I’ll be giving a talk at the Academy of Art in San Francisco this Thursday evening, March 18th. I’m going to be covering a lot of ground — the talk is 2 hours — mostly talking about background, inspiration and process along with a question and answer period. The talk is limited to students (AAU students get in with ID) but the Academy has given us 20 additional seats to give away on the blog. If you’re interested in going just comment on this post and be sure to leave a valid email in the “email” field (email will not be published). We will then contact you with full details for the talk and get you put on the list.

Please only enter if you intend to go, spots are limited. Also, if you’re reading this and there are already 20 comments below, don’t give up! You’ll be put down as an alternate for people who end up not being able to make it (in our experience a lot of people either drop out or are unreachable via the email they provided.)

Good luck! Hope to see you Thursday.

I’ll be speaking at this year’s FITC in Toronto (April 25-27, 2010). My talk should be on April 26th at 2:30pm, but seeing as it’s still a ways off this may be subject to change. I just got back from Last week’s FITC in Amsterdam (will try and post pics soon) and it really was an incredible event. Toronto should be even better, in my experience over the past couple years it’s a much larger event as it’s held in the home town of FITC. I will be posting more info as it becomes available, you can also check the events page.

Photo via The Chilton Computing Archive

Just finished up this amazing sandwich and doing some final prep work for my talk tomorrow morning at FITC here in Amsterdam. I’ll be talking from 11:15-12:15 in the Felix Shaffyyzaal room. If you weren’t able to make it out to this one I will also be speaking at FITC Toronto in April.

Here are some clips from the first couple days of FITC Amsterdam:

I’ve just finished packing for tomorrow’s trip to Amsterdam where I’ll be speaking at FITC (sorry, the event has sold out). I’ll be talking about my background and theory along with some in depth process stuff, should be fun. I am not sure if they’re taping, I’ll check when I get there.

I’ll be bringing along my D80 and trying to get some good shots during my week there. I was going through some photos from last year’s trip and it really inspired me to get back into photography. I’ve been super busy with music and design lately so the only work the D80 has been doing lately is product photography stuff so it will be nice to give it a workout in such a beautiful place. Seeing those old pictures also reminded me that I need to get them up; I stopped posting halfway through an around the world trip I took a couple years back and there’s a lot of shots left to process and post (like the wing over Stockholm above).

Hope to see you at FITC…

The February 2010 edition of the ISO50 Newsletter is out! View it here or subscribe here.

If you haven’t already been on Hype Machine then today might be a good day to jump on and check it out. It’s a stream of select blogs and the music that is being posted on them. The ISO50 blog stream is located here and today we have one of the popular song (Matthew Dear’s remix of The xx) on the charts. The standings only last 14 more hours so click here on the heart and help us vote it up if you’re a member. Also be sure to check out all the other blogs on there, always a lot of great music coming up on there.

If you asked me years ago what would be my dream release to coordinate it would of been this one. Casino Versus Japan’s first album from 1998 reissued with ISO50 artwork?! I can’t think of anything better. Casino Versus Japan hasn’t released anything in nearly 6 years and having the honor last weekend to have him play a show with Tycho and now them working together on this release creatively, plus ISO50 merchandise on the way I think we will have ourselves something special that will be loved for many more years. The album consists of 23 songs split up in 4 parts full of some of the best drone and echoed guitar while the artwork by Scott has a gorgeous color palette with beautifully textured moons colliding and our friend faintly catching a wave in one of them. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on both the art and music on this one.

This release will be out on January 5th, 2010 on Moodgadget.

Congratulations to Bryan Maddock and Wayne Dahlberg who won the Third Prizes in the Holiday Giveaway!

We still have two copies of Adobe CS4 Design Premium and lots of ISO50 prints and shirts to giveaway so be sure to enter now before the rest of the winners are picked. Just make any purchase at the ISO50 Shop to be automatically entered to win, or you may enter at the original post.

Good luck!

I did an interview for the excellent Grain Edit blog recently and they’ve posted it up today. We covered a lot of ground from coffee shops and design to music production. There’s also a couple bonus shots of the studio in there. Check it out at the link below.

Grain Edit ISO50 Interview →

I’ll be joining Casino Versus Japan, A Sunny Day In Glasgow, and Shigeto in New York December 13th for the Wordless Series at Le Poisson Rouge. This will be mine and CVJ’s NYC debuts and I’m really looking forward to it. You can score tickets here and check out all the details on the Facebook event page. Hope to see you out there.

On a side note, I just arrived in Portland for the show at The Crown Room tomorrow night. This and the NYC show (along with an Amsterdam date in February — details on that coming shortly) will be my last musical performances before I lock myself in the studio to complete the next full length Tycho album — which is due at the end of March, to be released later in 2010. I’ll be touring more often after the release so I’ll be trying to hit all the cities I’ve missed over the past couple years.

