Shailesh Chavda has a beautiful collection of matchbox labels up on Flickr. I have a book of Czech labels but I’ve never seen these German ones. Dave from Grain Edit originally turned me on to matchbox labels when he showed me his collection (I think they were mostly Czech). They’re so incredibly detailed considering the format; most of these would do fine as posters. I think the most striking part to me is the printing, when blown up you can really see that nice grain and spacing in the ink.

Many more great examples can be found here

You maybe remember City Center from my Top Albums of 2009 list, the project is still going strong with plenty of releases planned like this limited pressing EP on Quite Scientific that really grabbed my ear. The duo is always on the road and really great live, I highly recommend seeing a live show.

Foxes In Fiction has a pure honest sound, it touches on the softness of Atlas Sound yet keeps this youthful honesty that is not as common in music these days. Ativan could be the perfect love song for this day in age, this might be the closest you’ll get to feeling that fuzzy feeling about someone and sharing a soda.

Ariel Pink keeps surprising me with his progession in sound, we went from lo-fi to AM Gold and i’m not gonna complain at all, he does it so well.

Girls In The Eighties has that vocal in lo-fi where I find it harder to share with new listeners but personally appeals to me and it attracts me even more when it has hints of IDM like this song Youth Experiment.

I’ve been delving into the depths of the internet over the past few weeks; reading about everything from ultra high speed video camera comparisons to the best post production workflow for the 5DMKII to FCP. One of the best resources I’ve found is Prolost, the site of filmmaker Stu Maschwitz. The blog is generally about filmmaking, with a heavy lean on post production techniques, typically as it relates to DSLR equipment.

You may have already heard of it, but as was true for The Strobist a year ago, I had not and am very glad to have discovered such an informative resource. I came to Prolost by way of an article on color correction called Memory Colors. It’s not a ‘how to’ by any means, but puts forth some interesting information on the theory behind color correction and manipulation.

With the release of the new (now fixed) firmware for the MKII, it’s been hard to escape the buzz. Finally the MKII can shoot 24p! (In case you don’t see why this is awesome.) Of course now I am lamenting the fact that it can’t do 60fps (all of a sudden I had the urge to get some really smooth slow motion). Maybe next time.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH0aEp1oDOI
Update: The Real Uqbar has a post discussing GIMP resynthesis and how it makes this particular feature completely possible. Via Kevchenko

This is absolutely insane. In the video, Photoshop product manager Bryan O’neil Hughes walks us through a new feature they’re working on: “Content-Aware Fill Sneak Peek”. I can’t tell you how much time this would have saved me. To be honest I thought this might be an early April Fools joke (a’la Google’s hoaxes) but this appears to be legit.

Bryan doesn’t say when/if this new feature will show up in the product, but judging from it’s performance in the video I wouldn’t be surprised if it shows up in CS5 at some point (coming April 12th, 2010). Let’s just hope it works as well in the real world as it does in the lab because that’s downright incredible.

Video Link

Recently i’ve been finding a good amount of musicians having tour only releases which is great I think, this recently Washed Out one is full of great material, I hope it becomes a trend so musicians can recoup on the ongoing album download frenzy.

The new Ben Stiller movie Greenberg features a good portion of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy doing the soundtrack, these tracks like Sleepy Baby always are the best, still hunting down one from the ending of the movie KIDS which I loved but never found out what it was.

Nite Jewel remixing the new Caribou single, a must hear.

A wonderful piece from Brooklyn’s Kyle Bobby Dunn, the drone expert has done it again with the perfect soundtrack for an afternoon nap.

The Milk desk by Holmris Hansen (the guy laying on it I presume) makes the Novanta workstation I posted last week look downright homely. They call it “the Lamborghini of desks” but I think “the Mac of desks” would be more apt. At any rate the thing is beautiful and seemingly functional with various gadgetry, compartmentry, and height adjustability (I know 2/3 of those aren’t even words). I would definitely be very happy with this as my primary desk. You can find more info and a lot of high res pics of the Milk at the product site: http://milk.dk. Also, it’s probably like $15,000. The designer’s other work at Soren Rose Studio is worth a browse as well; some very cool pictures of their space.

