Just put out by the wonderful Bram “Texture” Geiben.
Music from and influenced by the film BLADERUNNER: an attempt to recreate the psychogeographic landscape of the city, using some familiar elements from the film, and later works with a complementary feel.
No playlist, but the mix features tracks by Vangelis, Fhloston Paradigm, Kuedo, Micoland, Nine Inch Nails, DROKK, Portishead, El-P, and Burial, plus samples from the film.
The marvelous, beautiful and very talented Katelan Foisy sent me this stunning package containing a release from ABEARICA. A wonderful compilation featuring some fucking amazing Spoken Word (including a track by Katelan herself, which is marvelous). To be honest I’m kind of amazed she sent this to me. I mean, I was incredibly honoured that she was going to send me a CD but this is in an absolutely beautiful package with some wall-hanging pieces of beauty. Really. This is wonderful stuff. Thank you, Katelan.
The album by my pal Taphead is out now and available for streaming and free download. Spooky dark ambient music that makes walking on the street alone at night just a little bit more scary and sitting in front of a computer with the lights off just a little bit more awesome.
Go. Listen.
Good lord, I am quite talented at dropping off the face of things. I haven’t given a proper update on here in a while.
A few things have been happening. Right now I’m just finishing up an editing gig for the video material for a quiz show. Most of it has required working in After Effects, a program that I touched once in college, so the experience was an educational one. I’m also working on an online comic with the INCREDIBLY talented artist Neil Struthers. This is a project I’ve been trying to get off the ground for a few years and I feel so incredibly fortunate that Neil has agreed to join in on the fun. Of course, any updates including the comic episodes themselves will be up here once we finish off a couple of them. Stay tuned. In the meantime, check out Neil’s Flickr.
Now here’s some things from other people…
- My friend, the very talented Miss Veronika von Volkova recently got together with the wonderful Katelan Foisy and they got up to some wonderful photography-based sexy fun.
- Big Sexy, the comic anthology I mentioned a while ago that explores the many facets of sexuality, is finally for sale and you can get it here. At$6 for 92 pages I would consider you a fool NOT to purchase it.
- MOON8 created the entire Dark Side Of The Moon album by Pink Floyd in 8bit. And they’re giving it to you for free.
- An Assortment of Underachieving AT-ATs by Tobias Lunchbreath:
- Mentor and photographer I adore, Lex Machina is having a special Print Sale on one of the photos she took of the League Of STEAM.
- I really can’t wait to see Micmacs, the new film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie and City Of Lost Children) Check out the trailer here.
- I REALLY REALLY want a print of this from talented Duchess Caroline Harrison (via her Flickr)
And that’s all for now. I’m off to bed for a well-deserved trip in to Dreamland.
It’s been a very busy week here both with my own stuff and other people’s. One photography gig, one filming gig, two backstage gigs, one trip-to-Memphis gig and one social media job are all up in the air and I’m wondering which ones will fall down and hit me right on the head. Pretty exciting stuff! On top of that I’ve been experimenting with HDR, figuring out Adobe Lightroom (On advice from my good friend and INCREDIBLY talented photographer Lex Machina) and actually feeling like I can write some stories. Going to be flexing my scripting muscles next week in order to prepare for “Project: Not Telling Yet Ssh” with stunning artist (both in his art and his wit) Neil Struthers.
A thought hit me earlier in the week touching on the topic of what the future might hold for listening to portable music. I don’t mean anything like the iPod Touch, but the actual experience of listening to music. The short of it is a device that reads your brainwaves to determine what mood you are in and plays music that you designated to that particular mood before hand (somewhat like the iTunes star system). Make it colour coded, and when you’re angry your player turns red and plays angry music. Two additions are that the player could slowly integrate happy music in to the playlist when you are angry or sad and having the ability to stream other people’s playlist that corresponds with your mood. So if you’re happy you can listen to what other happy people are listening to. Tastes of course will differ, but it’s fascinating if you’ve ever wondered what music other people listen to when they’re in a similar mood as you.
Anyways, thinking on some more things. I’m off for now.
