I love the concept behind this release of Casino Versus Japan and Freescha, a split EP with a couple tracks from each artist on a CD. I think more artist should be open to this idea, Daedelus recently started a label that is doing this called Friends of Friends and it looks very promising, also on a side note did everyone know that Freescha did a song for Britney Spears called Heaven on Earth??
I’ve been really impressed with tracks by Nôze, their remix of Franz Ferdinand is a simple yet very effective track for the dancefloor. The combination of that flute, synth and tambourine make me actually like this Franz Ferdinand song.
I wonder who picks the remixers for Moby? Do you think he does? I know he djs a lot in New York but does he play this kind of music? Well this Holy Ghost! remix and the recent Apparat remix are some top choices, i’ll post the Apparat one next week, this one you can add to your weekend night out mix even though its a bit older.
If any of you are in town this Saturday i’ll be djing with Trus’me and Worst Friends at some Circus/Performing Art/craziness at S.L.A.M. Warehouse, i’ve posted a track of Trus’me before awhile back in October, I might like this Drilling track even more now.
Things to Look At has a great post on Vintagecalculators.com. They’ve got plenty of adverts and pictures of old school adding machines. I have an old 70’s TI from my dad I should get it out and dust it off. Jakub also has a couple if I remember correctly.
So, I’m sure most of you have heard of Delicious Library already, but the mastermind Wil Shipley released the iPhone companion this morning (iTunes link), along with v2.1.
Delicious Library has a lot of neat features that I simply don’t use, but the best use I’ve found for it so far is cataloging your vinyl collection. Unfortunately you have to manually enter everything, as well as find the album art yourself… but it’s really handy to have your collection in a lusciously designed searchable beast in your pocket.
It’s $40, but the demo let’s you add 25 items so you can play. The iPhone app is free.
“This is the first chapter of the Moodgadget 2009 Tour compilation video, with video and photos of wacky antics and performances from Detroit, Ann Arbor, Chicago and Cincinnati with Shigeto, D. Gookin, Charles Trees, Mogi Grumbles, Calmer, Worst Friends, Guardian, Mux Mool and more! Stay tuned for the next chapter, with full-length footage from shows in Brooklyn and Baltimore!” – Alex/H34dUp
Some of you know Alex/H34dUp on the blog from positive comments on Scott’s topics, well he went on tour with some of the musicians we post on and took some good photos and video from the shows. The video includes: Mux Mool, D. Gookin, Charles Trees, Shigeto, Calmer, and Mogi Grumbles and a lot of unreleased material that I thought some of you might get a kick out of. Some of the best parts are the Adult Swim style bumpers which you can read along to and enjoy the layout. Scott actually came to the Detroit show which is mostly just a collection of photos from that night. There are some awkward moments at times which kind of show you how crazy you might get driving 9 hours a day.
Highlights
– D. Gookin’s cover of Smashing Pumpkins – 1979
– Mux Mool / Shigeto live collab
– Shigeto’s drumming style
– New Charles Trees song
– New artist Dubstep artist Guardian
– Photos of the tour flyers
– The credits
I recently visited the Triennale Design Museum in Milan and saw some nifty little things. The exhibit was dedicated mostly to Italian industrial design from the 50’s/60’s. Some of my favorites are pictured above; a Ferrari P6, Olivetti Lettera 22, Brionvega TV and radio, and a Zanussi Refrigerator which looks like a time travel device. Unfortunately, I missed Design Week by a few days, but the museum was a decent substitute. It wasn’t very big at all—took only about 15 minutes to walk through—but it’s always nice to see a dedicated design exhibit.
I really don’t know what to say about Dirty Projectors, I like the synth part and the girl vocals are growing on me slowly, its definitely a nice change up for radio charting indie pop. I would love to hear your guys thoughts on it.
Last weekend I went to Public Assembly which is a venue here in Brooklyn to hear Alva Noto play but I missed his set instead I caught Byetone which was an amazing show, i’d post pictures but they look kind of crappy. If you haven’t heard much from the Raster Noton label then here is a nice intro of the more gentle side of the label from Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto.
I’ve been seeing more posts on CocoRosie recently which means maybe a new record is in the works? I remember loving this song and playing it at this wine bar weekly every time I DJed, the kitten samples kinda make me laugh, just makes me think if you sat down to make music when would you ever decide to add those to your song?
Yasume takes me back to the more geeky IDM music that had substance and still kept the warmth so it never felt too digital, really nice to hear on a nice system and not my 70USD Altec Lansing computer speakers.
A reader wrote in today asking why I haven’t posted on process or the day-to-day stuff much recently and after reading his email I realized he was right, I haven’t really been on top of that over the past couple months. This is partly due to the fact that most of the stuff I’ve been working on won’t be made public for a while and partly due to things being a bit overwhelming lately. As much as I enjoy it, running this blog has been a challenge for me at times, trying to balance getting work done and also talking about it. But even when I’m in the thick of it, it’s always nice to pop my head up and write an update and perhaps provide a little insight into the daily grind over here at the studio. So from now on I’ll make a better effort to post more often on the stuff that’s going on around here. So here’s the first installment, the studio update for June 2009.
The picture above is of Alex (the one and only ISO50 intern) in the upstairs work area which we use for printing, photography, and any other random tasks that don’t fit into the dungeon below which houses the music studio and main design systems. Alex has been prepping things for the new Epson 9900 which is finally all put together (pictured to the left). It’s scheduled to be commissioned today when the team from Meridian comes out to get it online. Once that’s up and running we’ll be able to do large format stuff so be on the lookout for some very big prints soon. Alex is also working on a very detailed article on color calibration which we’ve been sorting out for a while now and which just seems to keep growing in scope. But it will be worth the wait when it’s done, I promise!
As for new work, I’ve been locked downstairs working on the new Tycho album along with a few new posters which you will start to see coming out over the next couple months. It’s sort of been a rough few months transitioning into getting-shit-done mode. Putting together the Coastal Brake 12″ (due out in August) sort of wiped me out and then a long stretch of poorly timed traveling really put me in a bad spot as far as motivation is concerned. But after some time off I was able to get back into it over the past few weeks and the new work has been flowing pretty well. It’s nice to step away from things for a bit (even if not by choice), when I get back to it I always find myself seeing things from a different perspective and appreciating the process a little more.
