Archive for April, 2012

The Sacramento Electronic Music Festival is looking to be the best yet with a great lineup this year including ISO50 favorite and Ghostly label-mate Mux Mool and my good friend and collaborator Dusty Brown. If you’re anywhere near Sacto you owe it to yourself to make it out. This is always a really fun event and it’s being held for the first time at Harlow’s, my favorite venue out there. Details follow.

The 3rd Annual Sacramento Electronic Music Festival – May 3rd, 4th and 5th
Harlow’s & Momo Lounge in midtown Sacramento. 21 and over – Tickets

2012 Lineup:

Shlohmo, Mux Mool, Dusty Brown, Death Grips, Light Year, Lorn, Salva, B.Bravo, Starship Connection, Jantsen, Raleigh Montcrief, DJ Nobody, Dibiase, D.A.M.B, Giraffage, DJ Whores, Yalls, iNi, CrookOne, Doombird, Satellites, Favors, Melee Beats, Little Foxes, Tha Fruitbat, El Conductor, James & Evander, Dolor, Bad Looks, adoptahighway, Chachi Jones, Young Aundee, Paper Pistols, Ryan Lindow, Eames, thriftcar

More Info

videotap3 – B3PO turned me onto videotap3, what a fantastic feed of foggy woods and natural mirrors.

otije – What I enjoy about otije is that his/her’s minimal approach never feels empty

bunnymama – Okay i’m going to put out a personal favorite, if you know me in real life you know I love rabbits, there’s plenty of cat and dog focused instagrams but this bunny one makes me soo happy, I mean look at that damn thing and if you don’t like it then Happy Easter.

One of the nicest/friendliest musicians i’ve ever met in my life has to be Teen Daze, his happiness just rubs off on you, you could be at a trendy bar just acting cool ya know maybe leaning against a wall in a dark corner trying to watch a band play and you end up talking to Teen Daze and 5 minutes later you’re skipping along like a Gummi Bear to the bar getting yourself a Dr. Pepper. The music is great and all and you know that but I just wanted you to know if you ever see the guy he’ll be soo kind to you.

I’ve probably looped this song by Au Palais 20+ times in the past 72 hours, it was suggested to me by Rami who co-runs Pop Gun Booking(they book the Glassland shows in Brooklyn). This song in particular stays with me, its rides that catchy end of when M83 writes something slower and foggy while also channeling a more melodic Zola Jesus.

Sometimes I don’t want the Forma song i’m listening to to end so i’ve found a solution, download and listen to this 24+ minute live radio session, its completely satisfied that craving.

I’m a fan of Deerhunter and an even bigger fan of Atlas Sound so automatically i’ll listen to their bandmate Lotus Plaza(again). What i’m realizing after listening to the new album is that these guys are the best bet for a noisy rock band to get in the pop world. I mean ambient aware/wall of sound controlling noise which I think might be the most beautiful sound and thinking about it actually getting to a mom’s sirius radio and her liking it bends my mind but not too much, but if anyone is going to do it it’s going to be these guys.

The vinyl and digital of Tycho’s “Dive” single w/ remixes from Memoryhouse and Keep Shelly In Athens are out and available on the shop. Below are some details, i’d grab the clear opaque vinyl which is very limited and won’t be repressed.

Vinyl Details
The clear opaque vinyl is limited to 300 pressings, exclusively available through The Ghostly Store & ISO50.
The standard vinyl is limited to 700 pressings worldwide.
Each standard weight vinyl version features a 2-panel, 3mm spine, stock art jacket with a matte finish inserted in paper dust sleeves.

ORDER YOUR VINYL COPY HERE

Tracklisting
1 Dive
2 Dive (Memoryhouse Remix)
3 Dive (Keep Shelly In Athens Remix)

The title track on Tycho’s long-awaited Dive LP is just that—a ripple effect record that sounds like three songs in one, as if sound/graphic designer Scott Hansen just discovered prog-rock and decided to apply its winding passages to his own singular blend of sinewy synths and bleached beats. It’s also the first Tycho song to feature a prominent guest musician; guitarist Zac Brown, in this case, who paints outside the lines of Hansen’s halcyon hooks with restless rhythms and monorail-like riffs.

