Man, we haven’t had a good 70’s interior architecture photo in a while, had to let this one fly. Any info on the place or chair?
I was actually saving this song by Rainer Trueby as a secret weapon for a mix but it just needs to be out there, pure heat, one of the best deep house tracks I know about.
White Sea is the girl from M83, great producer that Benjamin Curtis turned me onto. I love the epic release of the backing vox(the ho’s and hums) they go off like bells.
One of the best video game commercial licensings of a song has to be this UNKLE usage for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, i’m not really into the song a ton but in the tv commercial its used almost as good as the Gears of War 2 usage of Devotchka. I know not a usual pick.
Before jumping into this process post I want to define my terms: This project revolves around the concept of ‘FOMO’, which if you haven’t come across, stands for “Fear of Missing Out”. Fomo is a very real and worrysome condition that can affect anyone at anytime. It describes that feeling of jealousy and helplessness when you miss out on something great. Typically the condition becomes more prevalent during the weekends, summer, and nighttime. For example, “When I was looking at John’s pictures from the submarine party last night, I had a really bad case of fomo.” If you are stuck at work right now and your friends just went skydiving, you have fomo.
Nofomo by contrast refers to the state of being in which you have cured your fomo. You do not have a fear of missing out because you are always the one doing something awesome. You actually cause fomo, rather than experience it yourself. If you are living your life to the fullest and saying yes to everything, you have probably achieved such a state.
This is a project about NOFOMO. (And while it may not seem like it, yes this was for school.)
Tom Croose and Slow Hands make up Worst Friends, both of them have contributed amazing exclusive work for the ISO50 with playlists, mixes, remixes, edits, and covers of artists like Van Morrison, Beirut, Fleetwood Mac and M83. Both of them are great guys, they were my DJ partners when I moved to Brooklyn and now release on Future Classics and Wolf+Lamb and also “Tom” is getting married this summer, congrats guys on this 12″ release.
A new Sun Kil Moon album is out and i’m loving it all the way thru, check out the Mark Kozelek playlist I put together awhile back.
This weekend I watched a Thavius Beck ableton sort of lecture on how he uses his Beat Repeat, it was pretty enjoyavble so I went back to find a track for the blog and found this gem, is this an Outkast song? I don’t know enough about Outkast sadly.
The Books have a new album coming out, i’m huge fan, the guys in that group definitely have influenced many musicians I know, this new one sounds like if you made Lemon Jelly and DJ Shadow work together 8 years ago, which to me is a great thing.
One of the nicest vinyl i’ve ever held in my hand that I can remember was Vincent Gallo’sWhen, just a really proper piece that spewed out care. When it gets too hot this summer slow down and throw on this song, its pretty special and the heat and sound go hand in hand.
Stars are back and this track has a lot of life, it touches on some elements that people might like if your a M83 or Jonsi fan because of the anxiety it builds but releases gently.
One artist i’m looking forward to seeing live this summer is Active Child, he has a impressive voice with a unique delivery with lyrics. The electronics seem to be all over yet focused on melody and supporting his singing style.
I feel like there will be a good amount of music like The Late Virginia Summers in the future coming from 16-18 year olds, I hear a ton of good demos like this. That mixture of post rock and upfront electronics delivered in a somber way, I feel like this movement is something The Album Leaf created.
Warp Records new signing Gonjasufi has a noticeable mindset that is screw whats trending i’m going to make something special that is my sound. With the soul filled song Duet he does wonderful additions/effects that sets him apart from just a one genre track. I personally love the effected guitar and the vocal echo, it really makes me want the song not to end.
New single from Neon Indian, I saw him this weekend perform live, he’s a rock star already, the whole package to entertain live and if he makes more music like this then he’ll definitely outlast the sound he leads. In Sleep Paralysist I hear abit of Human League and spot on synth melodies being layered, definitely a nice teaser for anything new he’s brewing up.
