Category filter: Music

Beat Making Lab

After hearing about the new series Beat Making Lab from PBS a few words are filling my head. Empowerment, activism, creativity, strength, community, music, and of course beats. The lab itself was initial started by DJ and producer Stephen Levitin(Apple Juice Kid) in collaboration with professor and hip hop artist Pierce Freelon. The premise of the program is Levitin and Freelon travel around the world and set up music studios and teach beat making. Over the course of their stay in a locale they both teach and collaborate with their students to create unique and amazing tracks.

The video below is episode 1 where they travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo and partnered with local organization Yole!Africa to engage its students in cultivating new music making skills.

(via The Fox Is Black »)

10 May 2013 . Inspiration . Music . Travel . No Comments

The Screaming Eagle of Soul

I encountered the self-anointed Screaming Eagle of Soul, Charles Bradley for the first time just last week on the NPR program World Cafe. Bradley first began experimenting musically as a child by impersonating the singing and exaggerated stage antics of James Brown. However he spent a large portion of his life working odd jobs and living in obscurity. In 1996 he moved back to NYC after many years, and began performing as a James Brown impersonator. During these years, performing under the stage name Black Velvet, Bradley was discovered by Gabriel Roth co-founder of Daptone Records. Since being signed to Daptone in 2002 Bradley has released a ton of singles and two full length albums. The influence of Brown is unmistakeable, but soul is very much alive and reinvigorated by Bradley.

29 April 2013 . Music . No Comments

The Big Up 2013

After a year off The Big Up music festival is back, and with an even more stacked line-up than ever before. This is a great little festival that was started by some of my oldest and best friends. The scale has grown quite a bit since it first started in 2010, but it is still all about good vibes and great music. The Big Up will take place the weekend of August 8th, 9th and 10th in Claverack, NY. Make sure to view the full 2013 lineup and get your tickets now.

3 April 2013 . Music . No Comments

Understanding Music

Understand Music from finally. on Vimeo.

Finally Studio as a self-initiated project created this wonderful animation, which utilizes ingenious and beautiful info-graphics to depict the components and import of music. Based in Mainz, Germany Finally is a group of multidisciplinary designers and film makers who create projects for a wide range of media most of which is moving image.

29 March 2013 . Design . Music . No Comments

HINTS

My friends Collin Lewis and Garrett Morin started a band this year called HINTS with Matthew Fisher and Wyeth Hansen. I am really digging the two tracks Ritual and Built a Church on their first release. Head over to their Bandcamp and listen to their two debut songs.

6 December 2012 . Music . No Comments

Mikael Eidenberg’s Synth App

There are a few music editing and related apps for tablets, mainly the iPad currently available that feature decent design. However, there is nothing that even comes close to this concept designed by Mikael Eidenberg. His designs feature a dark ultra realistic approach, which feels very in sync with what we expect from music electronics. I whole heartedly agree with Beamer’s statement on iso50, if this project hits Kickstarter I am sure it will be an instant success.

(via iso50 »)

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31 August 2012 . Apps . Design . Music . Tech . No Comments

The Wrecking Crew

The Wrecking Crew was the most influential band of the 20th century, that no one ever heard of. This documentary delves into the history of the group of session musicians in Los Angeles, California during the 1960′s. They laid down the music for many of the most defining rock and roll artists of that period including The Monkees, The Mamas and the Papas, The Carpenters, and many many more. The concept that a single group of studio musicians could be entirely responsible for changing the course of music history sounds impossible, but they did it.

(via NPR World Cafe »)

25 May 2012 . Inspiration . Music . No Comments

Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know

I post music relatively infrequently, however this song and music video by Belgian-Australian artist Gotye has me entranced right now. The tempo and vocals of the song are super catchy, and the way the song builds around the midpoint really gets me grooving. The track also features Kimbra a fellow Pacific Islander, originally from New Zealand she adds a much needed female component to the songs narrative.

