- Yesterday between working on my shit I made a quick remix for Texture’s next release, a trilogy of EP’s as one and a slew of remixes and rarities. Which will be a treat, seeing all three of those together. I was telling him that I wanted it to come across as a little more haunting than it does, but I think it still gets the job done. Had a lot of fun tweaking with his line “nothing is sacred” by adding a whole ass load of modulation, pitch shift, and delay to provide some nice backing vocals for the refrain. The guitar could be tweaked a bit more, but I kinda like keeping guitars (for the most part) effect free. Really liking the tone of the new telecaster on this one. Check it out:
Be sure to look out for NEUROLEPTICA. I’ll likely be posting here as well.
- This is old. BUT, if Game Of Thrones was a 2-D fighting game (probably made by Capcom):
(WordPress for the longest time did not support direct embedding of Vimeo videos. They’re smart for changing that: seems to me Vimeo is the preferred upload source for any serious videographers or film buffs.)
- ARTIST OF THE DAY is without a doubt Julian Callos. Surreal but not overtly complex. Very subtle and efficient use of color. Ethereal, philosophical, a real auteur. And you know what? I’ve posted his art before. But I’m going to again. And in six months I probably will again. Lookie:
“The documentary opens with a seed seller arriving in Manjusha’s village. The genetically engineered BT seeds, a product of the American company Monsanto, are being advertised, by itinerant sellers and on television, as yielding more crops and increasing profits. The farmers are skeptical but have no choice: No conventional seeds are sold in the village. Monsanto’s Indian representatives are not forthcoming about the exact differences between their genetically engineered seed and a conventional seed. They deny, for example, that the seed requires more fertilizer. Independent studies have also been restricted, but back in the villages, Manjusha’s and her neighbors’ plight illustrates the havoc that the introduction of the BT seed has wreaked on farming populations. The seed is non-renewable; it does not re-grow and must be purchased each year. It requires just the right amount of water, with entire crops wasted if rain is meager, or abundant. “
- I think I have enough coffee in me to go record some guitar now.
“Economists have long recognized that individuals overvalue their present interests over future concerns. But it’s another matter entirely when we can no longer rely on our political institutions to pursue our longer-term and higher-order preferences. To borrow Robert Monks’ line about the corporate form, a state aimed at nothing beyond short-term private wealth generation is little more than an externalizing machine. Unfortunately, this is increasingly the trajectory of our politics. Wealth concentrates among a small financial elite and gets pumped back into government, not as tax dollars to facilitate collective decision-making, but as lobbying and campaign money intended to deflect regulation and further entrench the self-serving policies that helped generate these unprecedented levels of concentrated private wealth. There is a cancer-like logic to this feedback loop, where localized economic growth comes more and more at the expense of the larger body politic. “
“When urban populations outgrow the pace of new construction, and suitable homes and offices spaces are difficult to find, what are property hunters to do? Perhaps more of them will start coming up with novel temporary solutions like this: a temporary, movable office made from shipping containers by Daiken-Met Architects. The architecture firm had a difficult time finding leasable space in the city of Gifu, Japan. So they designed this three-story structure, which is made from seven 20-foot shipping containers connected using a steel frame system. The frame made it easier to stack the containers, and also provides balcony space, which can be hard to come by in urban areas.”
- There’s a new Blockhead mix floating around the web right now by a guy named DJ Pizzo. Blockhead makes really great music to have on in your house while you’re painting/writing, or doing laundry, or sitting on your porch/deck. He’s a beautiful sampler, loves his horns, and nothing is ever too overbearing. He’s a pretty big influence on me, I hope one way I can manufacture a song the way he can so well. Probably not. Here’s the 80-minute mix:
- Morning Breath Inc. is an incredible design company. They have done album art for Slayer, TV On The Radio, Maximum Balloon, Placebo, and many more. But they do other stuff too. T-shirts, posters, snowboard/skateboard deck art, promotional art. Here’s a cool test printing they did for a future silk-screening poster:
- Tree Of Life was pretty cool. It certainly lacked story, but I don’t think the object of the movie is to tell the audience an engrossing story. Now that does not mean you don’t go on some sort-of journey with it, you do. It just means that what we’ve come to expect out of the movies we sit down to watch is something very specific: it must be around 2 hours (maybe a little less), it must have moments of action or tension every 10 to 15 minutes, not only must it tell a definite and clear story, it must complete that story with an ending devoid of ambiguity (we allow this to be broken on trilogy-type properties; we’re so shallow), etc. Movies can be visual art and visual art alone, just like paintings can. Some paintings tell a story (Washington Crossing the Delaware), but do not (Mark Rothko)… at least not to the trained eye and brain. Can film not be the same way? Could a movie not just be a series of images and shots for beauty’s sake? And this movie isn’t even that far on the spectrum. There certainly is a narrative… perhaps not as clear-cut as what we’re used to, but there is dialogue and character arcs and rising action and falling action. I’m reminded of A Propos de Nice, one of the more powerful movies I’ve ever watched and there’s essentially no narrative at all.