I recently built a new desk (sneak preview here via a terrible iPhone shot) so I had been researching for a while trying to scrounge around for materials and hardware. I ended up sourcing most of it from Ikea and cannibalized an old board room table someone gave me. I’ll post more on that once I get some proper pictures.

Via Jason in the comments of the Novanta post

Kompakt’s Thomas Fehlmann has a new LP coming out on March 29th called Gute Luft, Fehlmann has kept himself busy in recent years doing more melodic ambient work with delightful soft kicks which makes him a pretty diverse creative since doing The Orb and his Dub material on Lowflow which I loved.

Here it is if you haven’t heard it: Flying Lotus with Thom Yorke, I think it gets better with every listen!

Another album that’s still kind of far away is Paul White & The Purple Brain which is slated for June, it is Paul White’s second album that sounds like it will touch on some 60’s psychedelic rock with some beats keeping it Paul White style.

I’m not sure if this song is off the tour only 7 inch from The Xx merch booth but its one of my favorite guitar parts by them.

If you can look past the periodic in-your-face product endorsements (I know you can!), these videos are actually very cool. I am a big fan of Danny Clinch, Wolfmother, Jay Z, (and John Mayer), so what’s not to love here. Makes me want to to quit everything and travel around the world with a band. That or quit everything and start a band and hire a photographer.

The Jay Z collaboration just came out a few days ago, while the Wolfmother one has been out for a while now. With both of these, they are obviously promos for Absolut, but they’re mainly just well-shot rock&roll mini documentaries. The class I’m in now is basically an advertising class and I have really come to appreciate it when a company put something like this together — especially compared to most of the nonsense you see out there. Just about all of the Absolut ads are very well done, most are up here. And if you haven’t seen the Spike Jonz “I’m Here” trailer you must watch it immediately.

I know many of you will relate with me here on that you’ve been waiting for this Bonobo album, All In Forms has been on repeat since i’ve bought it, anyone have a favorite other than that? i’m more into the instrumental tracks.

Half of Broker/Dealer is back keeping the torch burning under the name The Beat Broker on the “California Soul” Sentrall label, file this under Gorgeous Pace Disco.

Trüby Trio’s Christian Prommer covers Detroit legend Carl Craig in a very light and unique
way, I definitely hear elements of Tangerine Dream and the some of the guitar loops in the middle really makes this one an enjoyable cover.

If you need more Mux Mool like ma then a heavy dose of Deceptikon will do, Mux turned me onto Mythology Of The Metropolis which is the new LP from Deceptikon, what a great month in music? an LP from Daedelus, Deceptikon, Mux Mool and Bonobo, this might break a headnodders neck.

Chris Borchert is a lucky guy. According to the Exif on these files he shoots a Canon 5D and he was at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I’m assuming the camera is an MK1 version based on the Exif and this shot (he also has great taste in clothing) but I’m Nikon so I can’t be sure. Perhaps Chris can fill in the blanks (I found his work through a comment he made on this blog so I’m guessing he might read this). These shots really have a beautiful tone to them and that second ski jumper is just begging to be a poster. So yeah, I’m definitely falling for Canon; especially after Alex’s recent acquisition.

I’ve pretty much made up my mind that — barring any major developments on the Nikon side (which I suppose are relatively likely) — my next camera will be a 5D MK2/3. But I’ve put photography aside for a while to focus on some other things so this is a ways off. It’s nice to see stuff like this in the meantime to tide me over.

Check out his site for more photos

P.S. I’m curious, how many of you have taken the plunge with the 5D MKII? I feel like I’ve been seeing them a lot lately which is pretty interesting considering the price. I guess it’s a testament to the quality of the camera; people feel it’s worth it.