Since i’ve known Zach Saginaw aka Shigeto and saw him play live I had a feeling early on he was one of those guys that was going to give beat producers a run for their money, the man is a performer and can drum with more dynamics than any other producer I know. You can listen to songs like Look At All The Smiling Faces and get the understanding that this isn’t someone thats looking to just produce beats for fun, the man wants to do this as a living because he cares about the sound and was born to take this sound to the next level and not only on a album but more importantly on stage.
If you’re a vinyl head then this is your piece, the vinyl comes with a art sleeve by Mike Cina and the CD slid in there too, you can pick it up at The Ghostly Store.
Below is a quick run thru of the whole LP, just a few seconds of each song that was done by Alex Koplin aka H34dUp and who comments on the blog regularly.
I spent a good chunk of my youth destroying my knees in the name of skateboarding; first during the 80’s as a kid and later in college. The contrast between these two distinct stylistic periods was stark to say the least. Decks went from the curvy whale-tail style with garish neon graphics to the simplified, unidirectional kind you see more often today. The graphics changed a lot with the shape, but each era had a huge influence on my visual tastes. The stickers, the shirts, the decks; I was obsessed with the imagery. I guess it was one of the few instances where a suburban kid could be exposed to non-traditional art and design created by outsiders.
While digging around for some interesting graphics I came across this article at Unodos covering a few books that feature some classic skateboarding designs. There are some old favorites in there (the Powell branding is still about as good as it gets), but I missed Hook-Ups (which you’ll catch a brief glimpse of on the Skateboard Stickers cover) and Alien Workshop (two of my 90’s era favorites). Most of the images are from The Disposable Skateboard Bible which definitely looks worth picking up. The publishers have an online gallery featuring decks from various designers and artists featured in the book.
If you haven’t seen The Social Network yet, I highly recommend it. Initially I was skeptical—I mean how good could a movie about Facebook possibly be? The answer is, truly inspiring. There is something about seeing success happen that triggers the “let’s make things happen” part of my brain.
Not only is the movie worth the watch, the soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is also worth the download. Luckily for us the sampler is available for free and the full 19-track album is only five bucks.
An oldie but a goodie, Madlib manhandles music from India into the heavy beat that I love in hip hop these days.
I had a good weekend night at Bunker in Brooklyn this past Friday, some great Detroit DJs showed up and that opened a tiny door back up in my heart for few techno classics to jump back into my life.
Some smooth workings by Diskjokke, let this ride out, it unfolds nicely.
Took a hour long car ride with Benoit Pioulard listening to this Grouper LP Cover the Windows and the Walls, this song couldn’t be written any better.
You may remember Teenage Engineering as the Swedish ID firm that’s developing the gorgeous OP-1 sythesizer. But while digging through their blog I came across another incredible design, something called the Syricon.
I can only guess what this beast is for; TE are tight-lipped about it except for what little info they divulge in this interview with Shift:
It’s a defense training machine! It’s a quite massive machine, built in water-jet cut aluminum sides, stainless steel top-plates, custom cnc’d plastics & alu details. We wanted it to look very custom and were inspired by pro line-array speaker systems + instrumentation seen in the air/space-biz.
We did everything from design, actual construction & building it, development of vector/3d graphics libraries, game development, circuit-boards etc. Crazy project, it was built in 1 month.
Not sure whether to take “defense training machine” as a joke or not. Either way I want one modified to function as a DAW controller.
Oh and then there’s this. These guys are killing it.
If you have followed the blog from the beginning you may know I post Loscil on a consistent basis. Yesterday he posted a small EP via his bandcamp that included this gem called Gallium. I can only describe the sound as the feeling you get when you start swinging on a swing set but in slow motion and instead of a playground imagine yourself in a cave.
I am ADDICTED to this beginning song by Small Black, the intro melody gives me goosebumps, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ALBUM PURCHASE.
Many of the chillwave artists such as Houses are spinning out of the very enjoyable yet highly bashed genre. There are some interesting and beautiful pieces of lo-fi work as a result. One thing I realized after hearing this song, i’m a sucker for woodblocks with echo.
Its new Tim Hecker with Destroyer on vocals. The reaction I have after listening is that I wish there was more music like this, its a well crafted idea that could go horribly bad but these 2 talents make it work.
Really simple, clean typography fits this publication well. 3 Minutes is from the non-profit organization Designers Against Human Rights Abuse.
Contributors to the project include Bibliotheque, Brighten the Corners, Stefan Gandl (NeubauBerlin), Alex Haigh (Thinkdust / HypeforType), Nick Hard (Research Studios), Jeff Knowles (Research Studios), Abbott Miller (Pentagram), Si Scott, Paul Skerm and last but not least Un.titled.
Every guy has their way of shopping, some do a quick grab and go without trying anything on from J Crew, some shop only on the internet, and some just let their girlfriend or mom do it all for them. I personally like clothing shopping, I use to be a buyer for a few vintage shops and do plenty of looking around in shops every week. I came across NerdBoyfriend awhile back and I keep coming back, the name is a bit misleading but the whole idea of finding old photos of people that we love like Martin Short or Chevy Chase and helping you put together that outfit by linking to clothes that look like whats in the picture is a pretty clever idea for a site in my opinion.
