Found a few nice examples of gas company brochures/maps on Kaizen Verdant’s Flickr. Reminds me of one of my favorite’s, the Shell Nature Lovers’ Atlas (second one down).
See Related: Oil Company Ephemera
If you visit the site a ton you might see me post a good amount on Mux Mool because he donates his sweet production to us here at ISO50 and has done some amazing covers, remixes, given away a FREE EP, and even an edit of Carl Sagan. Today his first LP drops called Skulltaste:
“Skulltaste is an old-fashioned epic, and its diversity—both track-to-track and within the songs themselves—is hard to measure. Lindgren’s taste roams all over the map, but it’s this attention-deficient approach that makes Skulltaste such a smorgasbord of an album, tempting the listener with one tidbit after another. Opener “The Ballad of Gloria Featherbottom” hits a quintessential balance between giddily spiraling samples cooled by monstrous slabs of ice-water synth; later, “Get Better John” has a teary-eyed uplift, conjuring a mood somewhere between ‘90s R&B and the Chrono Trigger soundtrack; and the entertainingly titled “SFW Porn” pairs a boom-clap beat to clear-blue keys and a lazily scribbled guitar line. On Skulltaste, Mux Mool tirelessly doles out 20 tracks in 80 minutes, with not a moment of filler. ”
THE GIVEAWAY PART: Since the CD version isn’t going to hit the stores until next week and I have a few copies here we’d like to giveaway the Skulltaste CD(I know CD’s right? so old fashioned) to 3 people on the blog. All you have to do is post 3 songs in the comment section that you like from the Skulltaste LP and we’ll randomly pick the winners, here’s a link to the LP, i’ll announce the winners in Wednesday’s music post, good luck.
Mux Mool – “Skulltaste” CD Winners:
Chad, Erika, Spencer (I have emailed you guys)
Thanks to everyone that played! i’ll line up another free giveaway very soon, hopefully its something we will do frequently on ISO50.
Helvetica and the New York City Subway System by Paul Shaw — which examines the Helvetica’s role and history in the New York City Subway system — looks like a must have for any design collector. It’s currently sold out of it’s initial limited edition but Shaw’s site says they are looking for a publisher. Let’s hope that works out.
Also not to be missed is David Heasty’s One Color Subway Map featuring, of all things, Helvetica. You may still be able to score a print, details are here.
Today Mux Mool’s Viking 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.
DOWNLOAD THE FREE EP HERE
Yes! League! When I look over my ffffound over the last few weeks, there has been one dominant style I’ve been gravitating towards for its beauty and sophistication. This work by League sums it up perfectly. It’s often imageless, utilizes type in some unusual way, is bold and graphic, and has some crazy asymmetrical balance at work that makes me want to practice graphic design forever and quit it immediately…simultaneously.
I love layouts with many scattered elements, all necessary and unable to be removed, but you’re not sure exactly why. For example, those tiny thick black lines on the CFP AA poster above — wee bits like this are amazing to me.
And by the way their home page might be my favorite single page on the web right now.
Ghostly’s 110 is a rundown of our favorite albums of the decade. In making the list, we wanted to share the albums we’ve loved over the last 10 years, so fans can compare notes and perhaps make a few new discoveries in the process. The impetus for this list was our belief that a record label is more than just a music distributor–it’s a perspective all its own.
To start, we asked the Ghostly staff for their top 100 albums (no EPs, reissues, or various-artist compilations) from the decade. While there was a stunning consistency within the top 20, there were hundreds of releases that had only one vote. From there, we had to make some tough decisions. Tears were shed and punches thrown, but we ended up with a document that wears the Ghostly seal of approval with pride.
We also wanted to keep our list pure and nepotism-free, so we left off all Ghostly/Spectral albums, as well as any artist who has over a few songs on the label. Of course, this meant we couldn’t include eternal classics like Solvent’s Solvent City, Rafael Anton Irissarir’s Daydreaming, and of course, Tycho’s Past Is Prologue.
In short, it’s been a wild decade. We’ve all seen and experienced so much, and while no one knows what the future holds, we do know that good music will always keep coming. Ghostly’s 110 is also a tribute to the labels and record stores that have inspired us, and the ones that we’ve lost in the last decade.
There are more than a few albums that could have easily made the list, and I wanted to recognize them below.
The Sea and Cake’s Oui (Thrill Jockey, 2000) was an easy contender for top albums of the decade that just didn’t get the votes, perhaps overlooked because of the bands consistent understated awesomeness. A mesmerizing album of subtle grace.
Dungen was a band that seemed to come out of nowhere with Ta Det Lungt (Kemado, 2005), capturing a piece of the global mindshare with this album of puzzlingly perfect rock.
I know E. Lipp is a fixture at ISO50, but Tacoma Mockingbird (Hefty, 2006) is the record that put him on the map. Beautifully conceived synth lines atop classic breaks.
Like a bolt from the (aqueous) blue, Portishead returned with Third (Island, 2008) having lost no steam and having found their new voice–while retaining the haunted, dusty majesty of their early work.
Everything you see in these stills and videos by Alex Roman is 100% computer generated. This is certainly the best CGI I’ve ever seen; I would normally say “virtually” indistinguishable from reality, but in this case the “virtually” doesn’t belong. The videos were created using 3dsmax, Vray, After Effects, and Premier. But what amazes me here isn’t just the execution, Roman crafts truly beautiful images with impeccable taste, something often missing from highly technical productions such as this. The man perfectly rendered a Mies van Der Rohe and an Eames, give him a medal! Maybe I can get some VR googles and map his work to the interior of my house and pretend to live in some modernist paradise.
I thought I had a bad workload trying to finish this new album, I can’t even imagine the man hours that went into just one minute of these videos. More videos at Roman’s Vimeo page and lot’s of stills and info at his portfolio site.
Via Seth Weisfeld
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