted Juno-Award winning, six-piece “alternative country” band from Toronto. Front man Simon Ward joins Sean and Andreas to talk about music.

Describing what it felt like to win a JUNO and then learning the acceptance speech didn’t get recorded

Experiencing touring with Corb Lund and performing at CMW

Favourite spot to eat in Toronto: Bahn Mi Boys

Being a fan of individual songs and short, lean high quality albums

On topping the Billboard and wanting to get mainstream while keeping creative integrity and finding the middle ground between indie and mainstream pop ex. Indie 88.1

Tegan and Sara said that at Junos on Q with Jian Ghomeshi on making a pop record. (3:09)

Recommends listening to: Royal City, Father John Misty, Alt-J, Edward Sharp & Portugal the Man

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