This is what might happen if a trash compactor had impeccable taste and color sensitivity. The work of Michael Johansson is unique and impossible to categorize. You really have to look closely to see how random and unrelated the objects that make up these blocks actually are; yet they still match up perfectly. I can’t imagine how long it must take to source materials and eventually place and align them so precisely. Would be like building a puzzle where each piece was made by a different company and then scattered throughout the world.
With that wave of mom and pop record stores closing monthly winding down and completely gutting the support for physical music for people to discover, iPods building closed personal shells running mostly ringtone quality sound thru tiny white earbuds instead of record players playing aloud, and faceless torrents and file sharing sites handing out music like its those frickin’ free Auto Mart gazettes sitting in those bright yellow stands in front of your local closed down Blockbuster’s, i’d like to spend some of the young readers time by sharing how I got into electronic music. For what its worth I want to keep sharing what musicians first turned me from a casual listener to something that involves more time than people are willing to sometimes spend to keep up with something.
This music by Dntel was more emotional than any other electronic music I heard at the time, I feel like it almost paved the way for a ton of new genres to start. I really only listened to it when I worked or was falling asleep but then started sharing it on mixtapes and became a favorite of mine. I needed more and at that time in Detroit there was a flurry of solid record stores filled with enough employees to answer any of your questions happily with great suggestions, can you imagine that? well it was true especially one called Neptune Records which I was happy to drive the 45+ minute drive weekly to see what was new. I’ll prepare a 3rd playlist and share more, hope some of you can relate.
At first glance you might expect Joe Stevens’ collection of van photos — Vans and the places they were — to be another nostalgic overdose of 70’s camp, but on closer inspection you’ll find some beautiful photos that transcend the limited scope of the series. I love the color composition and processing; I almost feel like I’m looking at some hyperrealist version of a Kevin Cyr painting. This is probably also the only other time you could get away with hanging a picture of a van conversion on your wall and convincing all your friends that it’s art. The best part of it all is that they don’t seem to be staged at all; they all seem to be random finds which makes the quality of the shots all the more incredible.
Sidenote: Looks like Joe’s site was built on Arlo Sites, a portfolio platform that looks pretty interesting. Not sure how it stacks up to Cargo or Squarespace though, this is the first I’ve seen of it.
This was easily the best ad of the Super Bowl hands down. It was exciting to see Google’s first Super Bowl advertisement ever (and first TV ad period I think…though there may have been the odd commercial early on). Apparently “Parisian Love” as it’s called was available for viewing well before tonight as part of Google’s Search Stories. Anyway I found it refreshing and clever; a nice change from the rest of the nonsense.
On average I was very disappointed with the quality and originality of the ads. I was surprised how many concepts seemed to double up (not only that, but also play consecutively). Tackling was a surprisingly frequent punch line. Yawn. I think Super Bowl ads peaked sometime back in the late 90’s early 00’s. Cheers to Google for putting out something worthwhile.
With Dubstep branching out to see how far the genre can be pushed a ton of new ideas start to surface and a fusion of appealing sounds start melting together. One group i’m really excited about is Sepalcure which is a collaboration of Brooklyn’s Praveen and Machinedrum. the duo is doing a fine job of taking hints of soulful house and dubstep to create what they call Lovestep. One thing that Sepalcure has that other dubsteppers don’t usually have and ISO50 fans might also really enjoy is fine art direction by the multi talented designer Sougwen Chung. As you can see above and below her posters and videos of her work are a perfect fit for this heartfelt music.
Sepalcure’s debut performance alongside Untold, TRG, Pole, 2562 & more is February 13th at Unsound Festival NYC.
Below is a “Lovestep” mix done by Percussion Lab Founder/Sepalcure’s very own Praveen.
TRACKLIST Pangaea – Memories Burial – You Hurt Me TRG – Broken Heart (Martyn Remix) Untold – Dante DFRNT – Tripped (Synkro Mix) Synkro – Inhale Sines – Memories Are Here DFRNT – Tripped (Ital Tek Remix) FaltyDL – Party Joy Orbison – J. Doe Sepalcure – Deep City Insects Floating Points – K&G Beat
This stunning Spanish monument to modernism is located in Madrid, Spain. The “Delifin & Postigo House” is the residence of fashion designer David Delfin and photographer Gorka Postigo. Incredible; can’t get enough of high ceilings like this.
Thom Yorke remix of Doom? sounds great right? well it is, I do love Doom over some big strings and dusty kicks or movie and TV soundtracks but this remix is a nice get away with a fitting haunted feel.
