Archive for October, 2010

John Roberts new LP entitled Glass Eights has odes to old deep house and carries along at a pace that should interest new listeners to the sound that Dial excels at. Imagine standing alone in a parking lot full of snow at night and your under a amber street light and watching the snow gently going back up into the sky.

Ashra is definitely a go to on a road trip, no one can hate this after your mind has been numbed by 12k+ miles of highway driving in 40 days, he man sounds like he’s playing the clouds.

I’m a sucker for this speedy atmospheric jazz sound in Neckless AKA Neck Face, you could put this on for 30-40 mins and I would just wait happily for the song to resolve.

Mark Kozelek has done it again, if maple syrup needed music to allow you to collect it in the bitter cold you’d need this song on repeat.

A new shirt design is now available at the shop. Five’s is printed on American Apparel Coffee Tri-blend and available in Men’s and Women’s sizes.

Purchase / Info

Bernard Barry is one of the principal visual designers at Facebook. A pretty sweet job I’d say. Imagine having a guarantee that your work would always reach millions of people. Barry handles the pressure nicely; his work is exceptional. If you just briefly glance at his site, you might not notice the absurd amount of detail that goes into each of his projects. The scale of each is often staggering. Barry also has cataloged his entire collection of books and movies. Absolutely worth checking out if you’re on the search for some new books.

Before Facebook, Barry worked at the Decoder Ring and I am imensly curious is he had a hand in creating my favorite logo of all time.

via dinner, earlier tonight

So I recently picked up my new surf van and headed on a road trip to Santa Barbara for a few days to build a new board with friend Ryan Lovelace of Point Concept.

The project: 4’11” (21″ wide, 2.25″ thick) Velosim shaped, glassed, and surfed within 24 hours.

Ryan’s a total prodigy. An absolutely phenomenal shaper who has perfected his craft at the ripe age of 24. His hulls have changed how I look at surfing, and my new my new board has changed my style forever.

The outcome:

If any of you are considering a new sled, or never ridden a displacement hull before, look no further.

We took it for a spin at the local favorite the next morning. This board screams. Thank you Ryan. And most importantly, thank you Herbie.

Everybody go check out his boards, follow his blog, and get out in the water.

Keep track of surfing adventures on my blog semi-radical.

If I had more plugs, I’d put them here.

I’m not really sure what to link you to first…everything about this project is exceptionally well executed. Local design firm I Shot Him put together a very slick project (maybe “experience” is more fitting) surrounding the issue of marijuana legalization.

The project is made up of a lot of pieces: a website, a video, a process box, the list goes on. Really blown away by the complexity and creativity at work. And these guys aren’t a big shop! I Shot Him is made up a just a few MFA Academy of Art grads. Well done guys!

In addition to all of the final deliverables, they’ve outlined their process in this very detailed and thorough process piece. I am a sucker for design process articles and this one is among the best I’ve seen. I’ve included some images above, but definitely check out the full piece.

I have 4 tracks today for you that you can completely get lost in.

While i’ve been away on tour, i’m kicking myself for missing a few shows, one of them was this Light Asylum & Warm Ghost show. The flyer is amazing for this night. Warm Ghost has this great moody remix of Deerhunter’s Lotus Plaza that i’ve been waiting to post, i’m loving this swelling feeling it gives off.

Shigeto turned on onto Teebs, they both use bells and chimes soo well, this Burner track is one of many songs on the album that I can see myself falling in love with. I’m happy to hear Brainfeeder is picking up a release that doesn’t need hyped beats to show that they can dominate with great signings like this.

This Woodsman track is gentle noise that just feels around in your ear, I wouldn’t know what the singer was saying until you read the track name and just becomes clear as day.

Something a little bit on the darker side, this Raime song has a stealth pulse that I love, its in no rush.

This Southern California home by Sebastian Mariscal Studio has an outstanding appeal to it. The relationship of wood to concrete is seemingly perfect. The arrangement of rectangular forms on the frontside of the house is also the perfect way to accent the wood.

Via Arch Daily

Just checked in on Matthias Heiderich (who we covered a while back) and he’s got some beautiful new work up. I love how he blurs the lines between photography and design.

Matthias Heiderich

Brock Davis has a very fun Make Something Cool Everyday collection up on his site. The stylistic variety of the work, in addition to the ever present and nuanced humor, makes for a very interesting collection. Very impressive.

A lot of designers undertake such a project, and I’m always fascinated to observe how their creativity evolves over the course of the project. I’m especially intrigued by the work in the beginning (that probably was the catalyst for the endeavor ), and the work at the end (when they’ve theoretically dialed in their process).

I should just post this whole new Benoit Pioulard record because its just that good. In the song Tower Benoit serenades but most importantly sets the atmosphere in the intro with plenty of details of him shuffling around and then the addicting guitar playing steps in, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, buy it here.

I found another track from the new No Age record that the blog couldn’t be without, its dizzying and noisy with simple additions, hard to not fall in love with it.

I remember when I first heard my first few albums from Schematic records, I couldn’t wrap my head around how long it would have taken to write a song like this one by Kiyo. I imagined many nights slaving over obsession on sequencing and glitching out every minuet speck of sound, I thought my mind would give up if I had to produce this, i’m glad someone stepped up and did it.

I needed to end this post on the upswing, the production on this Ellen Allien track is pretty breathtaking, so bubbly and inviting, each new part that floats in is like a smoke ring fully intact passing by your eyes, beautiful techno will have its day again soon.