Dark Sky Island

Dark Sky Island is the eighth studio album from the Irish musician Enya, released on 20 November 2015 on Aigle Music. Following the release of And Winter Came... (2008), Enya took an extended break from writing and recording. She returned to the studio in 2012 to record Dark Sky Island with her long-time lyricist Roma Ryan and producer Nicky Ryan. Enya performs all the vocals and instruments on the album, apart from Eddie Lee who plays the double bass on "Even in the Shadows".

Dark Sky Island received a mostly positive reception from critics and was a commercial success upon release. It peaked at No. 4 in the UK, Enya's highest charting album there since Shepherd Moons (1991), No. 8 in the US, and within the top ten in fourteen countries worldwide, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and New Zealand, among others major music markets. A Deluxe Edition includes three extra tracks, and an LP edition was released on 18 December 2015; Enya's first LP since the 1992 reissue of her debut album, Enya (1987).

Solace (Xavier Rudd album)

Solace is the second album from Australian roots musician Xavier Rudd, released in Australia on 28 March 2004 and which debuted in the top twenty of the ARIA album chart on 5 April 2004. It is his first record distributed by a major label with distribution by Universal Music Australia. Solace's success earned Rudd two ARIA Music Awards nominations for Best Breakthrough Artist (album) and Best Blues and Roots Album at the 2005 ceremony, but lost to Jet's Get Born and John Butler Trio's Sunrise Over Sea, respectively.

Conception and production

The album was recorded entirely on his own featuring his guitar, several didgeridoos, a wooden box, an array of slide and acoustic guitars and percussion instruments. It was recorded in Vancouver. His personal friend and producer, Todd Simko, helped him through the recording.

Songs

The second song, "3 Degrees" is a short track about a time where Rudd describes an event that took place in Nashville, Tennessee. The ninth song, "A Fourth World," was played by Rudd in front of live crowd and told them he didn't have a name for it yet. After the show a fan went up to him and said he thought he had a good name for the song. He said "a fourth world" because there's a third world, but "there's also a fourth world where people who don't have an existence, who are sort of trapped."

Solace (band)

Solace is a heavy metal band hailing from the Jersey Shore, United States.

Formed in 1996 by the remaining members of Atlantic Records artist Godspeed, Solace is most well known in the stoner rock genre, but as guitarist and founding member Tommy Southard has said "We're not a stoner band, we're a rock 'n' roll band—a hard rock band, a metal band." This idea was reaffirmed by iTunes.com in 2010 when they voted the band's third studio album A.D. "2010 Metal Album of the Year". However, their live performances at Stoner Rock festivals such as America's Emissions from the Monolith and Europe's Roadburn Festival, have rooted them just as deeply in that genre.

Biography

Godspeed years

In 1994, east coast rockers Godspeed went to Electric Lady Studios to record their Atlantic Records debut album Ride. Featuring future Solace members Tommy Southard and Rob Hultz, Godspeed's major label run included a cover of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" for Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath with Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, tours of the United States and Europe with Black Sabbath, Dio, Cathedral, and Sugartooth, as well as a music video for their single "Houston Street" featured on MTV's Headbanger's Ball and Beavis and Butt-head.

Aether (company)

Aether is a San Francisco-based company building products that integrate hardware, software like contextual learning technology and services. Aether launched on March 4, 2014, coming out of stealth mode after two years. Aether's first product, Cone, is a wireless speaker that learns from how it is used to build a listening experience tailored to users’ habits, including when and where they listen.

Founders

Aether was co-founded by Janus Friis and Duncan Lamb, who previously worked together at Skype, a company also founded by Friis. Friis is also known for founding companies including Rdio, Joost and KaZaA among others. Prior to co-founding Aether, Duncan Lamb was the former creative director at Nokia and led product design at Skype.

Awards

References

Further reading

Metroid

Metroid (Japanese: メトロイド, Hepburn: Metoroido) is a series of science fiction action-adventure video games by Nintendo. It chronicles the missions of space-faring bounty hunter Samus Aran, who protects the galaxy from the depredations of the Space Pirates and their attempts to harness the power of the eponymous Metroids.Metroid combines the platforming of Super Mario Bros. and the exploration aspect of The Legend of Zelda with a decidedly darker atmosphere and a greater emphasis on nonlinear gameplay.

As of 2011, the Metroid series consists of eleven games, with releases on every Nintendo home and portable console except the Game & Watch, Nintendo 64, Virtual Boy, Game Boy Color, and Wii U (although the latter allow users to play Wii titles, or download older Metroid titles). As well as being one of Nintendo's most financially successful franchises with over 17.44 million games sold as of September 2012, it is also one of the company's most highly acclaimed series, with a GameRankings average score of 85% across all eleven titles.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes is a first-person, action-adventure video game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube video game console. It is the seventh published game in the Metroid series, a direct sequel to Metroid Prime, and the first game in the series with a multiplayer feature. Echoes was released in North America, Europe, and Australia in 2004. It was later released in Japan in May 2005, under the title known as Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes (メトロイドプライム2: ダークエコーズ).

The story of Echoes follows bounty hunter Samus Aran after she is sent to rescue Galactic Federation Marines from a ship near Aether, a planet inhabited by a race known as the Luminoth. There, she discovers that the troops were slaughtered by the Ing, a race that came from an alternate dimension of Aether. Samus must travel to three temples to ensure the destruction of the Ing, while battling Space Pirates and her mysterious doppelgänger called Dark Samus.

Retro decided to make the game different from its predecessor by adding more focus on storyline and including new gameplay elements. Nintendo launched a viral marketing campaign to promote the game that included several websites written as if taking place in the Metroid universe. Echoes' single player mode and graphics were praised by critics, while its steep difficulty level and multiplayer components were met less positively. Since its release, Echoes has received several video game industry awards, as well as spots on "top games" lists by Nintendo Power and IGN. Over 800,000 copies of the game were sold worldwide. In 2009, an enhanced version was released for Wii as a standalone game in Japan and as part of Metroid Prime: Trilogy internationally.