Archive for January, 2010

I’ve been getting ready a few playlists so I can to do a few different style DJ sets of music that I share with you on the blog. I really miss having my DJ partners Worst Friends (Tom Croose and Slowhands) because they had such great taste and kept the tempo low and the sounds unique. Here are just a few songs that are on the more crowd friendly and less headphone only.

Phantogram with The Drums I think will own the indie scene early on in 2010, Josh and Sarah put on an amazing show a few weeks back in Brooklyn at Brooklyn Bowl. The sound is Portishead stepping it up with a full spectrum of energy on stage and on top of that they just make some of the most sugary lush pop with depth, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

This song by Om Unit combines what I loved about old Kompakt and off the beat and path Dubstep, like a 2562 remix of Superpitcher.

I’m not sure how the original of this Robot Koch song sounds or who Shlohmo is but man I want more, such a good intro, reminds me if Flying Lotus was forced to combine Southern Hip Hop with a South London digital sound.

Audion is still a favorite producer of mine and this track Push has all the elements aligned to explain why. Its the growth of the repetition and waiting for the hints telling you its going to change and multiply, I always imagine a close up of the bottom of an ocean liner tearing thru a coast into a city uncontrollably when I hear this song, ahh how relaxing ; ].

AARNIO DATES**
January 22nd, 2010
Slowhands w/ Memek – AUTOBRENNT Rivington Hotel [New York, NY]
January 27th, 2010
Shigeto w/ Beautiful Bells, Raeo – Public Assembly [Brooklyn, NY]
February 9th, 2010
Phantogram w/ Andre Obin & more – Together Festival [Boston, MA]
**I DJ as Aarnio just an FYI

I often like to click on ISO50 commenters links connected to their names just to see what there all about and recently clicked on AndresM and found out what they(I guess a couple shares this account? :] ) wanted for Christmas hah, It was this close to affordable alternative to a Super 8mm video camera but in digital called a Zumi. Here is a pretty decent example of footage, not bad for the 170USD price tag:

Now for the music, I think everyone will be very happy to hear this Swod song and give this Lusine track a try, the second half of it builds like a Lusine classic.

Combining a polished illustration style with the beautiful mechanics of small arms weaponry, Jonny Wan has created these terrific pieces. I like how he’s reduced the weapons to their most basic parts, while simultaneously adding gorgeous little details here and there. I feel like they would shoot creativity bullets instead of metal ones. His style reminds me of what might happen if you mixed Leandro Castelao and Sanna Annuka in a twisted pot of liquid talent. 2010 is sure to be a great year for Mr. Wan.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3KrFV0-WFw
I know this falls a little outside the normal scope of this blog but it’s Friday and this was too good to pass up. The Parrot ARDrone is being billed as the “First iPhone-Controlled Quadricopter Drone”. There’s no need to go much further than that for me, but add a camera to the helicopter and camera-view mode to the iPhone and I’m sold. The most amazing part of it all is the craft’s ability to right itself automatically using it’s built-in array of sensors (not to mention the potential for augmented reality applications given the manufacturer’s third-party development scheme) . It’s not out yet — the site says “coming in 2010” — and no word on pricing but I can’t imagine it will be very cheap. I think I’d be willing to splurge on something like this as long as it was cheaper than the iPhone itself. For more info check out this hands-on test of the ARDrone.

While the Quadricopter and it’s iPhone interfacing abilities are pretty incredible, I wish they had made an airplane version (although not sure the WiFi range would be sufficient for that), small R/C helicopters seem like they’re mostly for bothering dogs and tooling around your living room, not really as suited toward outdoor flight as the video suggests. When I worked at BKWLD with Dusty we got a couple of R/C planes and would fly them at lunch in the open spaces of Roseville. I loved those things, I don’t know why but R/C never seems to get old, I think I was about as excited every time I took that thing out as I was the first time I got an R/C car for Christmas. Since I moved to San Francisco I haven’t been using it; I think it’s in a closet somewhere. I bet the batteries are shot but I might get some new ones and take it for a spin at the park this weekend.

Video Link | Parrot ARDrone Site

PART ONE: MANITOBA aka Caribou

I remember it hit me and it hit me hard the day when I sat down with Manitoba’s(now goes under the name Caribou) Start Breaking My Heart, it was the beginning of my relationship with being addicted to buying electronic music on its release day and following artists that weren’t just on the radio or what I heard from friends. During that time I had this surge of wanting to build furniture, design clothes, I drew almost daily and wanted to do interior architecture for minimal homes and this was just the crazy uncontrollable push that kept my gears turning in the middle of the night. These songs all have this feel to them of a perfect soundtrack for a creative loners world, plenty of detail in the melodies and familiar sounds from childhood shows and toys.

Some excellent photography by Greg White. The mood of his pieces reminded me of some of Kim Holtermand’s recent works. I like pictures of deserted places that are normally really busy. You can sense a lingering human presence, but are confronted with the total absence of life. The result of which is captivating images such as these, that are as spooky as they are beautiful.

