Archive for July, 2008

While I was in Detroit for DEMF last month I taped a segment for Current TV as part of a feature on Ghostly International (the label which I record for as Tycho). The feature is a good introduction to what Ghostly is about and includes some interviews with a few artists (Osbourne, Kate Simko, and myself).

Yes, it was a bit early and I think I’d had one coffee too many for that interview; no, I don’t know why there are random clips of me taking pictures of dumpsters. A couple of the pictures I was taking in those clips are included in the Detroit DEMF post. There’s also a clip of some of the actual DEMF set towards the end. The whole experience was a bit surreal; I played the opening set at DEMF around 1pm after a long night, was weird to be playing outdoors, in the early afternoon like that. The coolest part was that you could see Canada from the stage (look across the river in the shot from behind).

Original video link

Some more brilliant covers from N+M (Naturwissenschaft und Medizin) Magazine. They were designed by Erwin Poell in the late 60’s. These are such incredible examples, not only are they beautiful, but they are no doubt conveying some extremely complex concepts through information design.  There is apparently a book covering Poell’s work (via Thingstolookat):

Title: Entwürfe für den Alltag. Typografie, Grafik-Design, Art Direction
Author: Erwin Pœll
Year: 1992
Publisher: Birkhäuser Verlag Basel
ISBN: 3-7643-2758-8

Also check out Things To Look At’s article on Poell and the N+M covers.

All the tracks today are remixes, all in which i feel stand strong comparable to the original track.
This Burial remix of Bloc Party is by far a favorite of mine in the last week, also i can’t find a digital version of it anywhere. I think what attracts me to Burial’s sound is the softening and quietening of that UK Garage low end, its done so well by him.
The Erol Alkan remix of Midlake sounds like a Fleetwood Mac cover to me but i just can’t put my finger on it. I’m glad its not this club bomb or noisy edit, he actually does add a great fullness to the track that is riding a thin line to being an AM Gold/beard and tinted glasses/amber lit wooden studio jam which isn’t a bad thing at all (puts on a Gordon Lightfoot LP and watches this commercial on mute).
Praveen does wonders with the track Pinconning, the resonance from the kick drum and accordion makes it sound like your listening to it while your underwater.
I was hoping with this last one that i could find an Album Leaf song that Album Leaf fans didn’t have, hopefully i did for some of you. As for the song it makes me jealous that i don’t have a xylophone or vibraphone to play on everyday but if i did have one i’d probably never get anything done.

Bloc Party – Where is Home? (Burial Remix) – purchase

Midlake – Roscoe (Erol Alkan Remix) – purchase

Benoit Pioulard – Pinconning (Praveen Says Stay Remix) – purchase

The Album Leaf – The Young Machines (The Album Leaf Remix) – purchase

Micro-House, Minimal, whatever you call it, Fabric 13 (named for the London nightclub) was my first proper introduction to a style which I’ve really come to appreciate for it’s stripped down compositions and attention to detail. I’m a self-confessed maximalist when it comes to my own music so I really admire the producers of this genre for building so much energy and emotion into these seemingly simplistic sonic landscapes. Geiger’s wonderful mix of I Think About You isn’t quite as restrained as Villalobos’ offering, but a similar ethic permeates both tracks. My only complaint is that Geiger’s mix gets cut short just as it seems to be hitting it’s stride, but I suppose that was the point, damned minimalists! Another stand-out track from Fabric 13 you may remember is Jackson’s mix of Run Into Flowers which I posted on a while back.

As for the cover, I’m not such a huge fan of the haphazard-collage / inexplicable-gaussian-blurring / drop-shadow look, and it doesn’t really speak to the vibe I’m getting from the music inside, but at least the type is well executed.

Heiko Voss – I Think About You (Geiger Mix)

Ricardo Villalobos– Easy Lee

[audio:easylee.mp3]
A quick note: I’ve installed the beta version of Martin Laine’s Audio Player WordPress plugin (thanks Karl for the heads up). This new Flash MP3 player replaces the old one and should do away with some of the quirks people were experiencing before. Please let me know if you have any issues with the new player.

