About a month ago I got to see Chaz Bundick play as his solo act Toro Y Moi, I sent it to Scott and we’ve been both hooked to his new album Causers Of This ever since. Below is a few question I asked him about everything from his blog which seems to have shrunk a bit since I was last there to what he’d be doing if he wasn’t doing music.

ISO50: First, your new album “Causers Of This” that just came out will be in our best of 2010 without a doubt but I read that you’ll be releasing 2 records this year, is this true? If so, can we expect more of this loveliness style wise?

TYM: Yeah, the plan is to do two records. This one is going to sound more songwriter based and non-electronic. The goal we’re shooting for is to have it out by August…

ISO50: I went to your blog, you have some great photos, can you tell us a little bit about them and what people are seeing on your blog? Is it a bit of the initimate and fun side of you?

TYM: Thanks. A lot of the photos are of my friends. It’s fun, I love taking pictures of people but I’m getting more into more inanimate photos and odd still lifes.

ISO50: Your from South Carolina[i’ve never been there] and I see that your pretty fashionable for a guy (I admire a good pair of eyewear), is there something that the rest of the world doesn’t know about South Carolina in music and the young people? Does the clothing world at all interest you? Any good thrifting there?

TYM: Well, i had to say one thing, it’s be that, us, south carolinians don’t all live in the backwoods. The thrifting is great down here. But, really a lot of trends, whether it be fashion, music, or art, spreads majorly because of internet theses days.

ISO50: I saw you play live in Brooklyn, you really look like you have a ton of fun on stage like a natural, does that come from anything like an old band or performing before?

TYM: I’ve played in bands since i was 15. I’m just getting use to being on stage by myself, but i’m willing to be embarassed and learn from my mistakes…

ISO50: Would you share any advice on production techniques and what synths you use or dream of owning?

TYM: hmmmm, proly stay away from direct lines when recording, sounds gross and flat. a dream synth? anything from Realistic.

ISO50: To put it bluntly, I hear “heavy melodic avant pop” early Max Tundra meets “I wanna make people move” 50’s and 80’s pop in the best way possible when I hear your music, can you share what records shaped your sound?

TYM: Most likely Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys, Loveless by My Bloody Valentine and Donuts by J Dilla.

5 quick questions:
ISO50: Something your fans might not know about you: I dont shower often.
ISO50: Dream gig (location, mood, show opener or closer): SNL and zach galifianakis as the host.
ISO50: Favorite new band you’ve heard: Cloud Nothings
ISO50: If you weren’t doing music, where would you like to work: DDEESSIIGGNN
ISO50: Share a childhood memory that might relate to your music: Seeing my dad dressed in heavy winter clothing.

Toro Y Moi Blog
Toro Y Moi Facebook
Toro Y Moi Twitter

Feltron's Mousepaths over 24 Hours

Anatoly Zenkov (3 Hours Working in Photoshop)

My mousepaths while writing this post

These images are recordings of mousepaths using a Java applet by Anatoly Zenkov. In addition to being an interesting aggregation of usage data, they look pretty cool (especially the ones over shorter time periods). The third image is my mousepaths while writing this post. The most telling are my frequent trips to the corners to cue my Exposé actions. Important to note that the black spots are where the mouse stopped for a period of time, not clicks as I thought at first. You can download it here: PC Version | Mac Version.
“S” – save image. “R” – restart.

via Feltron

Hiroyuki Hamada

The last two images are pieces by Hiroyuki Hamada. Completely unrelated yes, but when I saw the mouspath images I immediately recalled these from a couple weeks ago on bdif. I’d worry about you if your mouseclick data looked like this.

I’ve been up in Tahoe getting in a few days of skiing in before I hit the road and happened to come across some related reading. Black Crows make some very well designed skis (can’t speak to how they ride, I’m loyal to Armada) and now they make a well designed Cube. Nissan has partnered with the French ski maker to create these two special editions of Jakub’s favorite logo-shaped conveyance. The cars are interesting but the skis are the real story. I’m always complaining about the abysmal state of ski design these days but Black Crows have shown that there are still some people pushing the minimal vibe even in this age of x-treme-sports-informed maximalist design. The only problem is they’re too pretty to ride, I’d hang them on my wall though (see a couple pics below or check their site). Via We Heart

BTW: according to the EXIF on those shots they were taken with the GF1. Pretty nice, been thinking about getting something in that range (like the Canon G11 et al.) for traveling light. The shots below were shot with the mighty (yet inexplicably video-less) D700.


