B&W Music Club - Free Music Download

By: Ben Vollmer, Car Audio Nationals, Team SoundDomain

I was stumbling around the Bowers & Wilkins website the other day looking for spec's on my B&W Speakers. While poking around, I ran across the B&W Music Club, which includes some exclusive new music recorded in Real World Studios, which is Peter Gabriel's studio. They have a pretty cool way of working with some artists who you probably have not heard of before.

B&W commissions each artist with the creative guidance of the partners at Real World. B&W then pays that artist an advance and finances the creation of the recording and associated content at Real World Studios.Each album they commission is offered for one month as part of the B&W Music Club. After an additional month, the rights to the album return to the artist, who is then free to arrange a more traditional release deal with anyone they choose.

You can also read about James Newton Howard, the legendary Hollywood composer whose most recent soundtrack is for the astonishing new Batman film – The Dark Knight. He has produced four scores for Joel Schumacher, including compositions for Flatliners and Falling Down, but his most fruitful collaboration has been with M Night Shyamalan, for whom he composed memorable scores for The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, the Village, Lady in the Water and the Happening. Other recent and forthcoming scores include his ambitious score for the Peter Jackson blockbuster King Kong, the Leonardo DiCaprio thriller Blood Diamond, and most recently the Dark Knight. I love his quote on sound.

"I’ve always thought notes have tactile qualities. Some are chewy. Some have … I don’t know … a rust-like quality.  Others have a kind of knife-edge, prickly feel about them. In my mind, every note has a distinctive character, much like the characters in a movie." -James Newton Howard|Film Composer

I just downloaded the free trial album and this has now been added to my subscriptions. Recorded by a group of adventurous Ethiopians and Nick Page, one half of the British group Temple Of Sound, Dub Colossus is a unique attempt to mix traditional East African music with the some very experimental reggae sounds. Recorded first in Addis Ababa, it was completed in a two-week session at the Real World studios in Wiltshire.

Oh yeah, and B&W also has a great sound-related blog.

B&W and the Jaguar XF Make Sweet Music Together

By: Richard Truesdell

With the introduction and the first opportunity to get behind the wheel of a brand new car, there are high expectations, and no where is this more evident than the introduction of the all-new Jaguar XF luxury sports sedan. But beyond its striking good looks on the outside – a total departure from all Jaguars that came before it – it’s on the inside where the new cat really sparkles. While some of this is due in part to the exceptional design of the interior and the high quality of the wood, leather, and metal used throughout, a good deal of the attraction is the 440-watt Bowers & Wilkins premium audio system.