If you’re going to say goodbye to the International Space Station….

SONG: “Aeronaut, Come” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “Charles A. A. Dellschau Dreams of Flying: The Amazing Story of an Airship Club That Might Never Have Existed,” The Atlantic, 21 March 2013, as used in the post “Science Art: Plate 2527 Guarda (a mechanism for protecting airships), by Charles [...]

SONG: “So Heavy” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “Super-dense celestial bodies could be a new kind of planet,” Nature, 13 March 2013, as used in the post “Super-dense… *things*… are a new kind of planet.”

ABSTRACT: How could one resist wandering ice giants? Bodies that have been through something so [...]

SONG: “Spirit of the Words” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on Computer program roots out ancestors of modern tongues”, Nature, 11 Feb 2013, as used in the post “’Bituqen’ is Proto-Polynesian for ‘star.’ A computer figured that out.”

ABSTRACT: I kinda knew I wanted to write a song about this story [...]

Does this sound schmaltzy? Usually things with a full choir and a key change after the bridge sound schmaltzy. I honestly can’t tell – judgement just flew right out the window. I think from the point at which Hadfield held his guitar pick up to the camera and left it there, hanging in zero gravity.

We are living in the [...]

No, he’s not doing *that* on the ISS. The commander is, like The Postal Service, making music via a long-distance collaboration… only his is with the earthbound Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies:

It’s actually really bizarre. We’ll get off on some other tangents, like I bought an old truck and he was telling me his dad restores old [...]

SONG: “In the Light” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “Zoologger: The first solar-powered vertebrate”, New Scientist, 18 January 2013, as used in the post “Solar powered animal.”

ABSTRACT: This started with a drum beat, then moved up to a super simple guitar figure (Young Marble Giants-style). Then, a contrapunctal bass [...]

SONG: “Mesopotamia” (penitential cover) (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: This is a cover (a late one) making up for a late song in November. There’s no original research here, and some pretty sketchy anthropology. But still. It’s the B52s. It’s hard for me to say which version is really the original – there’s [...]

That’s it. Canada’s space hero did this on the International Space Station.

You can hear the slight buzz of the station’s fans in the background.

I DON’T MIND AT ALL.