Morning Music Notes – Even Kanye West is Going Dubstep

Skrillex to Feature on Kanye West’s New Album

Kanye West has a knack for collaborating with talented artists that you wouldn’t think he’d collaborate with, or matches that look like they’d spell disaster on paper but end up being great. See: Jamie Foxx, Adam Levine, or Justin Vernon from Bon Iver. The latest name to be added to this list: Skrillex. Skrillex confirmed this, saying “I did some music with Kanye and from what I know, it’s actually going to be the first song on his new album” (via Billboard). However, it’s not known whether he means the new G.O.O.D. Music album, Cruel Summer, or a “proper” Kanye West album.

Patrick Wolf to Release Double Album

South London’s eccentric singer Patrick Wolf is celebrating 10 years in the music business. To celebrate, he is releasing a double album on September 25, called Sundark & Riverlight, which will feature acoustic re-recordings of his songs (via NME). Speaking about the release, Patrick noted “This project started when I realised I had reached a 10 year jubilee as a recording artist. My first EP came out when I was 19 and in the 10 years hence, my voice has grown with me. I started out playing with just one instrument and singing with no microphones in folk clubs, on the streets and galleries. I missed that raw communication so much and the spontaneous energy of that live situation. When I went to the studio I thought I was going to record a one-man solo album, but I started to dream, and heard bassoons and bodhrans. This is my first totally acoustic album and so I made certain that we were working with analogue tape and recording equipment.”

For those of you who don’t know Patrick, he is a great storyteller, and has unique arrangements and recordings on his songs. I highly recommend starting out with The Magic Position album.

Facebook to Go Old School with Mailed Postcards of Your Photos

Do you remember “mail?” You’d put “letters” into an envelope, put it into a “mailbox”, hope you didn’t put it into a garbage bin by mistake, and VOILA – your worst enemy would end up with an envelope full of rotting fish. Well, Facebook wants to bring this bag, sort of. The social networking site is testing a service that would let you use one of your own photos (not copyrighted/web photos) to send to a friend in the form of a postcard (via Digital Trends).

No price has been announced yet, but why send a postcard when you could email the picture for free? Yes, it defeats the purpose, but I don’t think postcards is going to save the Facebook stock price.

Usain Bolt’s 200m Victory Breaks Olympic Tweets Per Minute Record, Which is Apparently A Thing

Last night, Usain Bolt flirted with an Olympic volunteer, won a 200m gold medal, got photobombed by Wenlock (or was it Mandeville), and took a photographers camera to snap some pics of his own. Sounds pretty average if you ask me. What also happened: 80,000 tweets per minute during his victory (via Digital Trends). However, the current sports record for tweets is during the epic Barcelona-Chelsea Champions League match, that saw 13,684 tweets – per second.

As for that photography session done by Bolt, that was the camera of photographer Jimmy Wixtröm (finding the ö on the keyboard took me 2 hours), who words for Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. Sell those photos on eBay! Brush up on your Swedish, and head over to the site to look at the pictures.

Learn Swedish in Less Than a Minute

Brilliant! MCA Blocks Posthumous Corporate Shilling in His Will

How to ensure you won’t be a sellout: put it in your will. That’s what the late Beastie Boys member, MCA, did. Adam Yauch’s will was filed in Manhattan earlier this week, and notes his $6.4 million fortune (which seems on the low side, no?) will be trusted to his wife Dechen Yauch and their daughter (via DNA Info). His will states that his image, music and any art he created could not be used for advertising. I guess we won’t see him in skateboarding commercials after all. Well done!