We’ve been rolling thru these Guest Music Posts this week, we will wrap the week up with a female focused post by Will Wiesenfeld aka Baths / Geotic, beautiful choice to start it off Will!
CocoRosie – R.I.P. Burn Face
In CocoRosie’s bizarre pop aesthetic, they’re able to maintain this perfect level of darkness and experimentation
without it getting in the way of melody and songwriting. I’ve always been jealous of how effortless they make it seem.
Björk – Sun In My Mouth (recomposed by Ensemble) Ensemble (Oliver Alary) also produced the Björk song “Desired Constellation,” my favorite song of all time. This is another great collaboration by the two.
Robyn – Hang With Me
Pop music perfected. Everyone alive should take notes.
Husky Rescue – Beautiful My Monster
My favorite song of last year. Coming from such a wonderfully gloomy album, this song serves as the light at the end of the tunnel.
It ties the record together beautifully.
Clearly we’re fans of Erik Nitsche as we’ve posted a number of times about his work in the past. These three pieces are some of my favorites. The first and second were annual reports completed in 1955 and 1959; the third is a cover that was designed in 1956.
It’s really a shame the Flickr stream that held Nitsche’s work is now down. These images were found here.
Many of you know Michael Cina’s work as a Graphic Designer but he also has a great taste in music, he set some time aside and shared some music for the ISO50 readers, enjoy:
Supersilent
I am waiting for my copy to come, I preordered this half-way into
listening to an advanced copy last year. I think Supersilent is pretty
good (I love Deathprod), but this is Supersilent at their best. Parts
of the lp hint at a sparse Miles Davis when he was in his fusion
years, other songs sound like Vangelis. They really precisely capture
tones and moods on this album.
Talk Talk
I have been on a steady stream of the last two Talk Talk lps for the
last six months or so. There is something hauntingly beautiful about
these sincere records. From what I understand, they locked themselves
in a dark room and didn’t talk with anyone while making these albums.
You can hear it, you can hear the room swallowing you.
Nicolas Jaar
I won’t pretend that I know anything about Jaar, as I don’t, besides
he is somewhat connected to the Wolf + Lamb crew. You can tell from
his production, that he loves sound. He seems to be expanding off of
the road that Matthew Dear has paved and is making his own way. I am
looking forward to see where he goes with his music.
The Blue Nile
One of my friends Rob turned me onto this a little while ago. I have
heard of the band but really never knew what they did. This is the
second song is off their “Hats” full-length. It’s magic from start to
finish. They really create a vivid picture in this song.
Tycho will be playing in Sacramento at SEMF on Thursday, January 27th. SEMF is the Sacramento Music Festival which, if you haven’t been, is well worth the drive. This year’s line up includes Daedelus, Dusty Brown, Little Foxes, Bonjay, Sister Crayon and many more.
Oh how I wish the 31 megapixel, full frame sensor Camera Futura camera phone were real. Unfortunately it’s just a design study by Seattle firm Artefact Group. According to the concept, the sensor is housed within the lens which continues to function when removed from the body, thus allowing the screen to be used as a remote viewer. Renderings are all well and good, Artefact went so far as to stage a fake CES demonstration of the device for this video:
The video seems to have raised the ire of many a tech-blog commenter, and led many to believe this was just some elaborate hoax. But Artefact states that “we created these assets to spark a discussion around the question of “what if” the product was really available”. I hope something like this comes along sooner than later, I give it 10 years if they were even able to find a big enough market for such a device. I honestly can’t imagine the average cell phone user caring about interchangeable lenses and full frame sensors. Or wanting to lug around a big hunk of glass all the time.
Go here right now icelandwantstobeyourfriend.com. This marketing campaign is absolutely hilarious, genius, and refreshing. I want to be Iceland’s friend, a lot, after reading through all this (go to the Twitter or Facebook page for more fun). I’ve always wanted to go there anyway, but this certainly supplements my desire. I had no idea Iceland was such a cool person, thanks Takk Takk.
I have heard that many people use the Inter-nets to make friends, and to talk about themselves. So that is what I want to do, too. I know you are probably very busy doing important things, but if you want to be my friend, you can.
– Iceland
Still from Heima, the beautiful Sigur Ros documentary.
Hey IS050 gang! Mr. Alexander was kind enough to ask for a guest post on some music I enjoy. I decided to mostly feature some music which has inspired and surrounds my Sepalcure project (alongside the talented Machinedrum). These are the repeats – the jams I can listen to over and over without ever wearing em out.
1) Mount Kimbie – Sketch on Glass
A near unbearably long intro, IDM inspired percussion and a final vocoded 1.5 minutes to die for. I remember heading over to Fort Greene Park last year when this EP dropped just to sit under the trees and listen to this jam on repeat. Took the day off just to do so. I know I looked at the clouds a bunch.
Seriously though. Check these guys – they are some seriously talented kids with an equally engrossing live show. Whenever Jakub writes about how IDM is back, just under a new guise, it makes me think of our Hotflush label mates, Mount Kimbie.
2) TRG – Broken Heart (Martyn’s DCM Remix)
Without this track, Sepalcure may never have happened. #realtalk
I remember a friend sending me this in late 2007 and my subsequent loss of the ability to listen to anything else. The chords, the vocal, the wooden snares – I can honestly say this track got me back into dance music in a big way. There was literally nothing else like it at the time. Wooden snares are a dime a dozen these days (I’m guilty of abusing the shit outta them myself), and with this broken beat take on dubstep and techno at an all time peak, maybe its a good time to look back at where it all started.
3) Falty DL – MY FRIENDS WILL ALWAYS SAY…
Prolific is an understatement. Drew Lustman has had over two dozen releases in the past two genre-spanning years. Weaving everything from IDM to Disco to 2 Step to Acid, homeboy Lustman is one to watch in 2011. There’s a great story somewhere in there about him being at a Percussion Lab rooftop party years back and deciding to move to NYC because of it but we’ll save that for another time. The thing I love about Falty’s production is you can almost immediately tell its him. In a genre saturated with cookie cutter preset tracks, thats something special.
This track is one of my favorites of his – takes a great idea and keeps it simple. The chords, vocal sample, garage beat – its prime goose bump material.
4) Johann Johannsson – melodia (iii)
One of the saddest pieces of music I’ve ever heard. This one oozes melancholy and defeat. I actually think I cried a bit when I saw Johannsson perform this at Le Poisson Rouge a couple years back. The whole Fordlandia album holds a special place in my heart – one of those places you don’t necessarily want to revisit, but was vital to have during a particular time of your life. I feel like this is a good counter piece to the aforementioned dance music gems. Music with an entirely different purpose. You may think Burial sounds pretty good in the rain, but it doesn’t match the absolute gut wrenching, soul destroying event which is “melodia” in a downpour. I made myself promise to listen to less sad music last year though, so thats all on you.
Ah yes Outer Space, one of my favorite subjects. Ross Bernes does it justice here in his Under the Milky Way series. These have been floating around the blogosphere for some time, but I only recently discovered Mr. Berens and his many talents (and at such a young age!). As he mentions on his site, these were each done in 2-3 hours — I wonder what he could do with a whole day. I was also very impressed with the logo for his blog, NVSBLTY.
