Being someone that loves to doodle all day and create little simple worlds from my imagination, Wilmer Murillo‘s illustration work stuck out to me instantly. Wilmer is a Honduran graphic artist and illustrator currently living in Taiwan. He cites ancient cultures, mysticism, and sci-fi as some of his influences and I think that really comes across in his art. It’s like a Mayan culture was transported to another planet where the only language is downtempo electronic music. Wilmer’s colorful take on central American art is a breath of fresh air. Check out his website for more and you can even purchase his incredible illustrations on Society6.
P.S. Check out this new track from some of my Nashville/LA friends Wild Cub & Madi Diaz.
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.
You guys know Rory right? he posts on the blog, usually beautifully colored vintage car and motorcycle material, also drums for Tycho and Com Truise. Well his album “Themes” is out on Moodgadget in November under the name Nitemoves. We’ll stream the whole album on the blog in 2 weeks, definitely worth your time.
Museum of Love is a new hopeful for the DFA label, has a big hint of Matthew Dear in it.
Loving this trancey work from Miracle on Planet-Mu, a nice poppy length which gives it that replay ability.
Found this dub done by Pional, dub edit are a big go-to during the winter for playlists for yourself.
Over twenty years in the making and set for a 2018 launch, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the single most advanced space telescope ever constructed. Successor to NASA’s beloved Hubble Space Telescope, JWST has been purpose-built for studying the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to give astronomers an ability of seeing past clouds of dust and gas and further back to the beginning of the Universe than we ever have. How far? According to NASA the JWST will see the Universe’s very first star formations taking place only 100 to 250 million years after the Big Bang. Such distant and precise observations promise to unleash a torrent of new discoveries and unlock fundamental quandaries about the origin of the cosmos and life in the Universe.
A few interesting facts:
• JWST’s primary mirror is a 6.5 meter diameter gold coated beryllium reflector that is too large for contemporary launch vehicles, so the mirror is being composed of 18 hexagonal segments (as seen above), which will all unfold after the telescope is launched. Why Hexagons? It’s beyond my comprehension, but supposedly this has something to do with hexagons having a perimeter less than that of a square over a given area, which translates to a gained efficiency for steering the mirror segments and focusing the telescope.
• The telescope will maintain an L2 orbit, meaning that it will orbit in earth’s shadow and around the sun, not the earth. The idea here is to eliminate all possible heat / light sources, such as Earth’s heat-shimmer, and keep the telescope as cold as possible. How cold? Extremely. Cold. The JWST’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) will operate at a set temperature of 7 Kelvins, or -266° C / -447° F, through the use of a helium refrigerator, or cryocooler system (source).
• Although JWST’s primary goal is to study the first galaxies or stars that formed after the Big Bang, the telescope is also capable of measuring the physical and chemical properties of planetary systems within our Milky Way and will investigate the potential for life in those planetary systems.
• When launched, some scientists suggest the telescope will represent a greater technological achievement than landing on the moon.
ISO50 Playlist 16 – Compiled By Heathered Pearls & Tycho Track Listing Bibio – A Tout a l’heure Bonobo – Cirrus Machinedrum – Whatnot Atoms for Peace – Default Sepalcure – He Said No XXYYXX – Alexis Airbird & Napolian – In The Zone Toro Y Moi – Say That (DaM-FunK Re-Freak) Dauwd – Ikopol Lord RAJA – Panthera Bengal Chrome Sparks – Marijuana Ulrich Schnauss – I Take Comfort in Your Ignorance (Tycho Remix) Yuna – Lullabies (Jim-E Stack Remix) Maribou State – Scarlett Groove (Feat. Saint Saviour) Clarian & Guy Gerber – Claire Nosaj Thing – Eclipse/Blue feat. Kazu Makino (Blonde Redhead) Beacon – Bring You Back White Denim – Street Joy Youth Lagoon – Mute Frank Wiedemann & Ry Cuming – Howling Smashing Pumpkins – Cupid De Locke Avey Tare – Bobby’s Loop Meanderthals – Collective Fetish Superstructure – Escape Levek – Girl In The Fog John Talabot & Pional – Braves Grizzly Bear – gun-shy (Lindstrøm Remix) Poolside – Next To You Hot Chip – How Do You Do? (Todd Terje Remix) Lindstrøm & Todd Terje – Lanzarote Lescop – La Foret (Joakim’s Balenciaga Remix) Black Sabbath – Planet Caravan [DJ Steef Edit] Ptaki – Krystyna Todd Terje – Snooze 4 Love (Version) Darkstar – Timeaway Knxwledge. – wishuwerehere. Throwing Snow – Aspera Andy Stott – Numb The Holydrug Couple – Out of sight
In honor of this week’s discovery of a moon-sized planet smaller than mercury, here’s a selection of work from 2012 of our own tiny sphere, featuring hills, craters, flats, fields, and broken flying machines. Shot with the Hasselblad 500 C/M on Kodak Portra. See more here.
