A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across these beautiful pieces by Cristiana Couceiro. I was immediately engaged by the simple, collage-like style and muted mid-century colors. There is also something about the use of monochrome mountain imagery and type that really catches my eye.

See more of Cristiana’s work on flickr.

Yes, both of those passports are mine. The first thing that was said to me upon my arrival in Narita was “Do you know Interpol?” I answered yes and was lead into an interrogation room where I sat for about 45 minutes. Periodically someone would come explain that my passport was stolen. I would explain back to them that it couldn’t be, as it was right there in front of us. In the end I was told to go to the American Embassy and get a new one (hence the two above). So now I have two passports and a unique knowledge of the underworld at Narita Airport. That was at the beginning, much has happened since then.

Since my last update I have been out mining for cool things. No more tourist attractions (besides the Ramen Museum in Yokohama. My Mom already made fun of me for visiting a noodle museum, so don’t start). I am happy to say that I have been successful in my searchings for all things weird and wonderful. Most of my time has been spent in Aoyama, Harajuku and Naka Meguro (with some Daikanyama too). It’s been hard to decide what to focus on; clothes, housewares, interiors, music, games, food…I could easily spend all of each day bouncing between all the different shops in those areas. One place I literally had to leave because I was afraid I might buy too many things (Sempre). I also found a hair salon that was having a yard sale. Their three items for sale were a replica M16, faded porn, and a Twitter sign. Awesome.

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I found more CFCF remixes to share with you guys, a real proper remix that shows off the same talents he displays time after time, this track reminds me of a housey earlier Royksopp without the vox.

When I first heard Popnoname on Kompakt he was doing mostly singles for the Pop Ambient compilations, really nice smooth digital stuff but I never checked him out beyond that. This is more on a pop tip, vox with a rolling synth melody, simple and easy to swallow.

I wouldn’t miss putting up a new Toro Y Moi even if you told me we all already heard it before, loving this one he did for The Longcuts, its back to what I love most about his production.

I can’t figure it out but I think Duliatten Disco Dancer is the very talent re-edit disco master Todd Terje
but don’t quote me on that, loving this worldly psych disco cut even if the guitar gets alil out of hand at the end.

I’m very pleased to announce that the new Dusty Brown EP, This City is Killing Me, is now available. I’m even more pleased to announce that Dusty was generous enough to give it to us for free. If you like it (which I am sure you will, just have one listen to “Back to Back” and you’ll be hooked), please consider supporting his music by making a donation.

For the uninitiated, Dusty Brown is an insanely talented Sacramento-based producer and musician who, along with his eponymous band, creates a sort of beat-centric clash between raw ambient-electronic and synth-driven indie rock. Dusty got me into the live music scene when I was starting out in Sacramento and over the years we’ve collaborated on all sorts of projects. I’ve learned more about music from Dusty than anyone else; his production style and methods are truly awe inspiring. People who have been following along for a while might also remember that Dusty did all the flash work for both the original versions of the ISO50 portfolio.

I’ve really been anticipating this EP so it was great to also be able to create the album artwork for the release. The artwork is based on the photography of another incredible talent from Sacramento, photographer Raoul Ortega. The front and back covers feature various images from this set which Raoul shot with the Canon 5D at Dusty’s Harlow’s show last week. It’s so inspiring as a designer to work with talented photographers; images like this are just begging to be treated and make the whole process such a pleasure. The EP download includes print sized versions of the front and back covers.

Enjoy! And please thank Dusty for hooking us up in the comments!

Dusty Brown – This City is Killing Me Download | Donate

I recently put together a collection of remixes that weren’t really out there that were related to the Moodgadget label I run. It’s a very diverse collection of new and old songs from the catalog and I thought the ISO50 readers could be the first to hear and download the compilation, let me know what you think, enjoy your weekend.

TRACKLIST
Benoit Pioulard – Forming At The Mouth (Worst Friends remix)
D. Gookin – Glad I Met You (Mux Mool remix)
Machinedrum – Fresh Kids (Mogi Grumbles mix)
The Young Friends – Be My Baby (Boyfriends mix)
Shigeto – Life Eternal (A Setting Sun remix)
Body Language – At A Glance (Toro Y Moi remix)
Praveen & Benoit – Embers (Shigeto remix)
Addled – Heartbreachno (Frank Omura remix)
Mux Mool – Eagle Fantasies (Tom Croose’s 60 super bowl champs remix)
A Setting Sun – Sun Hammer Pounding (Joe Lapaglia mix)

DOWNLOAD IT HERE FOR FREE

I’ll be playing a Tycho set in San Francisco at Mezzanine on Friday, July 9th, 2010 as part of this year’s Ghostly Showcase. It’s a great lineup and last year’s show at Mezzanine was incredible so this one is not to be missed. I’ll be debuting some new material from the upcoming album and should have a couple other surprises and guests in store. Should be a great night, I hope to see you out there.