Back in what seems like ages ago I was asked to come down to the studio where the band Crush Luther were recording their latest album and do a short promo which presented some songs from said latest album and the band’s dynamic. It was a fun day and they were great guys. They gave me some footage they had shot themselves the previous day and I spent a day or two combining our footage to make this nifty little video. I was given a visual reference…I forget what it was at the moment, but it turned out well! unfortunately, this was only used for a very limited time because soon after I gave them the final product one of the members had left. But in the interest of my demo reel and for you all to have a glimpse of just what the hell I do when I talk about the odd bit of video work, here’s Crush Luther’s promo video.
It’ll be up soon, but here’s my article on AWMusic.ca
I should admit, I didn’t find the Sweet Hollywaiians. They found me. Anyone who uses twitter knows that sometimes you can say something like “my god I love raspberry jam” and about ten minutes later you’ll have a jam reviewer following you. It’s the way ads work there, I suppose. Anyways, I was talking about hula music in one of my “tweets” when all of a sudden these guys started following me. I went to their myspace page, learned about them and heard just the most…INCREDIBLE music. And thus began my love affair with the Osaka based Sweet Hollywaiians. What must have been a month or so later, I received a package with four of their albums including the latest, Ticklin’ The Strings (which I am listening to while writing this).
I love this group because they really seem to inherit the spirit of Hot String music and manage to sound authentic. They’re right on par with the original groups of the time such as Ray Noble and His Hawaiians or other revivalist groups like R. Crumb & The Cheap Suit Serenaders and The House Rent Serenaders. Listening to them is like being transported to a 1920s kitchen jam or a small club. They’re just amazing.
What’s more amazing, it seems, is that the Hollywaiians are from Osaka, Japan. A place that sounds so unlikely for this music to thrive enough to form a band as talented as the Hollywaiians. But I suppose that it is further proof that the power of music knows no borders, regardless of genre. The Hollywaiians have played with members of the Cheap Suit Serenaders Robert Armstrong and Tony Marcus. They have received praise from Robert Crumb himself as well as legendary filmmaker Terry Zwigoff who has said that they “have probably the best feel for this 20′s music of any string band working today”.
Here’s a small e-mail interview I did with Nobumasa Takada (aka Mario) of The Sweet Hollywaiians.
The most common reaction from people regarding the Sweet Hollywaiians is surprise that you come from Japan. How did your interest in this kind of music spring up?
In our young days,we were collecting Yazoo Records.Because we were interested in album jackets which were illustrated by Robert Crumb and Robert Armstrong.The music were based on 1920′s,30′s blues,jazz and hawaiian.
What appeals to you most about this type of music?
We can feel nostalgic and sound is comfortable and soft to the ear.
How big is Hot String music in Japan? Is there a community based around it?
Very small.There is a community but very small.Majority of people don’t know about this type of music.
I understand that you all were pursuing solo careers and through an accident you formed the band. What was the accident?
All of our member were at the intersection crossroad.We were all crossing from different directions to each other and all of us crushed at the center of the intersection.It sounds like fake story but It’s true story.
You guys have a European tour coming up, right? Will this be your first time in Europe?
Yes but I have been there so many times in my imagination,Ha!
How did it feel to get high praise from the likes of Robert Crumb and Terry Zwigoff?
We are very glad and so proud of ourself.Because we respect them so much and it’s our pleasure to accept such comments from them.
After the tour, what’s next for the Sweet Hollywaiians?
We’ll come see you.Can we?
And there you have it. A great band with a great sound just doing what they love. That’s the musical dream, right? Remember these guys. You’ll be hearing a lot more from them soon.
Here’s two tracks from their latest album and a video of them playing My Girl From The South Sea Isles.
The Sweet Hollywaiians – Ellis March
The Sweet Hollywaiians – Ten Tiny Toes
Have you been to Weaponizer yet? You should. It’s a great way to see some brilliant works by emerging and established writers and artists such as the brilliant Will Couper, the lovely Will Ellwood and the baby-kicking Andre Navarro. And the man who runs is it a friend of mine and I TRUST HIM with sites like this to make my eyeballs sweat and my mind need a bit of a lie down. This is some excellent stuff.
Here’s what they say it is:
We publish Flash Fiction, longer Fiction, and ongoing Serials.
