Archive for November, 2012

All analog photography by Ellen Rogers. Absolutely floored.

Via MELT

By National Geographic

Dave DK name has popped up more than a few times, I believe this is the first time i’ve heard any of his reworks. If you get the nod from Future Classics then you must be doing something right.

No Body is Sean Lynch from 800Beloved, to me it sounds like he set the guitars, band business into the closet and gave a machine production and simplicity a chance, he has always had the voice

I can always rely on the label Innervisions to fill my DJ bag, always melodic and easy to dance to and probably the most cinematic tech-house catalog because of that moody/chase scene vibe they seem to sign.

I just settled back in Brooklyn and have a small setup to get back into making music, this is just some warming up to get my ear back to find that balance in distortion and melody for the Heathered Pearls project.

Last year I got to be a part of an amazing project with an immensely talented group of film makers, musicians and fellow photographer Kim Holtermand. The clip above is a sample from the film that Scenic Studios created along with DERU. I’d like to thank everyone that has supported the project. It’s so great to have projects such as this and many others come to life through Kickstarter.

You can see more of my photography from the project on my website:

NAVIS ICELAND

There’s also a few more printed postcard books that can be purchased:

Outliers Postcard Book

Or if you’d like, you can also purchase the film as a HD digital download:

Outliers Vol. 1: Iceland

The best $40 you can spend for a vinyl music lover early next year just went up for pre-order:

J Dilla: Donuts 7″ Box Set

This box set includes a bonus 45 with “Signs” from the long out-of-print Donuts ‘Fan Club 45’ b/w DOOM & Ghostface’s “Sniper Elite & Murder Goons” – two tracks over Donuts beats which were recorded in late 2005 prior to the original release of the album.

Box contains: Eight 7-inch singles

I’ll never forget hearing this record for the first time and what lovely way to share it, amazing work Stones Throw.

In other news, visuals keep getting pushed to their limits, the latest projection/music video from Nosaj Thing takes a simple idea and runs with it, the song features you know who from Blonde Redhead.

When modern fine art becomes this visually attractive color wise I find myself wanting to break away half my computer time and try to practice some oil painting, honestly it sounds really exciting to me.

via Alex Roulette

[audioplayer post=30388]

As we wait for another Nitemoves release from Tycho’s/Com Truise’s drummer Rory O’Connor he left us a taste of what is to come last week. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

My generations main synth wizard never stops, Legowelt still on top of his game, taking classic acid to mindful places.

Beautiful melancholy dance music coming from soft disco creator Blackbelt Andersen.

Bottin seems to get his hand on a lot of edits/dubs, seems like he has passion of keeping Italo evolving, I really love this Tosca edit he did, tasteful and on pace to keep Italo true.

Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit relayed some information about photographic techniques used to achieve the images:

“My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure.”

View full set on Flickr

Amazing photos from a new book on Balthazar Korab’s architectural photography.

Emigrating to the US from Hungary in 1955, Korab was initially hired by Eero Saarinen as a designer, but his skills as a photographer quickly took center stage stage and he effectively became Saarinen’s in-house photographer, using photography as a tool for design development in addition to documentation of finished works.

While of course featuring many of Saarinen’s iconic buildings, the book also shows Korab’s commissioned photos of works by Corb, Mies, Kahn, Frank Lloyd Wright….

Posted by: Rob Fissmer

We are really proud to be sharing such a lush album with you guys this weekend from Billow Observatory. I finally was able to sit all the way thru it today and it really came together as one of the most cohesive albums of the year. The sound is submerged in Loscil like drones but every so often you feel like everything comes up for air.

Time. It all comes back to time.

The self-titled debut album from Billow Observatory — the duo comprising Danish producer Jonas Munk, aka Manual, and Auburn Lull guitarist Jason Kolb — is a record that has been nearly a decade in the making, and a record that unfolds at a stately, unhurried pace, its subtleties revealing themselves with repeated listening. Its sound reflects its creators’ diverse backgrounds — Kolb’s ambient guitar work, along with Munk’s experience in film music and the minutiae of sound engineering — as well as their patience and devotion to their craft.

The genesis of Billow Observatory came in summer 2004, when Munk was first introduced to Kolb’s work with Auburn Lull. A split EP between Manual and Auburn Lull was mooted, and although this didn’t materialize, the duo began exchanging ideas and audio files, finally meeting in person during 2007 when they played a show together in Michigan.

As time passed, their work began to coalesce into what would become Billow Observatory — as Munk says, “We never expected to be working on material for six years, but something very exciting took shape as soon as we started working together and we had to follow that idea to the end.” The process of following that idea was slow and deliberate, one that required meticulous attention to detail and nuance. The resultant album is the work of two musicians at the top of their game, pouring years of experience and expertise into the creation of a record where every sound is there for a reason.

Munk adds, “The basis for most of this material comes from guitars and effects devices but every bit has been processed and treated with software… I didn’t use a lot of different effects – the focus on my part has been on shaping each bit of sound to perfection, still maintaining the character of a guitar but turning it into something that doesn’t sound ‘played’. I think of a lot of this material as sounding as if it comes from surroundings rather than from hands touching instruments.”

The music the duo have created is immersive and somehow timeless, evoking places and ambiences as exotic as some of those that give the songs their names. “I remember we would sometimes ask each other questions about random places with interesting names that we thought the other person would know something interesting about,” Kolb explains. “I would ask Jonas about the Baltic Sea, Scandinavia, or something in that general area of the world and he would ask something similar about Michigan or the Great Lakes. I think we were influenced by the idea of creating music that told vague, semi-fictitious histories of places we knew very little about.”

In an age where we race from one instant to the next, never stopping to think about the moment we’re inhabiting, Billow Observatory is a record that rewards patience and, yes, time. “[The album] is dense with emotion and meticulously crafted,” says Munk, “while feeling light and airy when listening to the song as a whole. I have had this album for over a year and it still withstands the test of time.”

The Face of the High Arctic by Dalton Muir, National Film Board of Canada

If I’m ever in need of inspiration, the National Film Board of Canada’s website is an absolute goldmine of films ranging from the 1930’s to present. For myself, it’s their documentary nature films in particular that capture the imagination.

This film is a short doc about Canada’s arctic from the NFB’s earlier years (c1958). I’m considering posting a few more of these over the next few weeks, so I’d be interested in knowing what you think.

Posted by: Owen Perry
Instagram: @circa_1983