- I’m missing record store day tomorrow because I’m working all day… such a bummer. Please go out and support your local music shops, cause they’re the only ones who will stock the good stuff. There’s also this thing amongst music heads to buy directly from the artist (Bandcamp, official sites, etc.) because then your favorite bands make a bit more money. That is probably true, but I still like to get out to the record store because I can’t imagine a world where the only place to get new music is on the Internet, from the artist’s website. There’s also something very relaxing about wandering the racks of a good record store, among people like yourself doing the same thing.
- I had this thought today that I would watch a movie while writing and doing other things on my computer… then I picked The Tree of Life and now I can’t look away. It almost reminds me more of an Iñárritu movie than a Terence Malick one. The imagery, the narrative nature, even the loud/quiet/loud sound dynamics. It’s beautiful to look at, if anything. And this isn’t a review, cause I’m in the middle of the damn thing. The shots of the Universe and volcanoes erupting and cellular structure are really fucking cool; reminds me a bit of 2001. Also, some of the most realistic portrayals of dinosaurs ever on film.
- Did George Lucas honestly say that Empire Strikes Back is the worst Star Wars flick?? Wow. Now, the context might point in the direction of a joke. So it should be taken with a grain of salt. Or it could be one of those things where somebody makes a joke to cover up the fact that it’s actually a sore subject. Either way, it’s far and away the best Star Wars movie and Lucas didn’t direct it. Thought this was a cool Hitchcockian type poster for Empire, found it on DeviantArt:
- Cody Walker at Sequart.org has some brilliant comics articles (as do other writers at the site). A lot of them are particularly of interest for me, being a massive fan of Grant Morrison’s years-spanning Batman epic. Walker has three part articles on the passive aggressive (eventually turning plain old aggressive) feud between Joker and Dr. Hurt. That series is very interesting to read because he delves into the history of Morrison’s writing of the Joker, including the deconstruction of his personality way back in 1989′s Arkham Asylum (Dave Mckean’s art still messes with my brain every time I open that book). He also writes extensively about the transformation of Bruce Wayne’s son Damien, from his initial appearance in “Batman & Son” to his heroic turn in GM’s Batman & Robin. His character arc was plotted wonderfully: Morrison deliberately wanted him to be hated when he first appeared, the wrote him more and more likeable as the issues and years passed by.
- So I know I probably pimp out Kristoff Krane A LOT on here. There’s a reason for that though: the guy is a brilliant songwriter, a magnetic performer, and a genuine person. I went and saw him with my girl last night and we had a blast, as did everyone who attended. If you don’t know anything about him, or even have heard his name before, it’s a bit challenging pointing you in the direction of something that represents what he does. Some of his tracks are heavier beats, where he spits hard and idiosyncratically, others are these tribal-infused rhythmic jams where his lyrics wander almost aimlessly, and others are just him and an acoustic guitar where he speaks right to your heart. That being said, “My Coffin” is a pretty decent representation of his brand of tunes:
He’s putting out a new album soon. He took donations to break even (hopefully he made some cash too) through Kickstarter, so he could release it digitally for free. Pretty awesome. Look for that.