Details:
Ghostly Live A/V Showcase
Featuring live audio and visual performances.

Friday July 9th 10pm

Tycho
Solvent
The Sight Below
Shigeto
Mux Mool

@ Mezzanine
444 Jessie Street
San Francisco, CA

Tickets $20ADV $25DOOR

Buy Tickets Here

I spent today walking around Aoyoma, a fairly upscale shopping district near Harajuku in Tokyo. One of the more distinctive features of the area is the Prada building, designed by the Swiss duo Herzog & de Meuron. It was really hot walking around it and staring up at the sun, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to shoot such a cool looking structure. The way the glass warps the interior while simultaneously reflecting the exterior makes for some really interesting compositions. From immediately below, looking up at the sky, the building kind of resembles bubble wrap, or perhaps the bottom of an almost boiling pot. My favorite part is the color contrast of the cross sections, between the black of the edges and the off-white of the supports. The attendants inside kept tossing me suspicious glances, once they figured out I was *not* there to buy anything.

I passed by this evening as well and the building looked awesome in a completely different way. Kind of like a 24 hour bee hive. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera; I would have really liked to round out the photo group with a few night shots. On an unrelated note, I didn’t have my camera because I was on the way to a Mike Stern concert at the Blue Note. If you are remotely into progressive jazz guitar at all, check out his music. He and the band (especially bassist Richard Bona) really tore the roof off the place tonight.

CFCF have been my favorite remixers as of late, they always stay at a great pace and grab perfect elements away from both slow disco and house, this one for Jori Hulkkonen has been my fave.

I’m not sure if this is old or new Portishead but I just saw it featured up on iTunes and it caught my ear, i’m a sucker for her voice and that Moroder like driving synth.

More remixes from the master Superpitcher, back in the early and mid 2000’s if you had a Superpitcher remix on your 12″ you were pretty much guaranteed record sales, those were the days.

One band that I haven’t seen live yet but are on the top of my list is Blondes, they play a ton here in Brooklyn but I seem to miss them everytime. This song Spanish Fly might have elements of the whole post Animal Collective sound but way more electronics pushing the song forward.

I’ve been on a car kick lately. Not only are they excellent examples of functional design, there’s something about the quality of 60s-70s concept car photography that always gets me. This latest entry is the 1978 Mercedes-Benz Study CW311. Designed solely as a concept by Eberhard Schulz Isdera for Mercedes Benz, it was later put into production as the Isdera Imperator 108i. You may recall the post on the Mercedes Benz C111, a concept which Shulz also developed.

I feel like this was the era right before everything started looking like alien technology or some sort of bird. It seems like in high end conceptual situations like with supercars, the designers are always trying to envision some object from the near future. I guess I prefer the near future imagined in the 1970’s over that of today.

I love the lines, really aggressive but the overall vibe is softened by the sort of roundness of the thing. I’m definitely getting an Italdesign/DeLorean vibe off the windows. Also, picture kicking it with a Lufthansa airliner? Classy. And I’m loving the roof mounted rear-view; something very utilitarian about that. On a side-note, I feel like if a car could be a typeface, the CW311 would be Trade-Gothic Bold Extended.

And to top it off, a very VHS-ish video featuring the CW311 (with poor choice of substitute wheels):

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IELHeVXm0cg

Special thanks to AJJB for turning me on to Shulz’s work back in the C111 post. AJJB also pointed out that Shulz is now “selling cheesy oil paintings out of a small town in Germany”. Interesting and sort of sad too…

Images via Carstyling.ru

We’ve been in Japan now for about 5 days. Mostly in Tokyo, though the last couple days were spent in Osaka and Kyoto, utilizing our JR Rail Passes. I almost blitzed to Kobe for the afternoon but got caught up on the world’s largest ferris wheel in Osaka. I didn’t know I was afraid of heights until this trip, where I have managed to induce vertigo about 5 times. We’ll be in Tokyo for the rest of the week, staying in a pretty crazy part of Shinjuku.

The trip thus far has been amazing. The weather — especially compared to two years ago — has been really cooperative. We’ve gotten lost many times; usually the result of me half-remembering where something is from last time. I can speak enough Japanese to ask for directions, but not quite enough to fully understand the answer. This usually results in us basically bouncing between locals until we happen upon our destination. I refer to this process as Lost Alex’s Local Japanese Pinball. Travel companions generally do not find this amusing.

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