We also publish a diverse range of Nonfiction, including interviews with artists, film-makers, writers and musicians, plus devastating opinion pieces from our Staff Writers. We host thrilling poetry and short films on our Video Channel, and anything else that we like. We also blog about whatever we’ve been wasting our time online with today.
Anyone can contribute to Weaponizer.
Subscribe to the WPNZR Feed for regular updates on new content.
So any writers, photographers, artists, whatever. Contribute to this. They’re always looking for someone! And most likely you’ll find a new favorite artist!
It’ll be up shortly, but what the hell, here’s my latest article up on AWMusic.ca
To me, making a tape is like writing a letter — there’s a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You’ve got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with “Got to Get You Off My Mind”, but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you’ve got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can’t have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can’t have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you’ve done the whole thing in pairs and…oh, there are loads of rules.
-Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
——
After a bit of a hiatus that involved family deaths, broken hearts and unemployed grief, I’m back to writing for this thing because damn it, I have things to SAY. Expect some stuff in the future consisting of horror indie bands, Japanese Hot String and maybe something steampunky. But for now I want to talk about the concept of “mix tape”.
I know that this subject has been brought up before, but let’s try to look at things a bit differently. Frankly I’m surprised that I’m still hearing gripes about this subject.
“The mix tape is dead.” is pretty much the main thing you hear at parties/concerts/any kind of social setting where the topic of music nowadays is brought up amongst anyone who enjoys music. The reasons for why it is dead are always brought up. I’ll spare the rant, but just say that the general view is that with cassettes you could put your HEART into it, man. You could make something completely personal, almost handcraft it, spending hours and hours picking the right songs and the right order and putting it on to the tape and then experiencing the sheer excitement of decorating the cover and tape yourself. Silver spray paint? Sure! Glitter? Damn right! And I would consider you inept if you didn’t draw a picture of a moose.
So the big view is that “you can’t do that nowadays” which let’s face it, is total bullshit. Some people have said that CDs lack that personal touch, but for every person that says that, there are at least two who listen to every single song before they put it anywhere near the tracklist, all the while keeping that person in mind. And for every person that just makes the same CD for their friends, there are two who make one and only one copy and delete the tracklist (while possibly keeping a playlist on their computer so they could think of the person they sent it to).
And anyway, who said that mix tapes have to be personal? One of the great things about music is that it brings people together and that can lead to some incredibly interesting projects with complete strangers found on the internet. Take The Post-Apocalyptic 8tracks Project I started up several months ago. Went on to a forum, created a thread stating a theme (in this case, anything post-apocalyptic), gave them the link to 8tracks along with the account name and password and let them loose. 19 post-apocalyptic mixes were created and we’ve accumulated up to 52 followers with countless people who don’t have accounts listening. A large number of random people putting together a mix based on one central theme can come up with some mind-blowing music that you’ve never heard before. You might want the song and can get it through the use of DownloadHelper (Which officially I should say you should never ever use because it is stealing). From there you can look the artist up and before you know it you might have a new favorite artist.
Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that The Mix Tape is far from dead. The cassette isn’t around anymore, but CDs and the internet are powerful tools and can contain limitless possiblities. If you want to make something personal for that special someone, the fact that you have to use a CD will in no way take away the personal feeling and the touching knowledge that someone cared enough to create a special mix with specifically them in mind just for them. And if you want to discover new music, by all means start or take part in a project similar to the one I mentioned above. Do it on a forum, with your friends, or whatever you want. Use 8tracks or just upload them all on to a free file hosting site. Hell, when it starts up again take part in m3p3, an amazing livejournal audio penpal community. I don’t really how you do it, just go out there and discover some amazing fucking music.
Now here’s some music that I have received in mixes from some random audio mix projects I’ve been a part of.
Or have a car and are willing to drive, why not go see this?
Performers Katelyn Clark and Xenia Pestova will play multiple toy pianos and portable percussion instruments, placed strategically throughout the cave’s winding passages. Canadian Music Centre Associate Composer Erik Ross will provide an electroacoustic soundscape, which will be played back by loudspeakers, creating an intricate sonic tapestry.
Sounds INCREDIBLY interesting. Totally wish I could go, but I live in crummy old Toronto, don’t own a car and can’t afford the bus drive. BUT IF I DID…
