Yesterday I saw Theo Parrish DJ, the man was an amazing DJ, he played everything that most people would be afraid to combine and play to a crowd but everyone loved everything he put down from Motown into Chicago Acid to Soul Funk into Hard Techno. I tried to Shazam(iPhone app that detects what song is playing) a lot that he was playing but I wasn’t getting much luck but below are a couple songs he did play and a couple that I just wanted to share to make this Monday move along a little happier.
Keep your ear out on some great parts like in the Marvin Gaye song what is that under water sonar echoed out sound? In Chick Corea’s Earth Juice, I want that guitar melody to wake me up every morning, soo good i’d let it loop for 20+ mins. The power of this Four Tops song, at 1:33 and the rest of that breakdown almost sounds like the first taste of what I think Chicago Acid is now with that muffled blown out tom sound. 9 mins of James Brown ramblin’ has never sounded so good, whenever now someone says “I don’t like electronic music is too repetitive” i’ll have to say “Oh, I get it you hate James Brown, no worries we don’t need to talk anymore, good day”
Said the Computer to the Specialist is a new book by Tom Rowe. It’s a collection of illustrations of analog recording equipment and long extinct super computers. Very stylish if you ask me. I would love to see some typography going on though — could really make some of these pieces. Nothing crazy, just some interesting titling to introduce some variety and that extra level of visual interest. Either way, some terrific illustrations.
Production is limited to 50 signed/numbered copies, so better act fast if you’re interested. Availible for purchase through Nobrow press.
Alphanumeric has a great set of Otl Aicher work including these artifacts from the 1972 Munich Olympics. As much as I love the posters from Munich, there’s something about the official stuff (tickets, badges, etc.) that might be even more fun to look at. I love how they combine form with function and you can never go wrong with serial numbers. It’s amazing to think that people defiled that beautiful luggage tag with their names and addresses. I guess that’s what makes these all the more interesting, the fact that most were destroyed by being used for their intended purpose.
Australia’s Tim Shiel aka Faux Pas runs a great blog, has a LP coming out soon and is a damn fine DJ with a very unique taste in good new music. Faux Pas recently sent me this mix as something to pass along to a blog but once I heard it I had to share it with the ISO50 blog family first, enjoy your weekend!
On a side note: I think there isn’t one mix out there without a Hudson Mohawke song on it.
TRACKLIST Arp – St. Tropez Elegi – Despotiets Vesen Dam-Funk – Galactic Fun Ka So Re – Shoes (Eero Johannes remix) Jason Forrest – Evil Doesn’t Exist Anymore Aoi – Floral Foam Megastick Fanfare – June Stranglets (Seekae remix) The Avalanches – Since I Left You (Cornelius remix) Charles Spearin – Mrs Morris Basement Jaxx – Raindrops (Joker & Ginz remix) Hudson Mohawke – Overnight Daedelus – Lights Out Chuncha Via Circuito – Prima Jean Michel Jarre – Zoolook Kraftwerk – Tour de France Mount Kimbie – Vertical Eero Johannes – Finnrexin Rustie – Tempered Qua – Ritmo Giallo Gershon Kingsley – Popcorn Moonbeam – Slow Heart Oh Astro – Candy Sun Smiles Electronic – Getting Away With It Jackson – Teen Beat Ocean Isolee – Enrico The Soft Pink Truth – Promofunk Bogdan Irkuk – Space Reflecting On The Bosphorous
Since everyone has been so supportive lately we would like to giveaway a couple of tickets for tonight. The first 2 people to comment below with their info to contact them that live in Chicago will get on the Tycho/ISO50 guest list for tonight, good luck!
I can’t say I’m in love with Swisscom’s new logo by itself, but I will say that the overall rebrand feels right as a whole. The type treatment is solid and the logo — although downright ugly standing still — lends itself well to motion and reinterpretation on packaging. The rebrand was headed up by Moving Brands (apparently with help from Dalton Maag).
