The 2012 Land Rover Defender XTech. In the United States, we can’t get our hands on these and that’s a tragedy. In my opinion it’s one of the best designed off-roader / SUVs ever and now there’s an XTech version which is much more rugged and has a new engine. I’m not sure if I like the original or the XTech version more, but it definitely brought me around to posting about the Defender.

The thing that I truly admire about the design of this car, it’s simple and done right. There’s no weird pattern in the seats, the instrument panels are symmetrical and the exterior colorways are that of a machine. Sure there are a lot of technological enhancements and the glaring safety features missing. No airbags keep it from coming stateside. However, it has a timeless appeal to it. Of course, it’s diesel and weighs A LOT and with what we’re all paying for gas right now it’s not really an option. However, I’d ride my bike to the studio during the week and take this out on the weekends to offset my carbon footprint.

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The new Shigeto remix EP hit shops yesterday, it came with remixes from Braille, Sun Hammer, Evenings and this moody beat that just glides thru a dense fog of colorful soundscapes…I said soundscapes I try not to use that too much but it works.

With a darker pulse a duo of ex-Apse artists come together to give us ERAAS, that perfect round thump and estrange vocals gives life to a song that keeps its head down and focuses on making quality music.

Vessel puts on a masterpiece of a performance within a song, like a chase scene within a story, with its casting of darkness thru the whole piece the end seems to reveal something good happening.

I picked this Locked Groove song for its atmosphere, I could listen to the first 1:30 on loop

From advertisements, album covers, to random graphics and art, 80’s Touch shines a light to what that period of time was visually.

Argentinian Graphic Designer and Visionary Francisco Canton has a great eye for fusing together colors and keep textures simple. I definitely like his video work as well, the treatment is pro and you can see some Charles Bergquist-esque qualities in there which is a favorite of mine.

bradleycastaneda – I don’t cover many of the black & whites, they get too plain or overly influenced by capturing a photo that has been taken before. This feed has a great mix of mountain photos but the grit of the location shows, feels a bit more connected.

claireonline – You can almost hear the calmness in these photos.

diegovchavez – I’m careful about posting photos with too much HDR or sharpening turned up to the max, both can be controlled nicely in Camera+. I didn’t want to deny this upbeat feed because of my personal techniques, it was just too friendly once I started scrolling thru.

ISO50 on Instagram:
Scott Hansen – @iso50
Jakub Alexander – @heatheredpearls
Alex Cornell – @acornell
Beamer Wilkins – @beamercola
Jonathan Marsh – @B3PO

Here’s the list of shows in LA, SF and NYC this week of musicians we post on the blog starting on Thursday.

Tue. 7 / 10
NY: Purity Ring @ Prospect Park Bandshell (Celebrate Brooklyn)
LA: N / A
SF: N / A

Wed. 7 / 11
NY: Future Islands @ Death By Audio
LA: High Places @ The Echo
SF: N / A

Thu. 7 / 12
NY: DIIV @ 285 Kent Avenue
LA: Soft Metals (DJ Set) @ Belasco Theater
SF: NightLife Weekly @ California Academy of Sciences

Fri. 7 / 13
NY: Beacon @ Pianos
LA: oOoOO @ Central Social Aid & Pleasure Club
SF: Com Truise @ 1015 Folsom

Sat. 7 / 14
NY: Tycho, Onuinu @ Webster Hall
LA: NGUZUNGUZU @ Belasco Theater
SF: Tangerine Dream @ Mountain Winery, Saratoga, CA

Sun. 7 / 15
NY: Hannibal Buress @ Knitting Factory
LA: N / A
SF: N / A

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I never went after the GusGus catalog, I liked what they did for Bjork – Hunter but that is my favorite Bjork song. I do like what Kolombo did for GusGus, mostly the chorus got a real good face lift.

If you want more Todd Terje just go in the search box over there to your right, I think i’ve posted over 10 tracks in the last year or so. I should just make a playlist of them all. The appeal is hard to put my finger on, its just what I like to hear, that spacey/psych disco guitar that sits in the back and a slow driving pace.

I want to like this Tame Impala song more, its just not clicking with me yet, I think I just need to listen to it 4 or 5 more times, what do you guys think?

Ariel Pink is really going for it, cleaned up completely, almost like there’s a joke behind it. The idea is there but the lyrics are making me wide eyed.

For those of you looking to make this Monday go by a bit quicker. Browser Pong is a traditional Pong game played not in a browser window, but with browser windows. Designed by Stewdio, an art practice, code house, and graphic design studio based in London.

Tested and approved for Macintosh using the following browsers in order of preference: Safari 4, FireFox 3.6, Chrome 4, and Opera 10.

Joan is a Vimeo user who likes to download high-resolution image sets taken by crew members of Expeditions 28, 29, 30 and 31, onboard the NASA International Space Station (ISS), and constructs short time-lapse videos.

The images used to construct these, come courtesy of the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. “The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth.”

Tycho is on the road and we’ve still got plenty of dates coming up. Last night was Chicago’s Lincoln Hall — thanks by the way to everyone there, we had an incredible time. Tonight we’ll be playing one of our favorite venues, The Crofoot Ballroom in Pontiac, MI. This will be our second time playing the Crofoot and if last time was any indication, this should be something special.

I just finished up programming the lighting on a new rig we had made (an Arduino-controlled LED array designed by Michael Potvin. We debuted the system in Chicago last night and everything seemed to work well. Should look really cool tonight with the Crofoot’s already amazing lighting system. We also built a custom 20ft. screen for this tour so all visual elements should be really solid tonight. If you aren’t anywhere near Pontiac, we still have a string of dates coming up, hopefully one in your town:

Remaining Dates for Tycho Summer Tour 2012 – View All Upcoming Dates

JUL 07 – The Crofoot Ballroom – Pontiac, MI
JUL 08 – Beachland Ballroom – Cleveland, OH
JUL 10 – The Hoxton – Toronto, Canada
JUL 11 – La Sala Rossa – Montreal, Canada
JUL 12 – Port City Music Hall – Portland, ME
JUL 13 – Camp Bisco 11 – Pattersonville, NY
JUL 14 – Webster Hall – New York, NY
JUL 16 – Rex Theater – Pittsburgh, PA
JUL 17 – Ace of Cups – Columbus, OH
JUL 18 – Turner Hall Ballroom – Milwaukee, WI
JUL 19 – Gabe’s – Iowa City, IA
JUL 20 – The Outland – Springfield, MO
JUL 22 – Belly Up – Aspen, CO

View All Upcoming Dates

We’re heading out again in September so if your town is not on this list, hopefully we’ll have you covered next time around. We’ve also go a couple surprises coming up overseas so stay tuned. Hope everyone is having a great summer, see you soon!