Jaakko Eino Kalevi: Finland has their own Destroyer/John Maus hybrid and he’s amazing.
Lee Bannon: Ninja Tunes just keeps stacking up and reviving good drum n bass.
Indian Wells: Flying under the radar in the beat world clutter.
Disclosure: I wouldn’t usually post this video but the color treatment and the vintage knick knacks make it.
I’m following up last weeks post with one more series that I really like. In the late 60’s and early 70’s sci-fi author James Blish got commissioned to write a series of books that contained short story adaptations of the TV show. He started on volume one and made it all the way to twelve before he passed away, his run with writing this series was eight years long. Each book had a volume number and contained around ten short stories. Over the course of these twelve books there were many different artists that worked on the cover illustrations but the text treatments for the most part remained the same. How can you not love those big volume numbers on the cover, so good. I posted a few of my favorites from the series above but I encourage everyone to seek out the other covers and post personal favorites in the comments below.
My favorite would have to be volume six. This volume along with numbers four and eight (also favorites) were illustrated by Lou Feck. One reason I love Lou Feck is that his work is very easily recognizable when you are flipping rapidly through the paper back bins at your local used book store, high contrast and very dramatic. I am planning on doing a whole post dedicated to Lou, he is one of my favorite sci-fi cover illustrators and there are many other great ones outside of his work on this Star Trek series.
Number five was done by Mitchell Hooks, and I have to admit I didn’t know much about him before this post. When I went searching for more sci-fi work of his I really couldn’t find anything that came close to this one in terms of subject matter and style. A lot of his work seemed to be for mystery/thriller books and also some magazine cover work. Although much of his other work doesn’t quite fall under the sci-fi category I felt this image fits in well here so I included it. I hope you guys are enjoying this series.
A quick thanks to @jakekouba on instagram for tagging a few of these Star Trek covers a week or so back. Keep the #sundayscifi tags coming!
Posted by Smyjewski
Oh man soo many mixes and tracks went up today, my favorite though is this one from Majical Cloudz called Love Soul. Enjoy your night.
UPDATE: The Majical Cloudz track is up
We finally get a peak in on the AIRA series from Roland. This less than 5 minute video from NAMM 2014 shows all these beautiful new toys (TR-8, VT-3, TB-3, System-1) playing well together. One thing I wish for 2014 is no more beat repeat or scatter or whatever you want to call it, i’m done hearing from laptop performers.
[audioplayer post=33312]
Daniel Avery is touching on some Gui Boratto & Superpitcher levels, in 2004 this would have sold 10k vinyl easily.
The hypnotic manner of where this Marcellis song goes, made me obsess over it right away. I might never spin a set without it.
Some sort of juked out motown from Traxman, its like what Bullion might have ended up doing if he just kept it simple and sample based.
I think I heard this song in a Falty DL set, maybe Shazam lied to me and its not right but once I looked up the result I found this Doc Daneeka cut. Might edit it down and cut out the vocal break, its not my thing personally.
Here’s a nice change of pace for this blog… wildlife photography! These are not your run of the mill animal mug shots. These, in my opinion, are quite special as photographer Nick Brandt is able to connect with his animal subjects on a level I’ve never quite seen before in wildlife photography. I have a hard enough time getting small dogs to love me so I couldn’t imagine being that intimate with a lion. Nick uses a Pentax 6×7 medium format camera and, if I were to guess, uses a 300-400 mm lens for some of his images. In 6×7 format, that’s roughly the equivalent of 150-200mm. Check out his book On This Earth, A Shadow Falls in person. Then you’ll get a sense of the true quality put into the images. He’s able to achieve a depth of field that I can’t quite figure out on few of the pictures. Maybe he utilizes the old vaseline on a lens method?
Hopefully these images will make those who are locked down in winter-freeze mode feel a little warmer. Spring is right around the corner folks.
