Martin Langfield's Blog, page 3

17 seconds on Father’s Day

Because hell yeah.

Bell and Sword: now on YouTube too!

I made another soundscape, this one more ethereal, cleaner, less ragged. As part of this exploratory period I’m putting it up on a bunch of music and audio sites in coming days.

I am experimenting with time-distorted extracts of improvised patterns on drums and other percussion to build evocative soundscapes, taking advantage of serendipity and accidental discoveries along the way. The music resulting from this process aims to grab the listener’s attention with unusual sounds, suggest cinema...

And now on YouTube too!

I am experimenting with time-distorted extracts of improvised patterns on drums and other percussion to build evocative soundscapes, taking advantage of happy accidents and serendipity. The music resulting from this process aims to grab the listener’s attention with unusual sounds, suggest cinematic images in their imagination and slow the listener’s mind to a more contemplative state. In editing I choose passages that suggest transformation – moving from conflict to calm, for example, or he...

Bell and sword

I made another soundscape, this one more ethereal, cleaner, less ragged. As part of this experimental period I’m having CD Baby put it up on lots of music and audio sites in coming days. Enjoy!

(I haven’t stopped writing. But this is a very enjoyable way of clearing my mind and exercising other imaginative muscles, so to speak. Working across different media is an exciting extension of writing across different genres, as I have done before. Let’s see where it goes!)

Soldier’s Heart

I don’t know if this is a statement of intent, a marker of some kind or just an expression of how my mind is running off in unexpected directions, but here’s a piece of ambient music I made over the last couple of weeks.

“Soldier’s heart” is a 19th-century term, used during the American Civil War, for what was later called “shell shock” or “combat fatigue,” nowadays known as post-traumatic stress syndrome. The soundscape portrays a fever dream in which a shellburst and other sense impression...

Today is day one

I joined Reuters, the international news service, when I was 25. I did some thrilling, fascinating, challenging, occasionally terrifying things over the subsequent three and a bit decades. I got to be a foreign correspondent, an editor, a mentor and a member of journalistic teams large and small in a dozen countries, mostly in the Americas. I was sometimes also their leader. It was a privilege to work with some fabulous people throughout that time. Now I’m off on new adventures, the exact nat...

Day one

I joined Reuters when I was 25. I did some thrilling, fascinating, challenging, occasionally terrifying things over the subsequent three and a bit decades. I got to be a foreign correspondent, editor, mentor and member of journalistic teams large and small in a dozen countries, mostly in the Americas. I was sometimes their leader. it was a privilege to work with some fabulous people throughout that time. Now I’m off on new adventures, the exact nature of which will become clearer in the month...

Rebuilding Venezuela

Oil-rich Venezuela looks increasingly like a failed state. It will need the help of friends abroad to restore basic functions if embattled President Nicolás Maduro departs. That will best be provided by loans and investment, though, not the kind of throwback U.S. military intervention that President Donald Trump has hinted at. Here is an overview I wrote in February for Reuters Breakingviews of how the country could rebuild itself.

 

Review: The attack of the killer fridges has begun

The world is ever more connected via the internet, from cars and power grids to home appliances and toys. That means ever more things are dangerously hackable, security expert Bruce Schneier writes in “Click Here to Kill Everybody.” The title is hyperbolic, but not by much. In some ways, the attack of the killer fridges has already begun. Here’s my review.

AMLOve is not enough

Some thoughts on Mexico, where I lived for six and a bit years back in the day, and AMLO: https://reut.rs/2tGhvel

Messianic AMLO may give Mexico what it least needs

Presidential front-runner López Obrador has pledged to root out corruption and dampen drug violence while boosting the economy and lifting up the poor. That may win him Sunday’s election, but such goals require strong institutions and fiscal nous. His rise may bring the opposite.

[image error]

A news report I wrote in 1996 about then regional p...