One of my favorite people on this planet is Cameron Ballensky. I recently visited Cameron and… well… you know how some people hoard cats? Or hoard old papers? Cameron hoards Polaroids. Call it an obsession or whatever but his hoarding skills are starting to pay off. Recently he’s been learning to do double exposures with Polaroids which is a pretty cool and ingenious process. The last two are examples of his first attempts. I can only imagine that his skills at this process will only get better. Would love to have a wall dedicated to a bunch of his photos someday.
Cameron, perhaps you can share with us some of the equipment, film and processes you use in our comments?
One last mix for the year, this one is for Montreal boutique SSENSE, I tried to go a bit moody yet still build to some sort of drive. The mix contains a track from one of my favorites from Circlesquare and this years Shed LP, hope you enjoy.
POLISH-BORN BROOKLYN-BASED PRODUCER JAKUB ALEXANDER, BETTER KNOWN BY HIS STAGE NAME, HEATHERED PEARLS’ AMBIENT MIX OF PROGRESSIVE, STEADY RHYTHMS AND HYPNOTIC BASSLINES OPENS WITH A SYNTH-DRIVEN OFFERING FROM THE HYPERDUB-SIGNED NEW WAVE PROJECT, DARKSTAR, BEFORE ARTICULATING SMOOTHER SOUNDSCAPES, KICKLESS BEATS AND ETHEREAL VOCALS FROM THE LIKES OF CIRCLESQUARE, TROPIC OF CANCER AND PLANETARY ASSAULT SYSTEMS. SWEDISH PRODUCER MOKIRA’S EXPERIMENTAL SINGLE, TIME TRACK REMIXED BY SILENT SERVANT FILTERS IN A CONTEMPORARY TAKE ON AMBIENT ELECTRONIC FILLED WITH HAZY STATIC FOLLOWED BY TRACKS FROM FELLOW GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL-SIGNED DUO LUSINE + WINGO.
I remember the first time I laid eyes on a photo of Brasilia. I actually thought it was from a science fiction movie or computer generated 3D model. In fact, it’s still hard to believe these buildings really exist on our planet today.
Yesterday, the legendary architect behind Brasilia and many more modernist works of art, passed away at the age of 104.
Oscar Niemeyer was an architect by trade, but his buildings embodied much more than the engineering or utility behind them; they were, to borrow a phrase I read in a recent obituary, “a poetic vision of the future.”
And nowhere was Oscar’s vision better demonstrated than in Brasilia, a planned utopia conceived in Brazil’s interior that resembles a spaceport more than anything we might recognize as a city. In fact, after flying over Brasilia’s futuristic presidential palace and modular ministries in 1961, Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut and first man in space, said “the impression was like arriving on another planet.”
The photos presented here are from two photographers and sources. Marcel Gautherot’s photos of ‘The Construction of Brasilia’ are sourced from an Arch Daily article you should read and see. The others are from Rene Burri, and you can view more of them through Magnum Photo’s website.