Check out Mr. Brandt’s work on his website: http://www.nickbrandt.com
This week’s post starts with one of my personal favorite covers–Childhood’s End, which is also a great read. It’s pretty short and I think its up there with Arthur C Clarke’s best. On the back book cover I learned that Ballantine Books did a whole series of similarly illustrated covers–all just as beautiful. I love how the same illustration style and structure is maintained over the entire series of covers while each book is given its own dominant color. When I sat down to look into the series’ artist, everything unfortunately end in “artist unknown” or “uncredited cover art.” There is some speculation that the artist of the Earthlight cover may be Dean Ellis, but it’s not enough to tie him to any of them for sure. While I debated not posting this series after I found no conclusive artist, I decided they’re too good not to post. I am hoping a solid artist credit surfaces so that I can come back here to post an update. If anyone comes across anything, be sure to post in the comments below.
I’m happy to see the #sundayscifi tag on instagram is starting to get some posts. I will be pulling some ideas for future editions on there (in fact there is one I already know for sure I will be posting). As always, feel free to share your own favorite sci fi artist suggestions or thoughts on the post in the blog comments.
Posted by Smyjewski
Sifting through Rüdiger Nehmzow’s work I find it refreshing, its his clean approach to the coloring keeps him from being trendy. It rides that thin line of just being commercial but this calmness sneaks in and adds this inviting creative touch.
With Tycho’s Awake, out March 18th via Ghostly, the Sacramento-based audiovisual project helmed by Scott Hansen has reached a certain maturity, growing into a three-piece band and achieving, on the new record, an even more refined sense of clarity. Awake takes the evocative, pop-ambient synth work that made 2011′s Dive feel so oddly spiritual (and drew countless comparisons to Boards of Canada) and refocuses it into a cleaner, sharper post-rock context; it feels like an album that should be broadcast at night over the Grand Canyon. I spoke to Hansen about growing out of “the Instagram approach” to music producing, making headphone music work live and why he considers this “the first true Tycho record.”
The Fader: Where am I talking to you now?
Tycho: We’re in the studio, working on the live show. I’m working with the engineer who helped mix the record to translate the recorded stuff live. Last album, we struck the balance between having the live show sound more like the record, but over time, we decided we wanted a more ability to go off the beaten path, and we’re trying to skew the balance back to the performance end of things. It’s kind of headphone music at the end of the day, especially the older stuff, so we’re always trying to punch it up.
The Fader: You’ve called this “the first true Tycho record.” Why do you feel that way, even though you’ve been at it for a little while?
Tycho: I look at it from a career perspective, like what I was doing in my life when I made those other albums. My life revolved mostly around freelance graphic design work, and I wasn’t truly focused on music in the way that I am now. And back then, I hadn’t met musicians that I really resonated with in a songwriting context. Meeting Zac, meeting Rory and meeting Count, the engineer—forming relationships with them where we were comfortable enough to start creating together is what facilitated making this record the way I wanted. It was always my dream for Tycho to get to that point, it just took me 10 years to get there. This is what I wanted Tycho to be all along.
The Fader: So it’s a proper band now.
Tycho: Now I kind of look at at is: I’m in a band, and I play keyboards and guitar and bass, and I also produce that band. You put on two different hats. Working with Zac in particular, we came up with basic ideas and then spent time in different places for a couple weeks at a time working through them, developing songs. Then I went back and produced them out, and we spent a few weeks at the end flashing and burning and doing the hard decisions I wasn’t objective enough to make in the past. From songwriting to arrangement, we worked really closely. Rory, the drummer—I always hear these drum patterns and swells in the music, but I’ve never had the ability or energy to achieve that with electronic programming. He was able to just sit down, hear the music and go.
Read the rest via The Fader
Scott and I have been huge fans of Gardens & Villa since we heard them at a bar in Denver, CO during a Tycho tour so we’re happy be able to share their new album with you in full on ISO50. There’s always a place for a new act that will grow to the size of a band like Grizzly Bear and I think Gardens & Villa could be that band. I remember running across the Sasquatch Festival with some urgency a few years back and stopped in my tracks hearing “Star Fire Power” being played live, it felt like they should have been on the main stage with Bon Iver and Beck.
On a similar sound tip i’d say they sound like Small Black and the meat and potatoes of Youth Lagoon, maybe a sort of city born cousin of Midlake. Dunes has a drive to it but not for pop radio or just indie, they’re some sort of heartthrob that sits in between that is honest to themselves.
Dunes is out now on Secretly Canadian
Photo credit: Neil Favila