Drawing from the top echelon of recording artists and music industry executives, the International Songwriting Competition (ISC) has assembled its most impressive group of judges in its history.

MC Development (the developer of this site) has released iDjembe 2.0, which lets you play the djembe on your iPhone or iPod Touch. iDjembe features authentic sampled sounds. Version 2.0 adds Virtual Drum Circle, which lets you send your beats to other players on your local network.

For 8 years now, Michael Leahy has been watching the lyric scene, the people that write them and “the trouble they make” as he puts it. “Song lyrics are an endless source of news, amusement and debate,” he notes. “They have the power to move, inspire and seriously irritate people.”

We've moved this site to Media Temple's Grid Service after our old server proved to be unable to handle the load. We expect this move to bring improved speed and reliability.

2005 is almost over, so it's time for me to post my picks for the top albums of 2005.

1. Orientation - Thione Seck: Senegal's greatest singer, who's practically unknown outside of that country, has released a masterpiece combining Senegalese, Indian, and Middle Eastern musicians in a style reminiscent of Youssou N'dour's "Egypt". This album was actually conceived much earlier, since Thione was always fascinated by Indian music and wanted to work with Indian musicians.

According to Infospace, the term "music lyrics" was the most-used term by US surfers so far in 2005. Given the interest in tsunami, Crazy Frog, the war in Iraq and Paris Hilton, this is a surprising result.

You can make a difference, and enjoy great music, too!

Things may not be great here, but in Zimbabwe the economic collapse is so
dire that over 20% of the population has left the country, and the AIDS
epidemic is so devastating that 9% of the population who remain are AIDS
orphans. Every Zimbabwean family needs to help support AIDS orphans.
MBIRA's non-profit sales of traditional music CDs played by 105 musicians
from all over Zimbabwe, and mbiras by 9 Zimbabwean instrument makers, are
estimated to help support more than 1100 men, women and children in
Zimbabwe...AND are preserving respect for traditional culture and music!

XARC Mastering, the world's first Internet-centric mastering studio, is celebrating its first anniversary.

Lorenz Vauck, XARC's founder, jokes: "We aren't planning any extravagant parties -- besides, we're simply far too busy for that -- but we're certainly celebrating our successes!"

It looks like Lorenz has plenty of reasons to celebrate –- Autumn has proved to be yet another impressive season for XARC, which continues to experience explosive growth in its worldwide client base.

Following the overwhelming response to their last remix contest, electronic music artist Cirrus has teamed up with Sony Pictures and ACIDplanet.com for the latest competition. The new single "Get Loose" is currently on the chopping block at ACIDplanet.com, http://www.acidplanet.com/contests/cirrus2/

Months before the official street release date, fans and music-producer hopefuls are getting a chance to create their own versions of the soon-to-be dancefloor hit. Individual samples of the song are available for download and contestants can use their favorite music editing software to remix the Cirrus song. Remixes can be uploaded to the ACIDplanet.com website for entry into the competition and the winner will recieve over $700 worth of Sony ACID software and sounds. The contest ends Monday, December 13, 2004.

"Get Loose" is set to be released on vinyl in early 2005 by Cirrus' new label, Cirrus Cutz. Fans who want to be among the top international DJs and music industry insiders that have access to all of Cirrus' latest music weeks or months before official release dates should visit http://www.cirruscirrus.com

http://www.2-5bz.com ' no tourisitk no exotic audiovisual performer from istanbul '

* Serhat Köksal ( 2/5 BZ ) will play in Eyfa Festival in Belarus/Minsk in 19 th November . http://www.morezvukov.nl/subcultureparticipants.htm

* 2/5 BZ aka Serhat Köksal played audiovisual performances in Eastcost USA TOUR / New York,Nashville,Rochester,Massacuthes,... Tour 22 june - 11 july 2004 between .11 concert in 8 city.