The new echochord release by Quantec is the perfect day starter, it doesn’t ask for much of your attention and evolves nicely, a great pick up for the fans that love deep and dubby.
Lush might have a headache of an album cover for their 4AD release of Spooky but the music is anything but, last night I heard De-luxe at the bar at 4am and it made my night. I love how less harsh this is compared to MBV and also, how did this band tour with Ride? must of been a pretty large contrast night after night during those tour dates.
Theo Parrish is a edit genius, plain and simple.
I went to see Bonobo and Eliot Lipp last night in New York, Eliot killed it, he played a ton on the SH-101 which reminds me of 2Pac for some reason. My favorite track still by him is Beamrider but he also played a couple other favs by others like Sorcerer, Michna and Mux Mool. I like the uniqueness of not only is it being a Live/DJ set but he also plays on top of other people’s music, its kind of a different way of thinking about an edit of a song and seeing it live nonetheless makes it kind of special to see him play every time.
I first noticed of Mark Brooks’s work when he designed a series of very distinct black and white posters for Barcelona based Santamonica Apparel. Tonight I noticed that he’s back with a stylistically similar, but conceptually unique new series for the same company. While the originals were great in their own right, this new series — based on a grid of stars made from the Santamonica logo — takes things to another level. Very clever stuff.
Assorted posters by Dutch designer Hans Gremmen. I love posters — like the first one — that are just PACKED with all sorts of information and data. Really gives the designer a chance to show off their typographic skills and hierarchic sensibilities. I especially enjoy the tendency for the asymmetrically balanced composition; really makes for that much more of an interesting poster.
Also worth noting is Gremmen’s portfolio site which randomly generates a selection of eight of his works. An interesting approach to be sure; I like the concept of an ever-changing front page, though it was a little tough to find the specific work I was looking for.
The new Tycho single, Coastal Brake, is finally all set for release. Above you can see the 12″ vinyl cover art including the reverse and stickers. There is also a limited edition poster with alternate artwork folded into each vinyl sleeve — I’ll post more on that and the process of creating the artwork as we get closer to the release date.
I got the finished vinyl in the other day and they look great — I’ll post up some pics next week. The official release date for the vinyl and digital is December 8th but we will be taking pre-orders starting November 2nd at The ISO50 Shop. I’ll be posting more details as the become available. | Comment on this post Update: apparently you can hear one of the remixes from the 12″ via the Ghostly Discovery App. If you dial in these mood settings, the resulting playlist should include the Lusine remix of Coastal Brake (you may have to click next a few times). Enjoy.
One of the best live shows i’ve seen this year will be out in Europe this November. Benoit Pioulard who is a pretty popular musician that I post about on this blog will be hitting the road and playing one of the more beautiful experimental live sets you’ll ever here. If you live in France then it looks like you have like 5 chances to catch him, nice.
EU Dates
Oct 31 Museum d’Histoire Naturelle . Nantes, FR
Nov 3 Planet Claire (Radio Session) . Paris, FR
Nov 4 The Lexington . London, UK
Nov 6 Compilotheque . Brussels, BE
Nov 8 Cave 12 . Geneva, CH
Nov 9 Hans Wurst . Berlin, DE
Nov 12 Comptoir Général . Paris, FR
Nov 13 Les Musicophages . Toulouse, FR
Nov 14 Musée Fenaille . Rodez, FR
US Date
Dec 10 The Artistery . Portland, Oregon, US
WARNING: While hilarious, the language used in the above videos is NSFW.
“I have made a mock up myself to help you in Microsoft Word. Just one other thing — seeing as I’m only going to use one of the ten designs you are going to do for me, I would like to pay 1/10th of the £3.50”
I was rolling on the ground watching this. I laugh at these videos in that “oh yeah, SO true” sort of way, but am not really comparing it to any of my past jobs. It’s almost as if this sort of client relationship is understood on some sort of primal level for designers. You hear enough stories and it may as well have happened to you. Anyway, this is hilarious; the automated-voice delivery is perfectly weird. The way they say “Microsoft Word” is fantastic.
I spent a ton of time last night with some of the pop ambient series on Kompakt but the early years which got me into the old Mille Plateaux catalog and other Kompakt ambient albums as well. So here are a few songs that made the early 2000’s really enjoyable, makes me think about close friends designing minimal futuristic flyers and teaching myself Adobe Photoshop late at night. I don’t know if can ever relive that again, you know being excited about Wallpaper magazine, minimal glitchy websites like seeing 2advanced.com for the first time, and mod backpacks, way to go 2001!
These days there seems to be a never-ending stream of “next-generation” graphical user interfaces being by trotted out by experts. Unfortunately for us, most seem to be fundamentally flawed in some way or another. They’re usually too expensive, ergonomically unsound, or otherwise impractical for whatever reason. I’ve worked with multi-touch systems before and while novel, they never seem to live up to the promise of “mouse-killer”. Sure, Microsoft’s multi-touch tables might make ordering drinks all super futuristic at some point, but no one wants to use Photoshop for 8 hours on a Ms. Pacman table. It seems the humble mouse — that tired paradigm of human-machine interaction we’ve been shackled to for decades — isn’t going down so easily.
There is hope though. Today I saw a video outlining 10/GUI, a new kind of graphical user interface that “aims to bridge this gap by rethinking the desktop to leverage technology in an intuitive and powerful way.” Whether or not it can attain that lofty goal is anyone’s guess. What really struck me about this particular system was the pragmatism exhibited by it’s developers. They’ve mixed in a healthy dose of innovation with tried-and-true familiarity to come up with a very compelling compromise that has me wanting to see more. As a musician and graphic designer I wonder if a system like this could ever address all of my needs, but I suppose I’d have to get my hands on it to really know. The main problem with envisioning the potential success of a new interface like this is that the current software we all use was created for the mouse. It’s easy to dismiss 10/GUI when comparing it to how I am accustomed to interacting with my computer, but if the applications I use were rewritten with an interface like this in mind, who knows how powerful it might be.
At any rate, the video is worth a watch, it’s an exciting proposition and perhaps a glimpse of what’s in store down the road. The actual demo beings around the half-way point. Video
What do you think? When, if ever, will we see any of these next-gen interfaces in our workflow? Finally, if something like this was available now, would you use it? Sound off in the comments