I haven’t heard anything as exact as DillaDonuts than this Jay Electronica cut but I also don’t listen to much hip hop besides dipping back in more J Dilla or Stones Throw signings. A really hype track, i’m not putting it down at all, i’ve had it on repeat all week.
You may recognize the name Jogger from Daedelus’Friends Of Friends label or his random appears on labes like Mush or Ninja Tune but I just found him thru Eliot Lipp and Leo123’s side project Dark Party, i’ve never heard the original but if its anything like this remix then i’m in love.
I downloaded this really funny exclusive 10+ minute interview of Mux Mool on Percussion Lab, he talks about his upcoming album, what he samples, how he spends his downtime, and his drawings that you can find on his Flickr, some of this is pretty NSFW.
I’m embarrassed to say I cannot draw an ampersand from memory; when I do it always looks like an unfortunate treble clef. Regardless I think the ampersand is easily the coolest symbol in any character set (or ever…). There are many reasons for this assessment.
First, it’s a complex symbol. Often times an ampersand would look more at home amidst a group of kanji characters rather than a cluster of geometric letters. This makes it very interesting to look at and you end up perceiving the overall shape, rather than the distinct path of the lines. Second, it can exist in many different forms and still be understood as an ampersand. I suppose this is the same for most letters, but the ampersand varies the most substantially between typefaces (thus allowing for the most potential random awesomeness). The creativity of the typographer is best (or at least more freely) expressed through the ampersand. Lastly, it stands for the word “and”, which if I were a symbol and I had to stand for something, would be a pretty damn good choice. Very optimistic and inclusive. I suppose the only sad thing about the ampersand is its relative absence from written English. (Though Wikipedia tells me it’s making a comeback via text messaging. I’ll have to get on that…)
I can’t write a post about ampersands and not mention the best blog ever: Ampersand. And another one! 300&65 Ampersands. Above I’ve collected just a few of my favorite ampersands; not a definitive list by any means. Links are below:
Don’t get French producer I:Cube confused with Ice Cube and write him off, this guy is the real deal when it comes to stunning space disco that pays attention to the details with the proper patience, a great headphone listen.
I’ve been loving Pogo’s edits especially Alice and White Magic that are just oozing out on the nostalgia tip. The tracks are very simple almost like he created them with Garage Band but he makes it work. Watch the video below, I love his use of the older wise fish for a split second.
Warp’s new signing Gonjasufi has a real chance of hitting a wider spectrum of fans than even Flying Lotus[who I hear did the beats], his vocal style for some reason is really appealing to my ears, it feels thought thru and refreshing.
Blue Daisy is a artist I first heard on Percussion Lab radio when Praveen dropped it, it has hints of that more airy minimalistic dub sound, the low end swerves in and out once in a while at the perfect tempo, listening to it now I just wish the song was 10+ minutes long.
This set of North Korean propaganda posters was originally posted on Reddit today but the images were soon removed. I’ve mirrored them here and you can also find alternate mirrors along with translations at the original Reddit article. Pretty incredible these images made it to the outside world and the goat one seems so friendly. Here are the translations in case the original goes down:
· “When provoking a war of aggression, we will hit back, beginning with the US!”
· “Though the dog barks, the procession moves on!”
· “Death to US imperialists, our sworn enemy!”
· “Prevention and more prevention. Let’s fully establish a veterinary system for the prevention of epidemics!”
· “Let’s drive the US imperialists out and reunite the fatherland!”
· “Let’s extensively raise goats in all families!”
· “The US is truly an Axis of Evil.”
· “When we say we will, we will. We do not talk idly!”
· “Wicked Man.”
· “Do not forget the US imperialist wolves!”
We’ve had the “Random Nostalgia” category on this blog for a while, but I think this is the first time a post has truly fit the bill. I was searching around my hard drive last night and stumbled upon this gem from my past, the photo you see above (sorry for the poor quality, I can’t find the original photo I scanned this from). I’m not quite sure, but this is probably from sometime around mid-1999 in Sacramento. This was the firs time I assembled what I would consider a proper studio, although it was just my bedroom (you can see the futon folded up in the right corner). I think before this I had a Roland MC-303 and SP-202 set up on a dresser in the corner so this was a big step up from that. This was also when I started using a computer to record; I had previously recorded everything into an ASR-X Pro sampler which could handle about 6 minutes of audio. I would then record the outputs of that to Minidiscs (still have a huge box of those I need to sift through).