I’m not trying to diminish what Moving Brands has done — they know way more than I’ll ever know about brands and how people perceive them, and hell, for all I know this is the best logo ever made and it’s singlehandedly going to increase Swisscom’s annual revenue by 1600% — but seeing a room full of designers standing around an idea board like that and thinking about the hours and weeks and months and millions of dollars that go into a project like this… Well, I sometimes wonder why these big corporations don’t just surf Behance for like and hour or something, find the kid with the best logos, throw him like $50K (which will completely blow his mind and make him your slave basically) and give him like 6 months. I bet he comes up with something just about as good and you saved like $20 million or whatever the hell they pay huge agencies these days. Ok, that’s probably all a bit of a stretch, but it does cross my mind, and if I become CEO of a european telecom giant you better believe I’m at least going to look into the idea. Actually, Moving Brands should have just done the same thing and pocketed the difference, all those guys would be doing burnouts in Ferraris wearing whale skin jackets now instead of standing around a chalkboard.
All that aside, what’s amazing to me is that these companies had the presence of mind and resources to film the process. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the poor designers over at Moving Brands having some guy with a camera always looking over their shoulder, sounds like a nightmare to me. Of course, a lot of this could have been compiled after the fact, but it’s still an interesting look inside the process of high level design shops. I’ve always wanted to do something similar for one of my posters — capture it from start to finish — but I’m convinced that the second I started the camera I would make the worst thing ever and as hard I tried I would never actually catch anything good happening. Maybe that would be more fun, the time-lapse frustrated designer movie. Video Link
Icelandic artist Siggi Odds is amazing. I think it’s great that he takes time to describe a little background for his projects — each description is perfectly concise and provides just enough context for a better understanding of his artistic choices. Not to mention the work is terrific. I would love to see what he’s been working on recently — if his older work is any indication, he is probably doing some pretty incredible design. Keep an eye out for updates on his site. Hopefully see something new soon!
You may know The Notwist from listening to Lali Puna or Ms. John Soda or visa versa, I guess if you break the band apart they are all pretty talented. Pilot has alway been a favorite of mine because its got this variety of style in the playing thats in the same range, i like to this of The Notwist as pretty big influence on a lot of bands albums in the mid 2000’s like Phoenix, Snow Patrol, and others that sounded like they’d fit onto an extended soundtrack for Lost in Translation.
OOIOO is a 4 piece all girl noise rock group out of Japan that release on Thrill Jockey(who is home to Tortoise, Sea and Cake, Califone, Radian, etc.) I think what attracted me to their sound is this similarity I hear to certain Slits songs and some stuff my mom listened to when I was young that was coming out in the mid 80s from Eastern Europe’s punk scene that didn’t count on just thrashing out but more distorted/experimental yet not too noisy singing style, building rhythm sections that wasn’t focused on getting you to dance but to just take over the room and the crowd, and upbeat feel at times.
If you heard this Flying Lotus & Kode9 live set that we posted awhile back then you might recognize this Rustie track as the complete crowd pleaser. Can you notice the Mike Tyson Punch Out uppercut sample? Mux Mool pointed that out, totally made the song even better for me since that was my first NES game I ever bought and played.
I’ve only met Konrad Black a couple of times, once I found out he was part of the original Circlesquare group which was great to hear since I loved the early work and the other times he was haunting dancefloors with this dark, sexier, and slower dj sets that would always make me want to pull my hair out because it was soo good. The track that has always grabbed me was this song that I had labeled “Scrawled In Blood Across Your T Shirt” but I guess that was the name of the EP, either way whatever the songs name is its off an EP called that but I have no samples to verify the track name, you’d think 240 Volts which is run by Swayzak would have some kind of info or samples or track times to help me find a copy of this song but thats fine I could never really get mad at Swayzak.
The Notwist – Pilot
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OOIOO – OROKAI
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Rustie – Bad Science
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Konrad Black & Selfpartwo – Busting Down The Door With A Shotgun
