I was really taken by this poster by Jason Hill. All of the elements are appealing to me; the type, the illustration style, and even the words chosen. I would imagine anything held at the “MonOrchid gallery” must be kind of awesome to live up to such a sexy name. I wasn’t familiar with Jason’s work previously, but he has some really interesting pieces in his portfolio. His Dreamscape series is pretty rad.
I can see Tame Impala being a very free spirited band, their love for lively psychedelic sounds is present in every song i’ve heard. Their cover art grabbed my eye but their music made me want to share the song with you, hope you enjoy, this one is on a crazy Caribou tip.
Brooklyn’s Weed is a lo-fi bedroom rocker that lays down easy to listen to guitars that are perfect for dry summer days, grab his free EP here, i’ve had it on repeat.
I’ve posted Charles Trees before on the blog but nothing like this before, if you were a bit disappoint by the Flying Lotus LP for not being chunky and rough enough well then this should feed your need.
I found Hooray! out on a whim and i’m so happy I did, I hope more indie rockers can hear some of this lush 4/4 material because what is being fused together here is exactly what I love. Keep checking Wonder Beard Tapes for a release date of the LTD 100 tape release.
I am very jealous of any of our readers that are able to make it to this event. Starting May 22, the Less is More exhibit will be at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany. The exhibit surveys Dieter Rams entire body of work and is also accompanied by a lecture series. I’m hoping this Vitsoe sponsored roving exhibit will eventually make its way to California. Though the last time I wanted to visit a design museum, I had to all the way to Milan.
If you can’t make it to the event, do remember the 800 page catalog I posted on not long ago. This book is terrific. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, they are available from Vitsoe and Amazon.
Eric Carl (who also brought us these vintage sci-fi book covers and these classic logos) has a beautifully scanned set of vintage ads from magazines up. They’re all high res so it’s a goldmine for textures and overlays. I love how magazine print breaks up at high resolution. The moire patterns are very useful when blown up in compositions; I use them a lot for posters.
Photo above unrelated to the music chosen
House Of House was a big summer DJ duo last year here in Brooklyn, I hope they kick up some dirt this year and maybe even dish out a few more tracks like this, I always love the long edits.
A pleasant surprise signing for the B-Pitch label, Jahcoozi sometimes ride on that Bug LP tip that we all loved, liking this track Msoto Millions because of its hypnotic elements and that bit of wobble.
New Interpol FREE download, takes awhile to get to the meat and potatoes but once its going you remember why you loved Interpol in the first place.
Mads Berg is by far one of the most refreshing illustrators I’ve seen in quite sometime. His works range from a crisp, modern Art Deco style to more 3-dimensional environment illustrations. Each of his pieces have such an engaging style that immediately welcomes you.
What I take from these illustrations is the execution of the core concepts. The amount of riffraff in these is nil—it’s down to the bare essentials which leaves us with a very simple illustration and clear message. What more can you ask for?
It’s a shame that I haven’t seen this style reflected more in today’s design trends. However, it could be that I’m just not tapping into the streams that they’re in.
Before I get to the Funki Porcini song I want to talk about JDSY because this song keeps popping up in my head and i’m trying to give it justice. Imagine all the experimental avant pop that has been made and what usually turns you off, is it because of harsh sounds? or is it some style that your not familiar with? I think most avant pop even in the indie world doesn’t surface because the artist might go too far off and makes something too effect driven or messes around too much, well I want you to hear me out on this JDSY song because I think its an important piece of music because 1. Its not trendy, not one song he makes is what you might hear on Pandora or Last.fm 2. he isn’t reinventing anything but instrument choices together aren’t like anything i’ve heard before, its like Bjork leaving the Sugarcubes and instead of writing debut she writes a love song disguised as a children television theme songs for the 1990’s but at the 2 minute mark the melody hits me like a ton of bricks, I get this feeling he’s done it he has made a true avant pop for 2010 and i’m comfortable saying it. Here is the song Telluride for free.
Sorry for that tangent I just felt like I needed to get it out of me but now its going to be hard to describe all these other great songs. First off, I was geeked to hear a Funki Porcini song that i’ve wanted to hear over and over, its been awhile, probably close to 5 years. It’s on a dark tip with slow breaks but keeps my attention with the synth work, nice one Ninja Tune for supporting some of the guys that really got me into darker electronic music.
The new Ratatat isn’t anything new, you can feel its a Ratatat song right away when it sounds like a fake electronic guitar is playing a great melody, don’t break something that isn’t broken, looking forward to the rest of this record.
I’m embarrassed to say this is the first Javelin song i’ve ever heard, i’ve seen the name nearly 50+ times in my life and i’m from their home state Michigan so that makes me feel even worse, I just thought they were going to be a lot harsher but instead they give me that wonderful feeling of when I first heard Jacknuggeted by Caribou.
FITC just released the highlight reel from this year’s festival in Toronto. The video was done by Stock Archive and features the most recent Tycho single, Coastal Brake as the soundtrack. I’m pretty sure the whole thing was shot with the Canon 5D MK2. I did an interview for the Stock Archive guys and they had a couple setups, one of which was the 5D on one of those body-mounted steady cam rigs. It was insane; the guy looked like a robot. Some of the panning shots definitely look like they were using it.
I’m really impressed with the editing, I’m not sure what I was expecting but this certainly exceeded it. I think as the quality of the 5D becomes ubiquitous people will stop being so blown away by the visual aspects alone and elements like editing and narrative will become much more important. Right now I feel like you could record a dumpster for 30 minutes with the 5D and it would be watchable.
On a side note, I will be speaking at FITC San Francisco this summer. I’ll be posting more on that next week, but just a heads up if you want to score some tickets before they go up in price (May 28th I believe).