Archive for April, 2011

As the summer becomes something that might actually finally happen the real jams start popping up. Com Truise’s LP was announced and also with that announcement came a 3 track single, download Polyhurt for free.

I’m really loving how much tape destruction shows on this new Matthewdavid record, even this ambient cut with Flying Lotus shares those small details that reveal how much care was put into this release.

I keep looking for more Starfawn whenever I get a chance, it brings me back to what got me into the more intense melodic IDM, especially enjoy the how the synths all have movement but it never becomes overwhelming.

Here’s something to set in the background and put on loop, definitely influenced by Fennesz’s Endless Summer, listening to too much Bvdub and seeing William Basinski live, the download is free and lives here.

Work by Rolf Harder; this may be some of the most inspiring stuff I’ve seen in a while. More info from Harder’s bio at Roch and Harder:

Rolf Harder was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1929 and studied design at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts. In 1959 he moved to Montreal and established Rolf Harder Design. In 1965 he founded Design Collaborative—a graphic design and industrial company with offices in Toronto and Montreal—with Ernst Roch, Anthony Mann and Al Faux. Together they produced catalogues and booklets, trade marks and symbols, bearing “visual clarity and direct, effective communication”. The style of their design work “combines constructivism with a leaning to playful experiment”.

More of Harder’s work can be found at the MOMA archive. Interesting to see the progression of his work all the way up through the ’90s. It seems like right around end of the 1980’s the style of his work (at least what is represented at the MOMA site) sort of got watered down. No doubt a reaction to the times and the needs of the client. I wonder if, looking back, a designer like Harder would prefer any era of their work over another. I guess for me it’s obvious what I like most, but I wonder if Harder himself would say those Esprit covers, for instance, were better than his earlier work.

Rolf Harder via Matthew Lyons

Earlier last month I posted about the beautifully packaged SMM Context release on Ghostly International. Well the release is being celebrated with an event at Le Poisson Rouge on April 24th in NYC and ISO50/Ghostly is giving away an LP (1 copy) and CD (2 copies) to NYC residents only to 3 random New York commenters below. The night has some of our favorite ambient acts performing, details below.

SHOW DETAILS

4/24/11 @ Le Poisson Rouge

Ghostly International Presents SMM: Context

Rafael Anton Irisarri
Goldmund
Noveller (Special Guest)
Kyle Bobby Dunn

$12 Advance | $15 Doors | 7pm – 12am

**This giveaway doesn’t include tickets to the night

Usually when people shoot photos of a city or Las Vegas for that matter, it’s long exposures with light trails in a clean and typical fashion. Fellow photographer Tim Navis took a much more interesting approach and shot this beautiful set of simulated double-exposures on his Canon 5d Mark II.

This is pretty bad, but due to the unusually high walnut to nostalgia ratio I couldn’t resist. If you don’t know what a Neo Geo is you’re either too young or there wasn’t that one rich kid at your school who, according to legend, had one with like ten games. This whole thing really could have worked with the inclusion of some stainless steel (a’la the Jupiter 6/8 side cheeks) and the omission of the my-uncle-built-these-cabinets-for-me rounded cartridge bezel. All in all pretty cool idea though; one of the only gaming consoles I wouldn’t feel obligated to hide.

This abomination of our collective unfulfilled childhood dreams can be yours for about the same (ridiculous) price as the original — $650 — direct from Analogue Interactive. Of course, if you actually want to play games on it, you’re going to have to double down.

I’m always pushing Sepalcure to everyone that I know, recently they did a remix for School Of Seven Bells, it has a great early Stereolab feel mixed in with some Bonobo, download it at XLR8R for free.

I did a collab song with Shigeto, i just brought him an array of warm tones and explained to him that I don’t want to do try and write drums for it and that he should try and he did a wonderful job I think,grab it at Shigeto’s bandcamp for free.

I was snooping around on Beamer’s last.fm and found some gems by Software, this sound rides a thin line for most people, if you can get over the hump of it being too smooth and take it in for what it is then you end up with a pretty damn good listening session.

You know what i’d love is a new Twin Shadow album for the summer, i’m wearin’ this one thin, I love it soo much.

Really refreshing illustration work from Kilian Eng. I’m really getting an Avant Garde Magazine / 70’s-80’s illustration vibe from all this. Love the use of texture, it all feels so authentic.

More of Eng’s work and inspiration can be found at His Tumblr. (thanks Francisco)

Kilian Eng via BDIF

Here’s a slightly different take on the Monome / grid sequencer idea. Automata is a fun — and actually quite nice sounding — little Flash app by Batuhan Bozkurt in the same vein as Sound Matrix. The cool thing about this one is the directional settings allowing for some pretty complex interactions between notes (click a note multiple times to set direction). Have a good weekend.

Automata

Edit: Congrats to Yu Lien and Jennifer B, you won! See you tonight.

Got a couple sets of tickets and some prints to give away for tomorrow night’s Tycho / Com Truise / Heathered Pearls show at Cameo Gallery in Brooklyn. To enter, comment on this post and leave a valid email in the email field. Only enter if you can make it to the show, the print can only be picked up in person at the show. The print will also be available for sale online in the near future.

Winner gets two tickets and a signed print from the show.

Pre-sale tickets are sold out but they held back 50 tickets for the door so even if you don’t win, there’s still a chance to get in if you show up early. Show starts at Midnight, Heathered Pearls is up first, Com Truise at 1am and Tycho at 2am. See you tomorrow night.

Good luck!

Unbelievably unbelievable Flickr set going on over here. Can’t get enough, that Sony stuff in particular is amazing. Want prints…

Insect54 via Matthew Lyons