This was before I really started designing but if you look closely you can catch one of my very early visual influences on the left wall. I rescued that tapestry thing from a dumpster; it depicts a waterfall made of rainbows. Pretty bad I know, but looking back I realize that color scheme and subject matter informed a lot of my earlier work. Not sure what happened to it, must have lost it in a subsequent move. The same goes for the other stuff, the only things I still have around are the computer keyboard, the grey box in the stereo cabinet and the wooden table in the foreground. I gave the keyboard stand to Dusty Brown and I saw it at the show in Sacramento this weekend, nice to know it’s still alive and well with the same Renthal sticker on it. As for the other stuff, it was either sold on eBay or junked (the milk crates that are holding up the desk, for example). Here’s a kit list of what I can make out from the picture:
- ASRX-Pro Sampler / Sound Module. Used this to make Science of Patterns a few years later.
- Roland JP-8000 Synthesizer.
- E-MU Orbit Sound Module (don’t ask why I owned this)
- Yamaha Stereo EQ
- Gemini 4-channel DJ mixer
- Sony MD recorder
Crazy story about the JP-8000, I put it on eBay about a year after this shot was taken. The winner of the auction was from the area so he came out to pick it up. It turned out to be Shaun Lopez, we ended up becoming friends and he still does mixing work on my tracks today (Daydream, Adrift, Disconnect to name a few).
Today Mux Mool’sViking Funeral drops as a free download for everyone, the EP is a collection of live edits, one has a MC for the first time and one song even samples the Hobbit cartoon with Led Zeppelin drums, enjoy.
Culled from Mux Mool’s EPs, mixtapes, and beat vaults, the Viking Funeral EP collects five choice Mux cuts into one concentrated blast of music, an introduction to Brian Lindgren’s dazzling take on homespun electro hip-hop and a preamble to his upcoming full-length opus, Skulltaste.
Viking Funeral contains everything that Mux Mool does best, making it a fine road map to Lindgren’s cracked universe. “Teal Trim” starts things off right with a tight, incisive beat, mixed to cut through a fog of hard-panned synths and distorted melody lines. Mux’s live edit of “Ladies Know” is a hard-to-find instrumental version which foregrounds the track’s bitcrushed drums and dirt-crusted vocal samples. Next up is “Drum Babylon”, a highlight from Mux’s song-a-day project Drum EP, and “Goblin Town”, a mischievous interlude featuring a choir of deep-voiced goblins, singing about their hometown. The Viking Funeral EP closes with its lone track with vocals, “Death 9000 (Prof & P.O.S. Broadcasting Version)”, in which the MCs have their way with one of Mux’s more sinister beatscapes.
Five tracks, five different shades of Mux; but the Viking Funeral EP is just the tip of the iceberg. Skulltaste is lurking below the waterline, and it goes down for miles.
I’m definitely getting way into this style right now; what can I say, people are doing some amazing things with type and shapes. These posters are by Quadradao out of Brazil. There is something familiar about the look of course, but I think it’s still fresh in its own way. What I find interesting about it is how much harder it is to design effectively in this style than it looks like. Sure it’s just type and shapes, but try and work something equally refined and see if you don’t go completely nuts.
Couldn’t find too much information on the studio, but from what I can deduce they’re chilling down in Brazil pumping out crazy good posters like these. If I had to guess I would have said these were straight out of the Netherlands.
Last week I shared with you the start of a 4 [maybe more?] part series of covers that some of my friends did that was free to download here. Here is volume 2:
Calmer covers Bob James: I think when I asked Calmer to cover the Taxi theme song he thought I was joking but I actually wasn’t I always play this song when I DJ late nights. He does a great hazy looped cover which shows off his drumming skills and that was what I was hoping for.
Andre Obin covers Editors: Boston’s Andre Obin is the bridge from Synth Pop to Underworld/the older Kompakt sound, he covered Munich, he went with a great direction which was ditching the sped up original and owning the vocals.
Tom Croose edits Van Morrison: Our Tom Croose does what he does best which is turning rock oldies into respectable dance floor pleasers without referencing that whole Justice dance beat movement, back to the basics for 2010 and more from Tom Croose.
D. Gookin covers Primus: Are you ready for your early teen years to flash before your eyes? D. Gookin might have just made the rowdiest intro for a song ever posted on iso50 but don’t let that fool you the cover is really diverse and he did it within hours on his drum kit. I asked Gookin to do it because on tour over a year ago he played a ton of Primus for us in the car and I could tell he loved them plus Pork Soda was the first CD I ever bought so I thought it would be fitting.
Charles Trees remixes Mayer Hawthorne: Ann Arbor, MI remixing Ann Arbor, MI both Mayer and Charles are around my age and from the same city as me. You may know Charles from his other alias Mingus Rude who gave us that very memorable Fleetwood Mac edit. Charles does a fantastic job of making Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out more heady and head noddy which totally made my ears smile.
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02/22/10 - 