In the last Blue Note post I went with the more duo-tone offerings but with these 4 covers we see a bit more color injected into the compositions. That Dexter Gordon one is choice, this sort of stuff really needs to be offered in poster form. I always wonder who actually owns the rights to these images, I assume EMI does (they now own Blue Note), so that doesn’t bode well for future large format prints.

Massive bonus round: Name all the fonts used on these covers.

By the way, if you missed it last time, there was quite a nice debate running in the comments after the original Blue Note post. Worth a read, some good opinions from people in there. But no matter how good your opinion is, you can’t sway me from my original position: Cream > White!

4 unique music groups here that i really appreciate their outgoing styles. Ratatat really did a great take on what you can do with the slide guitar sound and removed it and put it into a song that i’m not thinking “oh here comes a slide guitar country song”. Instead, i have this relaxing and colorful performance in my head that makes me picture some Central American theatre.
This Chap song when i first heard it flipped my world upside down(side note: for the typography fans out there have you noticed you can spell the word upside down like this using other letters of the alphabet: umop apisdn) i was shocked on the pushing and pulling i was going thru to just listen to a song, from a guitar melody thats accompanied with this heavy low end to just them whispering over a casio. The second half they just throw everything at you like “what were you thinking? you think we were just gonna make a cute alittle song for you?” wrong, they were just messing with you like that Simian vs. Justice video when everyone wakes up and soo much craziness is going on.
I can’t believe i didnt use my Mu-ziq posting for his remix of Aphex Twin – On but this album cover above will always catch my eye and it was favorite of mine when i was getting in IDM. First, the beginning of this song FORGET ABOUT IT it’s from another planet, just so you know Radiohead i love you but that’s how a spinning plate sounds times a thousand and 300 meters in diameter. Second, that breakdown with the synth melody going back and forth with the drum programming, pssssh what a genius then the last 30 seconds i’m in a hip hop track, i don’t know how to tell people what we just listened to but honestly Mike Paradinas brought it proper.
After those last 2 tracks i need a constant track that warms up and fades out. Type’s Khonnor i think made this song when he was 16, it’s if Dntel collaborated with Fennesz.

Ratatat – Montanita

The Chap – Auto Where To

Mu-ziq – Hasty Boom Alert

Khonnor – Man From The Anthill

I just stumbled across Craig Ward’s site this evening. Really loving his type-centric design style. Check out the rest of his stuff here. 

Hello all, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Beamer, and Scott invited me to start posting to ISO50. As a long time fan and a friend of Scott’s over the past few years, we’ve spent a small amount of time together and have been very interested in each other’s tastes. I’m very honored to be posting here, and I hope I can deliver some relatively entertaining content.

This being post #1, I’d like to continue the theme with my #1 favorite album.

Ash Ra Tempel – New Age of Earth (1976)

I’ve been amassing a progressive Krautrock collection for about seven years now, and this is one of those records that caught my eye. Not being much of a fan of psych, or much loud banging in any form, I had somewhat (embarrassingly) written off Ash Ra after hearing the much acclaimed self—titled release (back when Klaus Schulze was drumming); though, I insisted on owning this if not just for the artwork.

Manuel Göttsching moved the project from an experimental group to a solo act just one year before this release with Inventions For Electric Guitar (1975). In New Age of Earth, Göttsching introduces his flowing landscape sound later shown in his triumphant and highly influential E2-E4. In this album, instead of focusing on his signature layered guitar sound, he builds an amazingly textured synth masterpiece. This record will stay in my #1 position for quite some time.

Ash Ra Tempel — Sunrain

Awesome transcription from the sleeve:
“Constantly searching
Not wishing an end
Prefer a sunrise
Not everything planned
So you’ll always be
In the new age of earth”

Some very nice 60’s-ers Polish stamps via The Ministry of Type. I have a whole book of Czech stamps in this style, I will get some scans / pics up soon.

Since its mid summer i wanted to put up a few songs that have a good feel to them, some are songs that friends have given to me to check out this week and a few are older songs that needed to be dusted off and listened to again. You should be able to buy either of these tracks on Amazon MP3 except i think Air France(who is pictured above) isn’t available yet.

Caribou – Sundialing

Air France – No Excuses

The Avalanches – Since I Left You (Cornelius remix)

7Hurtz – Malibu