I’ll be heading back to my other favorite city today for the F5 fest. I’m staying a few extra days as I haven’t had the chance to really enjoy myself the last few times I’ve been in NYC. Jakub scored some tickets to the Brainfeeder/Flying Lotus show @ Love so we’ll definitely be making it out to that. I’m brining the Nikon and the new little Canon (which, by the way, I’ve been loving) for some undercover HD video action; I’ll post up the results as they roll in.
In 1956, György Ligeti composed an amazing electronic piece called “Artikulation”.
In 1970’s, Rainer Wehinger created a visual map to the recordings. Some awesome guy out there scanned the images and synced them with the audio. Thanks, guy!
When I saw Deerhunter live I remember asking myself I hope the guitarist on the right of the stage puts out a record, seems like he was doing most of the melody guitar and effected parts in the songs like some mini Johnny Greenwood. Well that happened and Lotus Plaza did a killer job on the record but I especially love this A Threaded Needle song, it has so many catchy elements of lo-fi post rock. Everything sits in the mix perfectly as well, never asking for your attention just gentle guitar screeches and a vocal that sits in the backseat, couldn’t be happier with the result of this project.
Recently we posted nostalgia filled Adelaide videos on the blog but I can’t just leave you with those, here’s the song Games Without End off their self released EP, this has hints of Sea and Cake and Mercury Program all over the EP but they take it a step closer to what I want to hear which is film soundtrack music that is equal to a Cinnabun in the cinnamon roll world, just an overwhelming ooze of frosting and warmth. If you like this check out other projects from the band like Small Sails or Ethan Rose.
A pretty low key one from Mogwai, definitely nice to lose yourself in this one and think your somewhere else.
This Explosions In The Sky song might be the rowdiest Monday song ever posted just epic the factor alone makes it feel like you won Tour de France and the World Cup at the same time, don’t use it as a exercise song either, you break something important.
Lotus Plaza – A Threaded Needle
[audio:threaded.mp3]
Adelaide – Games Without End
[audio:without.mp3]
Mogwai – The Sun Smells Too Loud
[audio:smells.mp3]
Explosions In The Sky – With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept
I’ll be headed to Chicago in May for a show (details coming soon) so I thought it would be a good time to post these great posters which were part of a cultural series for the city of Chicago. I need to get a hold of a bunch of prints like these in A1 format and just line my walls.
Polish designer Jacek Utko on the impending doom of the printed newspaper, and how good design could turn things around. His statistics certainly are convincing, and I hope for the sake of my morning routine that he’s right. I would really hate to see the printed edition become extinct. Watch the TED version here.
He mentions it briefly, but when he says “this is the new role of the designer: to be in the process from the very beginning to the very end”, that is the biggest take away for me. The role of the designer is definitely changing, and our value now has a lot more to do with how we think than what we can do with a blank page.
If I had a car or satellite radio i’d probably follow the radio a little more but I don’t have either really, I do try though to catch Alex Ruder on KEXP whenever I can because of his diverse taste on one of radio’s best commercial-free KEXP(Seattle). Its kind of nice to get thru 30 brand new songs within less than 70 mins and a get a little info along the way, definitely worth checking out.
TRACKLIST – KEXP DJ Alex Ruder – “Your Style Won’t Survive You” Balmorhea – Settler Koushik – Welcome Flying Lotus – Camel (Nosaj Thing Remix) Osborne – Hydragilm Exit Destruments – The Get Down Calmer – Past Is Present Kiln – Marigold Bunker New Villager – Rich Doors Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Can’t Hear My Eyes Tussle – Elephants Meandering (Sal Principato and Dennis Young Remix) Roots Manuva – Let the Spirit (Hot Chip Remix) Zion I – DJ DJ Buraka Som Sistema – D…D…D…D…Jay Home Video – I Can Make You Feel It KiD CuDi – Day ‘n’ Nite (Jori Hulkkonen Remix) Grampall Jookabox – Let’s Go Mad Together The Bran Flakes – What It’s All About Charles Trees – Memories CYNE – Fall Through Atlantis Aether – Anywhere Hudson Mohawke – Star Crackout Hauschka – Freibad Dyme Def – Fresh In My Kicks Circle Research – This Is A Recording Black Milk – Give the Drummer Sum Eliot Lipp – Sentinel Benoit Pioulard – Ragged Tint Marie Siouxx – Love Song Daedelus – C’Est Super Surkin – Chrome Knight (f. Chromeo) Lemonade – Big Weekend (Delorean Remix)
Since we’re on the subject of Dieter Rams this week, I thought I’d post on his Vitsoe Shelving series. You may remeber the name Vitsoe from the Name That Chair post a while back, but it’s not enough just to have a Rams chair, you must also surround it with his amazing shelves. The Vitsoe site features a nice gallery of the shelves in their natural habitat, and you’ll also catch a few 620 chairs in there.
If course, a setup like those in the gallery will no doubt cost you an arm and a leg, but it’s nice to look. It’s always funny, whenever I somehow randomly find myself in some rich guy house, they never have anything as cool as this. It’s either gaudy old classical gold leaf stuff dripping with ornament or garish nouveau riche style with white carpets and bad marble floors. Apparently you have to be broke or German to appreciate this stuff.
Khoi Vinh just posted an incredible piece about design criticism for his Subtraction blog entitled “Dear Designers, You Suck”. He calls for a new kind of design criticism, one that separates the designer from their work and attempts to imbue the field with more objective and honest criticism.
…are we really having the kinds of meaningful, constructive, critical discourses that we really should be having? Are we too quick to take offense at the opinions of our peers? Or are we pulling our punches too much when discussing the merits of the work that our peers turn out? To put a finer point on it: are we being honest with one another?
The answer is definitely no, we are not being honest with one another. As a student, I am very familiar with the problem he describes. As our school is critique based, we see this avoidance of real, honest criticism every day. When something truly awful gets laid in front of us, we hedge around what we really think with all sorts of meaningless qualifiers: “Well, um, I think…for me anyway, and maybe it’s just the light but…the colors aren’t working.. but uh.. in the best way possible.” I know I for one have never felt comfortable saying what I really think, and this is the problem. There is no way to really grow if you don’t get the critique you need, and getting past the discomfort of critiquing honestly is what desperately needs to happen, as awkward as it might seem at first.
The harsher teachers at our school tend to get a bad reputation for being blunt–which in my mind translates to a good reputation. I’ve always seen the most improvement with my own work when the first thing the teacher says is “this is really bad, and here’s why.” I want the teacher that makes people cry. I want to hear “this is terrible” when the work actually is. The worst thing someone can do is say they like something just to be polite.
Khoi’s article is a breath of fresh air, and I truly hope his words will be put to practice. I like to imagine what class would be like if everyone truly spoke their mind; how exciting! How much more we would learn! Maybe it won’t happen tomorrow, but it can start with reading this article. Well done Khoi for calling attention to a such a pervasive problem!