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ll be playing at this year’s Sacramento Electronica Music Festival. I’m shouldn’t really be playing shows right now as the album’s due date is rapidly approaching, but I can never pass up an opportunity to play a show in my home town. There are lots of great names on the bill including Dusty Brown, who I’ll be playing some songs with. All in all it’s shaping up to be quite an experience: three days of great music for $10, I’m pretty sure you can’t beat that. And if you’re from the bay area, try to make the drive, it’s only 90 minutes and as you’ll see there’s something about live shows in Sacramento you don’t often get out here.

And for those who know their Sacramento electronic music history, you might notice that this is a partial Command Collective reunion of sorts. With the exception of Chachi Jones, all the original members will be playing during the festival: Dusty Brown, Tha Fruitbat, Lifeliner (aka Park Avenue), and myself.

Tycho: Saturday, Jan. 30th, 2010 – 11:30 PM
Festival: January 28, 2010 9:00 PM – Jan. 31, 2010 2:00 AM

Townhouse Lounge
1517 21st Street
Sacramento, CA

Price $10.00
21+ (sorry!)

More Info | Buy Tickets

I got my first couple days of skiing for the season in last week right after some nice snow up at Heavenly. Skiing always reminds me of being really young and going up with my parents, Sacramento is only an hour from the Sierras so we’d get up a few times a year. I loved all the design associated with ski equipment and I found that when I first started out in design I was always trying to emulate that style in my work.

My latest trip got me thinking about vintage ski graphics so I set out to track down some good examples. Most of what I found were from magazine ads, this first set focuses on racing imagery. I’ll be posting some more in the days to come, hope you enjoy this first batch.

I have been flying a rather insane amount over the last few weeks. I complain about a lot of things when I’m traveling: the food, babies, people that insist on stuffing overhead luggage when it will NOT fit, etc. The one thing I have never considered is the boarding pass. Tyler Thompson has written an excellent article on why the boarding pass is indeed worthy of scrutiny. Take one look at the old Delta pass above and you’ll see why. As he states, “It was like someone put on a blindfold, drank a fifth of whiskey, spun around 100 times, got kicked in the face by a mule (the person who designed this definitely has a mule living with them inside their house) and then just started puking numbers and letters onto the boarding pass at random”.

Tyler has done Delta a big favor and redesigned their boarding pass, the design of which you see above. I think it’s obvious that aesthetically, these are much more pleasing to the eye. I would want to hold onto these after my flight was over just because they look awesome. Now of course, the design of a boarding pass has to be more than just beautiful. There are a number of criteria and limitations in place that might prevent your boarding pass from becoming a little piece of art. Worth mentioning in this regard is Timoni Grone’s response to Tylers inital designs. She runs through a meticulous process to come up with a redesign of her own, taking into account all the necessary “practicalities and priorities”.

The cool thing about his project is how he opened it up to others to submit reworkings and suggestions, a few of which he’s posted as you scroll down his page. He’s provided the Illustrator file for download and tweaking. Make sure to head over there and submit yours if you’ve got something brewing. And feel free to sound off if you too feel like the boarding pass design is indeed a fail.

I must say my favorite part of any boarding pass is the little scribbles the security guards make when you pass the initial check at the metal detectors. They do it with such purpose and apparent deliberation, that I think the scribbles must mean something. I always wonder what would happen if I augment their scribbles with scribbles of my own (or scribble before they do). Would I get sent to Homeland Security? Maybe two scribbles on your boarding pass = terrorist. Anyway. I feel safe knowing we have such a complicated system in place.

I could write a similar article about the terrible design of movie tickets, which I feel have slid drastically in the past few years. Since when is a movie ticket printed on receipt paper worth saving? I used to love hoarding all of my movie ticket stubs — now, calling it a “stub” would be an absurd misrepresentation. I call my movie tickets trash.

Thanks @rohrsh

We are back to the regularly scheduled program everybody, 4 songs a day. So today I woke up like usual which is one eye open reaching for my iPhone and checking email, twitter, and facebook before heading to my email and deleting the emails I just read from bed but one thing I noticed was a ton of twittering about a new song by The Knife which was a nice jolt. The song is amazing, it has a great experimental build into this well composed orchestral piece which really relies on these muted beautiful steel drum melodies and outstanding vocal ranges, everyone making pop music should feel some sort of shame after hearing something that is musically moving in a creative direction but keeping their sound and taking chances.

Coworkers have been telling me about Sub Pop’s Avi Buffalo for months now, I found this song from a Daytrotter live session and I blew me away. Lately if i’ve been listening to anything like this its only been slower stuff from Kurt Vile, Bon Iver, Elm From Arm or Midlake so this was a nice change in gears.

Wow what a great remix by Nosaj Thing, so thick and warm with a nice pop but it must be easy though if you have Charlotte Gainsbourg vocals to work with, can’t really screw that up.

If I could hear one song live and it to keep growing and building it would have to be this Casino Versus Japan song, I heard it live at the Tycho NYC show and I had to roll my tongue back into my mouth and hold my jaw from hitting the floor. The sounds that you get when you’re half way thru bring back so much nostalgia for me, they’re so gentle and dreamy but in a whole different way than what shoegaze does for some people.