The “Dive” single fleshes things out even further, as Keep Shelly in Athens and Memoryhouse—both rising underground artists in their own right—cut Hansen’s cloud-scraping composition in half and slow his cruise control chords down to a crawl. The misty vocal melodies are still there, but they’re now floating through an embryonic assembly of jittery cicadas, rusty gears, and lean loops that are both welcoming and a bit woozy. The sonic equivalent of staring at the sun for too long, really, or two sides of the same cracked mirror.

In September 2010, Sculpture, an audiovisual performance duo from London comprised by electronic music producer, Dan Hayhurst, and animator, Reuben Sutherland, presented us with a flattened zoetrope on the surface of a vinyl record by the name of Rotary Signal Emitter (Dekoder Release 046).

The Victorian zoetrope, invented in 1834, was a three-dimensional object that consisted of a spinning cylinder with vertical slits through which still images appeared to move.

Sculpture’s animation requires the use of a video camera to convey its magic, but as can be seen from their videos the effort is well worth it. Just the knowledge of the latent potential contained within the vinyl surface serves to enhance the experience of the music and the spinning disc, even to the naked eye, is a hypnotic spectacle.

Sculpture’s music, is a mixture of psychedelia, hauntology and turntablism, is a perfect match for their striking visuals. Other films by the duo can be viewed on Tapebox (they’re very much worth your time).

Posted by B3PO Via Hardformat

ISO50 regular featured photographer Kim Høltermand just released his new series Monochronos and all I can say is…unreal.

You can also follow his great Instagram feed as well:
@holtermand

Posted by B3PO

Photograph by _anna_ via Behance

John Maus is a religion, you believe in it wholeheartedly or not at all. I think its the most honest pop out there thats pushing true boundaries.

I found this Cinnamon Chasers song on the ISO50 Blog plug.dj room a few days ago, had the whole room full of animated characters dancing. A very simple song but bursting with drive and melody, I think i’ll keep this on my ipod if I ever need a pick me up.

This Jai Paul track has been everywhere, right away I love the whats happening with the fusion of high quality low end marrying a simple guitar line, its hard to make that sound right. Still not sold on Lenny Kravitz at times style vocals but the rest of the song overall makes up for it immensely.

Watching the end of the Silver & Light post that Charles did earlier had searching for the closing credit song, really wrapped the end up tightly without taking over. You can find the song on Vimeo’s new Music Store which i’m looking into and posting on later this week.

Never thought I would ever really be fascinated by moss…but somehow that all changed as soon as I came across Mosser.

Mosser is a small glass terrarium filled with a simple round moss ball crafted by NY based designers Jennica Johnstone and Noah Atkinson, who I found out by speaking with them, personally cultivate, jar, label, package, and ship all units individually. They are very easy to care for and only need to be sprayed once every two weeks with filtered water.

Here are a few words and images Jennica and Noah were kind enough to share with us about Mosser, how it was conceived, what goes in to producing each unit, and a few ideas we can hopefully expect to see in a near future:

Mosser is about capturing simplicity and and keeping it alive in ones space. We recognize the need to have something natural at your fingers tips in this day and age.

The project had a very natural and unplanned start, one day we just decided to make a terrarium and not much has changed since that first one. There was no point in the beginning were we thought that we would end up creating a brand and selling these things.

Keeping it simple is key. Let the moss shine, it is such an intriguing plant. Its one of the oldest plants on earth and it can tolerate so many elements, yet it is rootless.

For the future, we would hope to have different customized containers to hold the moss, maybe a wooden base with a glass lid or a rectangular glass container.

Jennica and Noah have also launched a new project by the name of Co/Labs which intends to bring the design community together in many different ways.

Purchase Mosser

Posted by B3PO

An incredible short documentary on Ian Ruhter and his work with wet plate photography in a camera that is literally a truck. What I love about this, besides the astounding photographs, is the dedication and investment that he’s poured into this project. The piece above explains a lot about how much of himself he’s put into this, at a cost of “$500 a photograph”. Check out the Facebook page, as he’s touring around the country shooting and wants people to get involved and photographed.

This is photography.




Equally as impressive as the project itself is the video below of captured motion.

Los Angeles architect Ray Kappe built a multilevel house for his family back in 1967, and the results still resonate today.

A lot of the houses I see around on the web that grab my eye always make me feel that “why not me? why can’t I have that?” feeling, this one did that 10 fold. It has that sunken in living room floor and the multilevel opening thru the center of the house. There’s this corner of the house that is glass that you need to see for yourself in the article that just made me soo pissed that I didn’t win the Mega Millions last week.

Full article via Dwell