I know what some of you might be thinking, Hey! i’ve seen a similar album cover recently by a few musicians like Adele but she just ripped it off from the IDM classic remix LP Marumari’s “The Remixes” on Carpark from 2002. Just kidding, i’m sure none of you thought that. I always loved this remix, later in the song it reminds me if U2 asked Lusine to do a remix, but I feel the whistling high synth is a sample of an actual U2 song but I can’t put my finger on it, Mux Mool says it reminds him of Geto Boys – Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta, I can hear that.
Tadd Mullinix aka Dabrye aka James T. Cotton aka SK-1 kicked off the Ghostly catalog in 2000 with his Dark IDM meets dark classical album called Winking Makes A Face. The beauty of this song in my opinion reveals itself starting at 2:23 and on, it has such good composition, when I just heard it I realized that the geniuses of this generation of composers should be making music like this.
Tom Croose turned me onto this John Selway song, it should be coming out on vinyl on Throne of Blood which is The Rapture’s label, its a nice deep cut that rides out all the way to the end nicely.
I have a list of 2009 Summer Jams, In my Top 25 Jamie Jones is climbing up that chart with his hit Summertime, should be out next month for any of you slow house vinyl junkies, it would be in the Top 10 but that breakdown is god awful, any wanna do an edit? please email it to me.
For the indie rock fans, sorry for the all electronic post today but The Decemberists will be on Colbert Report tonight so that should be good.
I’m participating the Back in Black T-Shirt exhibit in Tampa, FL this year. The video above has some stuff from last year’s event, they basically bring together a bunch of artists and we all design a black t-shirt. No rules, pretty fun. You can see a small mock-up of my design for the exhibit (above). They should be posting a larger version at the Back in Black site shortly, but I just turned in the artwork so this is all I have for now.
I’ll also be playing a Tycho set as part of the Back in Black 2 party on Saturday, May 16th at the Imperial Theater. I’ll also be bringing out the projectors and doing the live ISO50 visuals along with it. All the details are below:
Tycho / ISO50 Live – Saturday, May 16th, 2009
Location: Imperial Theater – 1420 E. 7th Ave. Tampa, FL
Free entry, 18 & Over
Tycho set starts at 12 midnight. Back in Black Website
The above are from Mark Weaver’sMake Something Cool Everyday project. I’ve seen a number of these types of projects, especially on Behance, and Mark consistently has some of the more impressive results. The top image is my favorite by far; drastic big/small differences in type always appeal to me when done well.
I’ve never really put my daily “coolness generation” skills to the test; I usually make something cool over a period of weeks or months. Once I have a visual aesthetic defined, I can churn out work pretty quick, but the development of this always takes at least a week. Maybe I should start my own ‘everyday cool’ project to speed up my workflow…
While Scott was in New York for F5 we got a chance to meet up with Tom Croose, Eliot Lipp, Mux Mool and head over to see Kode 9 and Flying Lotus play live at his new monthly in New York called Brainfeeder which is held at Club Love. I wish I could explain the energy and sound in that room and the heat too but maybe what’s best is if I post this live set of Flying Lotus from Plastic People so you can get a taste. The mix starts really becoming proper right around the 12 minute mark and on, if anyone has a track ID for the first song i’d greatly appreciate it because i’ve been pulling my hair out trying to find out.
I saw Maya Lin speak this past Tuesday as part of the City Arts & Lecture series. The event was in part sponsored by the California Academy of Sciences and was a conversation between Maya and the Academy’s Ryan Wyatt, Director of Science Visualization. They walked through many of Maya’s projects, old and new, and discussed her approach to art and science. Much of the work that was shown (some of which is pictured above) I was not familiar with. As I am from Washington DC, I have always been aware of her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I was very much impressed with the way her work has evolved since then. (She was only 20 years old when she designed it.)
Science plays a major role in the work she is doing now. She is very intellectual in her approach and conducts a massive amount of research for each project. For example, her first of two pieces for the Academy of Science, entitled Where the Land Meets the Sea, was based on data from a US Geological Study mapping the topology of the San Francisco Bay. As with her Systematic Landscapes, she takes great care to humanize this data and give it new depth and life. The piece looks like a drawing, floating in space above the terrace, and she describes this melding of art and science as a “way to visualize our world in an effort to more fully understand it.”
Maya has a tremendous passion and curiosity for the world around her. She surrounds herself with mountains of research and works tirelessly to translate cold hard facts into more accessible and relatable pieces of art. Some of this stems from what she calls a “child like curiosity” to just see what it will look like, but there is also a very political aspect to her work. She wants to make people aware of the environment they take for granted, and she said a few times, “If we can’t see it, we pollute it.” Through constant collaboration with scientists, Maya is trying to help us see what we’re missing.
The work pictured above is: Systematic Landscapes (2), Topologies, and Wave Field, all of which can be seen on her website. All are very experiential, something she laments is lost in the stillness of a photograph. Better to visit in person if you can.
Michigan’s Detroit House producer Rick Wade has worked with musician’s like Kenny Larkin and Theo Parrish over the years and the label Rush Hour has compiled a wonderfully detailed compact disc of some of his big hits. This all takes me back to some of the first vinyl I ever brought when I started DJing in 1997, just that faster disco house that i’d buy up at Melodies and Memories out in Detroit, MI. The tempo isn’t a trendy one and neither is the sound and that’s made me want to spotlight just this album alone, I hope you can find something special in this 70’s funk/disco style of midwestern house as I did.