Ski images via Pixelcollector

If you’ve been following this whole lo-fi lazy summer meets surf rock movement with bands like Real Estate, Washed Out, The Young Friends,Small Black, etc. there is a whole range of tones and tempos. One band that needs more releases out is this Beach Fossils group which I think has some great guitar parts, i’ll keep you updated on new material by them since they sound pretty promising.

Sbtrkt is one of the guys that has hit me over email with tracks, I really love his production work, he has a line list of releases this year and one that really impressed my ears was his remix for Modeselektor, looking forward to the vinyl.

If you’ve read the blog for awhile now you know I love Lusine, I suggested him and Hatchback to remix Tycho awhile back for Coastal Brake. This single which came out this week shows off more of his new direction of using a lot more female vocals which is the perfect follow up the his Two Dots single.

Below is the new Jonsi(singer of Sigur Ros) music video, I like his direction, he definitely stays with his sound and is pretty fearless visually.

Jónsi – Go Do from Jónsi on Vimeo.

The Watsonian posted some very nice Super 8 packaging. That XL55 type is amazing.

Link

You may have seen this Carl Sagan video floating around which is a remix done by Colorpulse that Mux Mool shared with me awhile ago that I loved. Recently, Mux got parts and remixed the song with great results, below is his remix of the remix for the ISO50 blog, feel free to share it.

DOWNLOAD for FREE: Mux Mool remix / Colorpulse remix

Ryan Schude (Site | Flickr) is a Los Angeles (via Chicago, San Francisco, and San Diego) based photographer. I’m loving the honesty in a lot of these, they feel really raw and relatable. The staged shots are nice but I’m really gravitating toward the more candid moments he’s captured. Definitely getting a Joe Stevens vibe off the various automotive shots in there, really cool stuff. Also, my new dream is to have a yellow tent full of photographic equipment.

Ryan Schude Site | Flickr

There’s a single shared already from the new Loscil LP, sounds really promising, i’ll definitely post more once the album is out but here’s a teaser.

You can count on the label Kranky to never disappoint, while digging for Loscil I stumbled upon this band named Ethernet, not the best band name but they make up for it with this aquatic drone track called Seaside.

Any Wisp fans here? i’m a huge Wisp fan, in December his LP dropped on Rephlex with an array of epic melodic fantasy music that puts most new video game/fantasy movie music to shame.

A label called Twoism does a great job of taking the Boards of Canada sound the extra mile and finds musicians that love making the PBS sound, a definite net label that i’ll keep look visiting.

I do not know what to write. I am sitting here staring at the screen, running sentences in my head, and turning my music on and off. Earlier I went foraging for food (in hopes of sparking some magical words), but ended up getting distracted by Arrested Development for 20 minutes. This happens just about every time I sit down to do anything. I’ll probably go play the guitar between this paragraph and the next.

Of course this is a familiar situation. Often referred to as “writer’s block”, the concept of an inspiration rut is unfortunately very familiar to every creative in any field. Sometimes ideas just don’t show up to work. Given this, we all develop strategies to combat such a scenario. Not all are foolproof, but it’s safe to say that most creative people have some battle plan for dealing with the dreaded “blank page”.

Knowing this I decided to ask some of today’s most exciting artists and creators what they do when the ideas aren’t flowing. I left the question fairly open ended and asked, What do you do to inspire your creativity when you find yourself in a rut? As expected, I was presented with an array of strategies, ranging from listening to Boards of Canada in a forest alone, to cooking up a storm (recipe provided) and waiting for the mind to clear.

What follows are 25 strategies from these creatives to spark your inspiration; hopefully you’ll find something helpful in there. I encourage you to list your favorite strategies as well in the comments. We can never have to many of these…

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This is what might happen if a trash compactor had impeccable taste and color sensitivity. The work of Michael Johansson is unique and impossible to categorize. You really have to look closely to see how random and unrelated the objects that make up these blocks actually are; yet they still match up perfectly. I can’t imagine how long it must take to source materials and eventually place and align them so precisely. Would be like building a puzzle where each piece was made by a different company and then scattered throughout the world.

via bdif