There’s a single shared already from the new Loscil LP, sounds really promising, i’ll definitely post more once the album is out but here’s a teaser.
You can count on the label Kranky to never disappoint, while digging for Loscil I stumbled upon this band named Ethernet, not the best band name but they make up for it with this aquatic drone track called Seaside.
Any Wisp fans here? i’m a huge Wisp fan, in December his LP dropped on Rephlex with an array of epic melodic fantasy music that puts most new video game/fantasy movie music to shame.
A label called Twoism does a great job of taking the Boards of Canada sound the extra mile and finds musicians that love making the PBS sound, a definite net label that i’ll keep look visiting.
I do not know what to write. I am sitting here staring at the screen, running sentences in my head, and turning my music on and off. Earlier I went foraging for food (in hopes of sparking some magical words), but ended up getting distracted by Arrested Development for 20 minutes. This happens just about every time I sit down to do anything. I’ll probably go play the guitar between this paragraph and the next.
Of course this is a familiar situation. Often referred to as “writer’s block”, the concept of an inspiration rut is unfortunately very familiar to every creative in any field. Sometimes ideas just don’t show up to work. Given this, we all develop strategies to combat such a scenario. Not all are foolproof, but it’s safe to say that most creative people have some battle plan for dealing with the dreaded “blank page”.
Knowing this I decided to ask some of today’s most exciting artists and creators what they do when the ideas aren’t flowing. I left the question fairly open ended and asked, What do you do to inspire your creativity when you find yourself in a rut? As expected, I was presented with an array of strategies, ranging from listening to Boards of Canada in a forest alone, to cooking up a storm (recipe provided) and waiting for the mind to clear.
What follows are 25 strategies from these creatives to spark your inspiration; hopefully you’ll find something helpful in there. I encourage you to list your favorite strategies as well in the comments. We can never have to many of these…
This is what might happen if a trash compactor had impeccable taste and color sensitivity. The work of Michael Johansson is unique and impossible to categorize. You really have to look closely to see how random and unrelated the objects that make up these blocks actually are; yet they still match up perfectly. I can’t imagine how long it must take to source materials and eventually place and align them so precisely. Would be like building a puzzle where each piece was made by a different company and then scattered throughout the world.
With that wave of mom and pop record stores closing monthly winding down and completely gutting the support for physical music for people to discover, iPods building closed personal shells running mostly ringtone quality sound thru tiny white earbuds instead of record players playing aloud, and faceless torrents and file sharing sites handing out music like its those frickin’ free Auto Mart gazettes sitting in those bright yellow stands in front of your local closed down Blockbuster’s, i’d like to spend some of the young readers time by sharing how I got into electronic music. For what its worth I want to keep sharing what musicians first turned me from a casual listener to something that involves more time than people are willing to sometimes spend to keep up with something.
This music by Dntel was more emotional than any other electronic music I heard at the time, I feel like it almost paved the way for a ton of new genres to start. I really only listened to it when I worked or was falling asleep but then started sharing it on mixtapes and became a favorite of mine. I needed more and at that time in Detroit there was a flurry of solid record stores filled with enough employees to answer any of your questions happily with great suggestions, can you imagine that? well it was true especially one called Neptune Records which I was happy to drive the 45+ minute drive weekly to see what was new. I’ll prepare a 3rd playlist and share more, hope some of you can relate.
At first glance you might expect Joe Stevens’ collection of van photos — Vans and the places they were — to be another nostalgic overdose of 70’s camp, but on closer inspection you’ll find some beautiful photos that transcend the limited scope of the series. I love the color composition and processing; I almost feel like I’m looking at some hyperrealist version of a Kevin Cyr painting. This is probably also the only other time you could get away with hanging a picture of a van conversion on your wall and convincing all your friends that it’s art. The best part of it all is that they don’t seem to be staged at all; they all seem to be random finds which makes the quality of the shots all the more incredible.
Sidenote: Looks like Joe’s site was built on Arlo Sites, a portfolio platform that looks pretty interesting. Not sure how it stacks up to Cargo or Squarespace though, this is the first I’ve seen of it.
This was easily the best ad of the Super Bowl hands down. It was exciting to see Google’s first Super Bowl advertisement ever (and first TV ad period I think…though there may have been the odd commercial early on). Apparently “Parisian Love” as it’s called was available for viewing well before tonight as part of Google’s Search Stories. Anyway I found it refreshing and clever; a nice change from the rest of the nonsense.
On average I was very disappointed with the quality and originality of the ads. I was surprised how many concepts seemed to double up (not only that, but also play consecutively). Tackling was a surprisingly frequent punch line. Yawn. I think Super Bowl ads peaked sometime back in the late 90’s early 00’s. Cheers to Google for putting out something worthwhile.
With Dubstep branching out to see how far the genre can be pushed a ton of new ideas start to surface and a fusion of appealing sounds start melting together. One group i’m really excited about is Sepalcure which is a collaboration of Brooklyn’s Praveen and Machinedrum. the duo is doing a fine job of taking hints of soulful house and dubstep to create what they call Lovestep. One thing that Sepalcure has that other dubsteppers don’t usually have and ISO50 fans might also really enjoy is fine art direction by the multi talented designer Sougwen Chung. As you can see above and below her posters and videos of her work are a perfect fit for this heartfelt music.
Sepalcure’s debut performance alongside Untold, TRG, Pole, 2562 & more is February 13th at Unsound Festival NYC.
Below is a “Lovestep” mix done by Percussion Lab Founder/Sepalcure’s very own Praveen.
TRACKLIST Pangaea – Memories Burial – You Hurt Me TRG – Broken Heart (Martyn Remix) Untold – Dante DFRNT – Tripped (Synkro Mix) Synkro – Inhale Sines – Memories Are Here DFRNT – Tripped (Ital Tek Remix) FaltyDL – Party Joy Orbison – J. Doe Sepalcure – Deep City Insects Floating Points – K&G Beat
This stunning Spanish monument to modernism is located in Madrid, Spain. The “Delifin & Postigo House” is the residence of fashion designer David Delfin and photographer Gorka Postigo. Incredible; can’t get enough of high ceilings like this.