A Ghostly International / Moodgadget Holiday Concert
Presented by Wordless Music

Sunday December 13, 2009

Live Performances by:
Tycho
Casino Versus Japan
A Sunny Day In Glasgow
Shigeto

@Le Poisson Rouge – 158 Bleecker Street New York, NY Map
10pm

$10 Pre-Sale – $15 at the door

Buy Pre-Sale Tickets
Event details @ Facebook

The holidays are upon us and we’re having a sale at The ISO50 Shop to celebrate. All items (excluding giclees & music) are now 15% off the regular price. Get in while it lasts →

Discount is applied at checkout, you won’t see it until you view your cart or checkout.

NOTCOT is having an ISO50 giveaway including a couple Studio Giclee Prints, the new Syv shirt, and the Tycho Coastal Brake 12″. I also wrote a short piece on how we print the posters here at the studio and posted up some pictures of the process.

→ Read on and enter to win here. Good luck!

I’ll be playing a show in Portland, OR next Friday (Dec. 4, 2009) at The Crown Room. I’ll be playing some new music and visuals on the new system I used in Toronto last week. Fellow San Franciscan Welder (aka Eskmo) will be playing as well so it should be an interesting night. Hope to see you out, all the info is here.

On a technical note, I switched from a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol1 interface to my MOTU 828MKII for live work and it’s made a huge difference. The NI box had all sorts of latency and drop-out issues, which can obviously be a nightmare in a live setting. I had tracked down most of the bugs and things were running relatively smoothly, but the specter of a crash looming over you during the whole set can put a damper on things. The MOTU is so smooth I’ve stopped even considering the possibility that something could go wrong and it’s cleared things up so I can concentrate on the set. Unfortunately it’s a beast made for a 19″ rack. It just fits in my flight case though so it’s ok for now, just a bit wasteful on the weight side. I’m going to get a MOTU Ultralight MK3 which is basically the same thing but, at less than half the size, it’s a more practical form factor for live applications. Luckily I had the 828MK2 laying around because I switched it out of studio duty for an RME Fireface800 a while back. I had meant to sell it but I’m glad I gave this setup a shot first.

Friday, December 4, 2009 – Portland, OR

TYCHO Live A/V Set (Ghostly International SF)
WELDER (Ancestor Media, Surefire SF)
Dj Devon (Abstract Earth PDX)
Coyote Beat (Feat. PlumbLyne & Ana G PDX)

The Crown Room
205 NW 4th Ave
9pm 10$

Event Info

There are a some new shirts up at the ISO50 Shop and I thought I’d announce them here before they go out in the newsletter next week. First is “Syv”, which is printed on the new American Apparel Tri-Blend “Coffee”, which is sort of a dusty version of the normal heather grey tri-blend with a slight coffee tint. When I first saw samples of these I was immediately hooked. The color and feel are exactly what I have been wanting for a while now and they compliment the design I had in mind well.

Next is the new Vuela colorway, black on black. I have been using American Apparel black shirts for a while now and while they have their own thing going on, I wanted to be able to work with a shirt that felt a little more vintage. I found a company called Alternative Apparel (no points for originality on the name…) who offer some pretty interesting colors. I like how their swatches aren’t truly red, or blue, they’re sort of a distressed version with a little color shift. For the Vuela shirt I went with their “Earth Coal” color, it feels sort of like a vintage concert tee, nice and soft with a slim cut. Definitely of the most comfortable tees I own.

All designs are available in men’s and women’s sizes. Quantities are limited so if you’re trying to get in on these before the holidays, now would be the time.

→ Check them out at The ISO50 Shop

It was a pleasure as always to visit Toronto, I really appreciate everyone who came out to the Function 13 gallery and the show afterward at Nocturne, I had a great time at both. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera (it’s a long story, but some last minute baggage issues didn’t leave room) so I don’t have many pics from the night. Luckily, Sean Pollock from The Buzzout Room (a great radio station by the way, you can stream it here) brought along his Canon 5D MK2 and got a couple shots of the gallery (shown above).

A couple others brought out their cameras — among them Bram Timmer who also has a 5D MK2, I was pretty jealous — so I’ll try to get some shots from them and post up a full set of the gallery. If anyone has some decent shots let me know.

As you can see I went with the bulldog clips for mounting the prints. Thanks to everyone for the great suggestions in the original gallery post. I experimented with neodymium magnets but had some issues with grip, the posters kept slipping from between them. I ended up spray painting bulldog clips white and hanging them over long, thin nails so that the piece stood off the wall a little. There is a strip of 2″ tall foamcore that runs the width of the print clipped behind each at the top and bottom. This helped straighten everything out and give a “mounted” feel without the need to damage the back print. I was really pleased with the results, under the gallery lighting the whole thing really came off dramatic. The lack of a frame and the inch between the wall and the print really made the piece feel more accessible and hilighted the texture and feel of the Hahnemühle German Etching paper. Thanks again to the guys from Function 13 for helping out with everything.

If you missed the gallery opening night you can still catch the show, it will be up until mid-January at Function 13 Gallery, 156 Augusta Ave Toronto. If you were there and missed out on getting a piece before it sold, some of the designs can be had at the ISO50 Studio Shop or the ISO50 Merchline Shop.

Thanks again, see you all again in April at FITC Toronto.