Israeli company lands a (technical) Grammy
Filed under: A New Reality, Entertainment, General, Music, Technology
Muting vuvuzelas - they deserve a Grammy!
Ynet disclosed that Tel Aviv hi-tech firm Waves Audio has won a Technical Grammy for its technological achievements and contribution to the field of music via its audio signal processing technologies and audio effects, used in recording, mixing, mastering, post production, surround, live, and broadcast sound
Previous winners include such notable companies as Apple, Sony and Yamaha. Waves Audio’s technology has been used to enhance the recorded sound of everyone from Lady Gaga and Beyonce to U2 and Bruce Springsteen. In addition, Waves Audio technologies have been used in movies such as Shrek, American Beauty and Star Wars.
Waves Audio was established in 1992 by Gilad Keren and Meir Sha’ashua, and the company has since sold its various technologies to Sony, JVC, Toshiba and computer manufacturer Dell. The company’s headquarters are in Tel Aviv, but its global operations spread to offices in Knoxville, Tennessee and Shenzen, China as well.
TV viewers will undoubtedly thank the company for its latest development – reducing the noise of vuvuzelas during this year’s World Cup broadcasts from South Africa.
Keren was delighted to learn his company had won a Grammy, saying “It is a great honor to know that we had a part in the creation of so much wonderful music, and this pushes us to keep developing new tools for musicians. It is our small contribution.”
“You can always trust Waves to create well-engineered, good sounding products,” said Bob Ludwig, one of the most respected mastering engineers in recording history, who has mastered records for everyone from Neil Diamond and The Rolling Stones to Paul McCartney, and Mariah Carey.
So while we wait for Hadag Nahash or Asaf Avidan to show up with a Grammy nomination one of these years, we can still bask in the glory of Waves Audio’s achievements. They may not be able to improve the quality of the music we hear, but they can sure make it sound better.
Buy a piece of ‘Her Morning Elegance’
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, Business, design, General, Music, Pop Culture
They may not be as prestigious as the Oscars, but the Grammy Awards are coming up next week – and wouldn’t you know it, there are Israelis up for an award.
Israeli singer-songwriter Oren Lavie’s smash YouTube video for his song “Her Morning Elegance” was nominated in the category “Best Short Form Music Video” along with clips by Depeche Mode, Coldplay and Black Eyed Peas.
The video – produced by Tel Aviv-based husband and wife animation team of Yuval and Merav Nathan, and photographed by Tel Aviv lensman Eyal Landesman – chronicles the fantastic dream of a sleeping woman without ever leaving her bedroom, using her mattress as the canvas of the dream and her bed frame as the dolly of her journey. The 2,321 photos are strung together in seamless manner which gives the impression that the women is actually moving
The video became a pop phenomena, garnering 10 million views on YoutTube and being discussed, featured and analyzed in blogs, magazines and TV shows worldwide, screened at the Cannes Lion festival – the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase, LA film festival, and the SXSW showcase, among others. The culmination of the acclaim came in December when it received the Grammy nomination.
In honor of the nomination and the awards show, which is scheduled for January 31st, Landesman and Lavie are hosting an exhibit of some of the still photography from the video at a Los Angeles gallery and selling the original shots.
“We’ve printed only one copy of each still photograph on a high quality photo paper, and by doing so created only one ‘physical’ sequence of the entire video,” Landesman told me.
“People will be able to break the motion of the video and freeze the moment that they would like to own. Once they buy that photograph, it will be darkened in the sequence and they will become the only owners of that split second. These are the originals, and they’ll come signed and with a number. Once they’re sold, we won’t have it anymore, it’s gone.”
The team plans on exhibiting more of the original photography during the year at exhibitions in New York and Tel Aviv. If “Her Morning Elegance” wins the Grammy next Wednesday, it will certainly boost the price.
Kylie remixes Roni Superstar
Aussie dance-pop pixie Kylie Minogue is set to celebrate her 2009 Grammy nomination with the release of a remix compilation called Boombox in early January. Named after a previously unreleased Kylie track that features prominently on the disc, the album sports 15 remixes from the past nine years of the international superstar’s canon.
Among the DJs and producers who have contributed to the collection is LA Riots, a West Coast duo that has in recent years earned a reputation thanks to its bouncing sets at club and warehouse parties. LA Riots has also created some landmark remixes for mainstream rock acts including Weezer, Chris Cornell, The Cure and The Verve.
The LA Riots addition to Boombox is actually an Israeli endeavor, which confirms what we’ve al known for some time: that the road to Israeli superstardom (with a reach as far as Oceania) leads through California. LA Riots’ “Boombox” remix features Roni “Superstar” Duani, the bubblegum songstress who has served as a soldier in the IDF, as a TV host, as a star of the stage and as a fashion spokesmodel. With a teen temptress persona and a wardrobe that favors plaid miniskirts, many have compared Superstar to Britney Spears, but the Israeli performer has understandably distanced herself from those comparisons in recent years. While rebranding, Superstar has hunkered down in the studio, hard at work on her third full-length effort, scheduled to hit stores later in 2009.
As the latest Roni “Superstar” Duani singles trickle out towards radio outlets, it’s nice to know that people with profiles as formidable as Kylie Minogue’s are paying attention to our hit parade. Audio for the Kylie-LA Riots-Superstar “Boombox” remix streams here.
Third place for Shiri
The buzz over Shiri Maimon’s live performance Thursday at the 2008 MTV European Awards was formidable indeed, and the attractive singer didn’t disappoint her Israeli fan base. She might have taken fourth place at the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest, but when all of the votes were tallied, she beat that mark by earning third place at the MTV awards in the “Europe’s Favorite Act” category (Turkey’s Emre Aydin took home the statuette).
At this rate, Maimon should win second place in the 2011 Soul Train Awards, paving the way for a 2014 Grammy.
The entire studio version of “Now That You’re Gone,” Maimon’s latest hit single in English, and the song she performed on MTV Europe, can be heard here.
Perhaps the 2008 MTV European Awards weren’t quite ready for Maimon, as the scale of the proceedings seems to have been more global than local, according to YNet’s coverage:
Former Beatle Paul McCartney stole the show at the ceremony, as he was named Ultimate Legend. The other big winner was Britney Spears, who won Act of 2008 and Album of the Year. She did not attend the event.
McCartney was one of several stars on the night to pay tribute to Barack Obama following his victory in the US presidential election this week.
In fact, being a down-home local girl thrust into the glitzy world of international power is exactly what was on Maimon’s mind leading up to the performance. In an interview with Ma’ariv La’noar, the singer defended herself against accusations that she had turned into a spoiled superstar, claiming that the Israeli market is simply too small to be able to support the whims of a real diva. To back up her claims, Maimon cited rumors that Mariah Carey demands 6000 flowers decorate her every dressing room.
Some day, you too shall merit such treatment, Shiri.
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