- This has made the rounds on my social networking circles (cause my internet friends rule), but I’m still going to share this here because it’s just that good. Laurie Penny discussing journalism in the 21st Century. Def worth a read:
“I thought I got into journalism to tell truths and right wrongs and occasionally get into parties I wouldn’t normally be cool enough to go to. Right now though, with a few exceptions, professional journalism is rarely seen as an exercise in holding power to account. Justly or unjustly, the media, especially but not exclusively the mainstream, corporate-controlled press, has come to be seen as the enemy of the voiceless rather than their champion. Justly or unjustly, few people believe what they read in the papers or watch on the news anymore, because belief has long ceased to be quite as important as complicity when it comes to the Daily Mail, the Daily Post or News International. On the streets of Athens and Madrid as well as during the London riots of August 2011, journalists have been threatened and attacked by desperate young people making havoc in the streets. Why? Not because these young people don’t want to be seen, but because they don’t want to be seen through the half-closed eyes of privilege.“
- I’ll give ARTIST OF THE DAY to Adam Swanson of MN. Some of his stuff is up at the venue/bar Kristoff played at last night. He paints lots of bikes and penguins (and even a penguin riding a bike)I’ll like this one:
- Very refreshing to see some of these young, upstart teams overtaking the old guard thus far in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I really like Nashville a lot, and also the L.A. Kings. Tons of very young, disciplined, and talented players.
- Literally Unbelievable chronicles “stories from The Onion as interpreted by Facebook”. So… people who read the Onion and think it is real. Which always gets me. This website is clever at least, but possibly brilliant.
- Yeah, but… WHO WATCHES THE BOUNTY-HUNTERS?
- Was going to mention a link to a Physorg article about astrophysics and a 4th dimension, but I’ll keep this particular post dumbed down. Seems fitting.
- Warren Ellis thinking out loud is always extremely fascinating. Which is probably why he’s been able to put together compilations of these “brain dumps” — he calls them — POD them, and sell them via the Net. (For example) And probably why he’s a sought-after speaker at tech shows and idea conferences. Check this out:
“And mostly missing the point (especially when calling it “an art movement”): it’s already happened. Bruce Sterling termed the NA tumblr a “gaudy, network-assembled heap made of digitized jackstraws,” which is a very Bruce Sterling way of handling James Bridle’s flat declarative “(it’s a) series of artifacts,” But it surrounds the actuality, which is that it’s raw reportage. It’s an unsorted Wikileaks dump of evidence that The New Aesthetic has been here for years, and it slid into view so insidiously that we didn’t even notice it. We were all looking at tiny bits of it. Everyone (in the fringe-y design-y tech-y circles that I exist on the outermost edges of) has gone nuts about it because so few people had had the massed raw evidence presented contextually to them like that.
The New Aesthetic may indeed have an ever changing (or at least oscillating) pattern of vibratory activity, but I don’t think whole thrust of the NA aggregation really supports the notion that it’s conscious. And ferreting out a specific psychic reality may lead you down the path of machine awareness and cosmic layers of psyche, but I would suggest that that gets you only a few years of fun in a Weimar Cabaret bierkeller while your neighbourhood’s been marked up for drone vision.”
- Last night after work I grabbed a slew of new music I had never heard of before. If you’re wondering: I troll the AllMusic site quite a bit. I look up things I’m sampling in my own music, I read reviews and entries in their blog, I use the “Followed” tab to get me into things my favorite bands like or were inspired by. But every month (sometimes a few times a month) I’ll check THIS LIST. The editor’s choice albums never really seem to disappoint, if you’re open minded enough. There will be things I won’t like from time to time, of course, that’s only natural. But I still feel looking into the stuff I’m not gaga for isn’t a waste of time. It’s valuable, actually. Anyways, last night I downloaded (legally…mind you; I do a pay-per-month deal):
Quakers -Quakers. This will be making it’s rounds on my stereo, for sure. In fact, next time I’m at a legitimate record store (nope, Best Buy doesn’t count) I may have to just pick up the hard copy. It’s essentially a hip-hop compilation from the label Stones Throw, which does great work regularly. Calling it a standard rap-label compilation though — as I kinda did — is a titch deceiving. The album is much more cohesive, interesting, and plain good than that label implies. 41 tracks, clocking in around 70 minutes. It’s an odd beast of a thing. Heavy electro programming, MPC-type sampling, and more rappers than you think you know. One to check out at least, if you enjoy hip-hop at all.
Carter Tutti Void – Transverse. Got this thing on right now. At first I thought, “well that’s kind of a weird for the sake of weird name”… then I read their very short bio on AllMusic: “collaboration of two generations of dark British electronic/industrial musicians, Carter Tutti Void features Throbbing Gristle’s Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Nik Void of Factory Floor”. Yep, just their names. Apparently this group made lots of noise doing some improvised sets somewhere over the pond, which led to this album’s creation. At you can hear it in the tracks. They feel improvised the way certain Jazz albums do: not over-produced, and it sounds like a single take. There’s 4 tracks, each about 10 minutes. “V1″-”v4″.
