A friend showed me a place called Meet, seems like a nice spot for meetings but the idea is a bit too forced/corporate feeling for my taste. This is from their About Us page: “Marc and Sara Schiller, who realized that there was a need for a dedicated space in New York where creative and business executives could gather to re-imagine a business, re-invent a product or pitch potential clients. Advertising agencies, top consumer brands and television networks are among their enthusiastic clientele.”
Berlin-based Alan Abrahams has earned a lot of attention lately. His albums as Portable for the Background and ~scape imprints have garnered near-universal acclaim for their deft fusion of tribal rhythms and a modern micro-house sensibility. For his first LP as Bodycode, The Conservation of Electric Charge, Abrahams focuses on the more dancefloor-oriented aspects of his style, yielding a gorgeous album born from the belief that the psyche can be unlocked via the body. Bodycode also came from necessity ? while on tour playing club dates, Abrahams was compelled to seek the most engaging sound for that environment. Remarkably adept at its task, Bodycode?s mesmerizing percussive arrangements and subtle melodic flourishes create an immediately engaging sound that lingers in the mind long after the club has closed.
I just saw Alan aka Portable/Bodycode play last night on a freezing rooftop outdoors right around Union Square in New York and he blew my mind. Alan makes pure body music that’s straight from his roots of South Africa, if anyone is doing any tribal house music properly its him. He also slowly falls into some beautiful droned out breakdowns that aren’t like anything else, so there is something here for the world music(sadly this genre has such a bad rep) and ambient fans as well.
I’ve been considering a workspace overhaul for a couple months now. For inspiration, I’ve been browsing the photographs at The Selby, a blog dedicated to the workspaces of creatives. Each post includes photographs of artists in their homes and studios, and usually a little handwritten interview at the end. A majority of their subjects are from New York or LA, but I’m hoping they’ll make it out to San Francisco one of these days.
With my space, it’s amazing I’m able to get anything done; clothes are everywhere, bookshelves overflow onto the floor, and wires tangle their way into everything. It takes me at least five minutes to find just about anything. In all likelihood, it will stay this way forever, but I figure if I spend enough time looking at other people’s workspaces, I might actually get motivated to make mine picture worthy. Then again, as most of the pictures indicate (and Scott has suggested before), a pristine workspace isn’t a prerequisite for productivity.
Pop Up Storefront Los Angeles showcased some great photos from Frederic Chaubin, the Cambodian born French-Spanish editor of Citizen K magazine. The show, entitled “CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed”, focused on Chaubin’s fascination with the sort of futurist architecture that came out of Soviet Russia’s Cold-War era. I’ve always been quite impressed by Soviet architecture like this; they somehow built real versions of all those artist’s renderings of future societies that people were cranking out in the 50’s and 60’s. I’ve never seen it represented quite so faithfully; Chaubin’s photos really capture that whole utopian society vibe.
Talk about inspiration; these are all simply incredible. I used to obsess over tapes when I was a kid, always looking for the coolest packaging or interesting design. But never in all those years did I come across any as cool as these. Most of these look to be a little before my time and, of course, are of European origin. I always wonder what effect growing up around such interesting design might have had on me. All we had in the states was this crap, while German kids got to record Ege Bamyasi to little plastic boxes coated in design goodness. Maybe it’s for the best, I guess now I can appreciate things like this more. Jubru has posted these scans to a flickr gallery where you’ll find many more great examples.
Matthew Barney’s attention to detail and elegance has always grabbed me because I have always felt that he’s the man that can help the art world grow. The logo for the Cremaster Cycle series is gorgeous, if you ever get a chance pick up a copy of the book.
I’ve just started a film oriented design project in one of my classes, and I’ve been spending a lot of time browsing through the archives over at Art of the Title. Started in December 2007, Art of the Title is a blog dedicated to the film title sequence, and is a great resource for film buffs and designer alike. They post high quality videos of each sequence they chronicle, and usually have an interview with the creators as well. It’s amazing to see what can be done with little to no footage from the actual movie.
My friend Danny passed on a Glenn Branca EP to me tonight, one that I didn’t have and we started talking about him. Glenn Branca seems to be the poster boy for all the experimental guitar bands that want to do something new these days but they don’t understand that they can’t repeat the past and pretend like their doing something groundbreaking. I don’t think anyone these days would be able to put out music similar to what Glenn Branca did during the time he was doing it, you’d only be doing it for the wrong reasons. This new wave of bands in the past 8 years or so are enjoyable but in my opinion just come off as “I need attention but don’t actually look at what i’m doing because i’m actually not creative at all”. Sadly these musicians today can buy their way into sounding and mainly looking like they have some talent. Walking up and down the streets of Brooklyn you can almost smell and see the fake talent, at first you can fall for it but then talking to more and more people you end up finding out they aren’t offering up anything pure or willing to potentially going mental to perfect their technic and sound. I just want people like Glenn Branca to get more credit because listing him off as an influence only is almost saying that your similar to him but you aren’t you actually have to take any of the time that you’re getting any attention and use it thank the originator.
Addled is half of Worst Friends and he loves his Boston Red Sox, sharing what great good house/techno records come out on Tuesdays, and most importantly making a variety of music. Recently he’s worked on music that was used in a Prada video and in the past he made some of the music for The New York Times. His first EP as Addled is one that follows the footsteps of James Holden and Paul Kalkbrenner but touches a new level of listening since its less clubby than both and is more on the deeper side and melodic side.
I feel like I post a lot of Paul Simon but really I don’t actually if anything I don’t post enough Paul Simon.
I always thought I liked Sam Prekop more than The Sea and Cake but then I listened to some more Sea and Cake and realized I was thinking crazy things. Whenever I have to deal with the rock guy that thinks electronic music is too repetitive than I just have to share with him The Sea and Cake and say Its not that you don’t like repetitiveness because obviously this is amazing, it’s just that the person doesn’t care for unique sounds or can fathom the idea a synth playing more parts than their are people on stage and that just ticks him right off.
