Archive for July, 2011

The MoMA has a collection of some of Jacob Jensen’s forward thinking product designs for Bang & Olufsen during the 60’s and 70’s. That red Beolit 400 is incredible.

Some more pics and info at the MoMA site

Beautiful alternate posters for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (2010) by LaBoca. Looks like these were for promo only and not available for purchase, shame.

LaBoca

Deepchord has been my obsession since 2002, I remember grabbing up the earlier EPs at Record Time(RIP) in Detroit. This new LP Hash-Bar Loops is full of darkness or people might find the material too muddy for their taste if your new to them but if you let the track Balm ride out I have a feeling you’ll find complete content from the sound.

Cascine has been the go to for music that sounds like new R+B floating up into the sky, makes those Pure Moods compilations sound like someone took a dump on the beach then scooped it up and smashed it into a jewel case and packaged it for moms at Kmart, thanks for being there Cascine or we’d be stuck with the wrong emotional music.

Mike Bubbles is for everyone that wishes that Sonic The Hedgehog and Toejam & Earl music was still being made in 2011 for video games, which is me **gets in line to buy Mike Bubbles**.

Gouache follows the footsteps of Moths who has followed the footsteps of Pogo who has followed the footsteps of Gold Panda who has followed the footsteps of The Field who all have been making stuttering lovely loops over a 4/4 beat sound great and also have brought a lot of new electronic music listeners so here’s a virtual handshake and congrats, you guys do good things.

I have never passed up a Xeno & Oaklander show, their presence on stage might be too cold and minimalistic for some(which kind of makes me glad) but the care and dedication to a specific sound puts them into a breed of their own.

André Obin drove up from Boston to play in Manhattan a few nights back so I went with my sister. His live set sits in this spot where you feel like he could take the place of Underworld or Justus Köhncke as a huge EU festival act but all the lights and fireworks are stripped away and he’s just there with his gear and you feel like your at this personal show in his room, really nice full arpeggios, intimate breakdowns and far from trendy.

Adult Swim has done it again and put together a quality compilation, this time by releasing a track at a time of popular acts like Best Coast, How To Dress Well, etc to kick it off. Fader today leaked the Active Child song which i’ve been waiting for, the video is below.

So I read on Altered Zone today about Jürgen Müller which is a musician that only pressed a few copies of his album about 30+ years ago and handed them out to friends during a time that he was on the seas working. Funny enough this music is dreamy and people are really into it right now and more importantly I hope we find more music like this.

It’s a beautiful day outside but seeing these covers for Fontana Modern Masters makes me want to stay in and design. From Wikipedia:

The Fontana Modern Masters were a series of pocket guides on the writers, philosophers, and other thinkers and theorists whose ideas were shaping the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century… The books were very popular with students who, according to Kermode, ‘bought them by the handful’ and were instantly recognisable by their eye-catching front covers, which featured brightly-coloured geometric designs overlaid with modern sans-serif typography.

These covers are the work of artists Oliver Bevan and James Lowe, and originally they could be combined and arranged to create new works of art. When Lowe replaced Bevan in 1975 the covers dropped the full bleed pattens in favor of white backgrounds but retained the shifting geometric shapes.

I’ve seen people working with these sort of projection setups before but I don’t think I’ve seen it executed on this level. This is ISAM, Amon Tobin’s new visuals system developed by Blasthaus, VSquared Labs, Vita Motus Design, Leviathan and others which was debuted at Mutek on June 1st, 2011. Simply breathtaking even on the web; I can’t imagine what it must have been like to experience this in person. Great video, but would have been nice to see an extended version with more of the development process although we do get a small peek into the behind the scenes.

Amono Tobin – ISAM Premier