And it has the best cover of the bunch (don’t have a seizure please):
Black Dice – Mr Impossible. This is some bat-shit crazy stuff. I’m talking a Grant Morrison goofy-70s-Batman-was-on-Acid level of craziness. In fact, this album might be good to read his “Batman & Robin” saga to. Interesting. Anyways, the quickest and easiest way to describe Black Dice is by saying they are “Electronic”. Which isn’t wrong, but they borrow from such a grab-bag of genres and generations and movements it seems unfair to use one word to describe it. There’s a track on “Mr. Impossible” where this Industrial type pulse is going, and I don’t think it is 4/4, then there’s this very old-school wah’ed out funk guitar providing the melody (kinda) over the top. So what do you call that? Electro? Industrial? Funk? Funk-Industrial?? I find that genres a lot of times just get in the way.
Chano Dominguez – Flamenco Sketches. This is can classify, easily. Jazz, Jazz, Jazz. In such a pure form. This guy is a pianist, tried and true. And listening to him play is a pleasure to the ears, I’d imagine seeing him live is a real treat. He’s been around for a long time, originally working in groups; he started his solo career in the 80s after leaving a group called CAI. He’s been making critically aclaimed Jazz albums for years, but “Flamenco Sketches” is a little different: it’s a reimagining of a classic LP of the genre, Miles Davis’ “Kind Of Blue”. The last song on that album was titled “Flamenco Sketches”. I’ve seen some purists dog Dominguez for both going down this path and his execution of it (you can’t complain about both). I laugh at that. Not to say music cannot be sacred, most of it is, I think I just see “sacred” as something else entirely.
- New Aesop Rock is always a good thing. Really like what the strings bring out of this beat in the second half of the track. Skelathon comes out on July 10th, on Rhymesayers.
“In two of four experiments, university students were put in a materialistic frame of mind by tasks that exposed them to images of luxury goods or words mobilizing consumerist values (versus neutral scenes devoid of consumer products or words without such connotations). Completing questionnaires afterwards, those who looked at the pictures of cars, electronics, and jewelry rated themselves higher in depression and anxiety, less interested in social activities like parties, and more in solitary pursuits than the others. Those primed to materialism by exposure to certain words evinced more competitiveness and less desire to invest their time in pro-social activities like working for a good cause.”
- ARTIST OF THE DAY is PJ McQuade, he does really simple, crisp portraits. Mildly surreal, always spot-on. Here’s Lana Del Ray:
- This morning I was doing some career related shit at home, and wanted to listen to some form of podcast not music (for once). I made a huge mistake by not tuning into the latest Marc Maron WTF podcast (David Cross!!)… I ended up wasting the opportunity listening to a bunch of fanboys talk about upcoming movies, mainly comic oriented. It was horrible. For example, they’re supposed to be experts — lovers of all comics to films — yet they showed a very fundamental lack of understanding of The Joker, Justice League, Iron Man just to name a few. And I don’t even care. But c’mon, if you’re going to spend the time making a podcast and releasing it out into the world for global consumption at the very least know the subject matter you and your cohorts are tackling. Right?
- I’ve got a nice little stack of comics here to read through tonight; including the new Casanova, which is always a treat. The most intriguing cover of the bunch is probably Walking Dead #95, which looks to be promising new characters and some human on human violence. The most haunting cover goes to the fourth issue of Fatale, it just screams whathefuck:
- Umm… speaking of Tony Stark, it has recently been reported that legendary character actor Sir Ben Kingsley will be playing a villain in Shane Black’sIron Man 3 flick, AND that the story will be based loosely on Warren Ellis‘ Extremis story. Nice. This all makes sense though considering the first movie was based partly on the arc as well. Yeah Uncle Warren! Internet Jesus for the win!
“I guess I’m writing this to tell everybody to stay encouraged because there is nothing that you can’t achieve. I’m not technically an author or a video director, but if I can do what I’ve done then so can you. A dream is only a dream if you’re not willing to work towards it. Once you’re willing to put in work, it changes from a dream to a goal, then from a goal to a reality. The momentum of achieving that goal will push you to take on more ambitious things the next time around. It’s a great cycle, but it starts with you. Be willing to work on the things you’re passionate about, even if it’s just a little bit every day, and know that the time you put in towards those things isn’t wasted. Every minute of it is worth it. Chip away at your goals.”