I found The Advisory Circle by just scrolling thru eMusic, its nothing new but nothing that’s broken either. Sometimes its nice to hear calming synth solos for a couple minutes, perfect for a quick daydream in the middle of the work day.
Jon Hopkins’Light Through The Veins is the lighter side of even what M83 makes on his happiest days in the studio, it certainly has a cinematic sound especially the way the song ends. I’m just more of a fan of the build and layering I guess but the song gets a bit too long.
I do not know what to write. I am sitting here staring at the screen, running sentences in my head, and turning my music on and off. Earlier I went foraging for food (in hopes of sparking some magical words), but ended up getting distracted by Arrested Development for 20 minutes. This happens just about every time I sit down to do anything. I’ll probably go play the guitar between this paragraph and the next.
Of course this is a familiar situation. Often referred to as “writer’s block”, the concept of an inspiration rut is unfortunately very familiar to every creative in any field. Sometimes ideas just don’t show up to work. Given this, we all develop strategies to combat such a scenario. Not all are foolproof, but it’s safe to say that most creative people have some battle plan for dealing with the dreaded “blank page”.
Knowing this I decided to ask some of today’s most exciting artists and creators what they do when the ideas aren’t flowing. I left the question fairly open ended and asked, What do you do to inspire your creativity when you find yourself in a rut? As expected, I was presented with an array of strategies, ranging from listening to Boards of Canada in a forest alone, to cooking up a storm (recipe provided) and waiting for the mind to clear.
What follows are 25 strategies from these creatives to spark your inspiration; hopefully you’ll find something helpful in there. I encourage you to list your favorite strategies as well in the comments. We can never have to many of these…
Since the success of the first two exclusive FREE EP’s ( 1st & 2nd ) that we did on ISO50 blog I asked for some musicians for more tracks of covers and edits.
Our very own Tom Croose who has helped with Playlist #4 made a dreamy edit of Beirut’s Venice track, i’ve posted this song before but I never felt like it received the proper love.
I’m sure many have covered Elvis Presley’sCan’t Help Falling In Love but 800beloved’s cover comes to us as one of the more unique and stylized one’s that i’d actually listen to. There is a bit of a 50’s slow swing plus some goth that meets post rock, so if you have your finger on the indie pulse I can only explain it to you this way: it’s like if The xx and the Editors covered Can’t Help Falling In Love, yeah something like that.
One guy to watch in 2010 is Shigeto, he can do what that Los Angeles Flying Lotus crew does but he actually plays the drums live at all of his shows and comes from the same town as Dabrye and Samiyam. His edit of Ravi Shankar is a better representation of his rhythms in his original work, you definitely should check those out if you like fatty synths and dub style kicks.
If you downloaded the last FREE EP here you might of heard the M83You Appearing edit which might be a favorite of mine still. Well Ryan Cavanagh who is half of producing duo Worst Friends, DJ’s as Slowhands, and produces as Addled comes back with an edit of an IDM classic by Aphex Twin. It has the right amount of the original and hints at taking it to soft Tech House land but is definitely more dreamy than dancey.
You want a gentler side of M83 or Telefon Tel Aviv for the upcoming winter months? well Jakob Skøtt and Anna Cecilia will have a beautiful Syntaks LP out very soon to fill that void. They’re giving away this 2 song EP on here for free.
I’ll never give up the opportunity to post music by Studio, this duo can’t do no wrong in my mind, I love how they give us almost 10 minute on this “radio edit”. 1:30 and beyond you get this enjoyable reverse sounding low end mixed with a slowly churning rhythm section, its worth sitting thru all the slight changes.
My friend Wisp will be on tour with Venetian Snares this month, check out the tour dates here and the song above, I have no doubt in my mind he is one of the most talented composers of melody in the 21st century.
Where The Wild Things Are comes out this week and to celebrate here’s the Arcade Fire song from the trailer. Who’s going? i’m going with my mom I think since she told me this was my favorite book from when I was younger and that i’d actually introduce myself to strangers as one of the monsters.