24 February 2012 . Music . 2 Comments

Kraftwerk Retrospective

Kraftwerk, the German originators of electronic music are currently prepping for a retrospective exhibition at what could be viewed as a slightly interesting venue for the performers. This retrospective at Moma in New York City falls in line with some of their more outlandish activities over the past few years, such as the addition of the @ symbol into the permanent collection. Pushing the limits of art and what are can be in a museum setting obviously has maintained crucial position and has helped keep Moma current and interesting into the overly saturated waters of the internet age. There are 8 shows scheduled starting on April 10th through 17th. Tickets will go on sale February 25th. A truly once in a life time experience like this cannot be missed.

16 February 2012 . Heroes . Music . No Comments

La Mer de Pianos

Films like this by Tom Wrigglesworth and Mathieu Cuvelier really make me wish I had studied video in school, or at least had some inclination of how to structure narrative so perfectly. They have captured the story Marc Manceaux and his Fournitures Generales Pour le Piano, which is a junkyard, museum, and shrine to the magical music producing boxes. Marc seems a little stuck in a time warp, which is absolutely fine with him because he doing what he loves.

(via The Fox Is Black »)

14 December 2011 . Movies . Music . 1 Comment

Sonar

Renaud Hallée aka Possible Metrics created this amazing minimal, yet intricate video, which creates the music track through an animation cycle. I am starting to really love minimal visualizations and animations accompanying the music I listen to. The other example this reminds me of was the Visualizing Bach’s Cello Suite which posted a few weeks ago.

(via Bons Mots »)

6 December 2011 . Design . Info Graphics . Music . No Comments

Against the Grain

Stop motion has always been one of those things that I find to be so complex. In this case the execution is so utterly perfect. Created by Jonanthan Chong for the group Hudson. The narrative created using inanimate objects is so rad.

16 November 2011 . Design . Music . No Comments

Visualizing Bach’s Cello Suite

I love the amazing simplicity in this Visualizing the First Predlude From Bach’s Cello Suites by Alexander Chen. The even more overwhelming part is the project he created it for. Baroque.me is in some manner of speaking a web app. programmed entirely using an HTML5 Canvas, with Javascript an SoundManager. The visualization of music acts as a minimalist 2D composer.

(via The Fox Is Black »)

16 November 2011 . Apps . Music . Tech . Web . No Comments

Motiv Makes the Times

My friend Russ Maschmeyer, who many of you may know by the name Strange Native made the New York Times today in the personal tech section. The project they covered was one he created over the past year as a student in SVA’s Interaction Design MFA. Russ created an application called Motiv, which uses the Xbox Kinect hardware to track motion and allow users to create music out of ether. Russ would probably disagree and say people would be creating music out of his hard work and sweat. Congrats Russ!

You can check out the whole Times article here.

21 July 2011 . Apps . Design . Music . Tech . No Comments

Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest

Growing up hip-hop and rap had this innate link to skateboarding. De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest were two of the first people I started listening to. The beats and the groove just had something to them that you wanted to skate to. Through my work I actually have had the opportunity to meet and spend sometime with Q-Tip, which for me as a fan for more than half my life was truly inspiring. All that said tomorrow Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, a film by Michael Rapaport will be released in New York and Los Angeles.

7 July 2011 . Heroes . Music . Skateboarding . No Comments

Pendulum Sound Machine

At first I thought this was a rather excessive approach to creating a simple chime, but after the watching the video I was completely intrigued. The varied repetition is in itself beautiful and very remeniscent of how things occur in nature. This little invention was made by Kouichi Okamoto of Kyouei Design.

(via Spoon & Tomago »)

20 June 2011 . Design . Music . No Comments

Jim Houser Vinyl Record Packaging

Over the past couple years album art seems to have become even less common, as more music is offered solely in digital form. So when someone goes that extra step to press a run of vinyl the album art really needs to match that quality. In this case the album is by Jim Houser, an artist and musician and the beautiful packaging was done by Smyrski Creative. Using images from Houser along with some process shots of his art and daily life it gives a great insight into the background and depth of his expression. Usually I have create a picture of what someones state of mind was when creating a piece of art or music, but in this case the packaging design does a perfect job of telling us the truer story.

(via For Print Only »)

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10 June 2011 . Design . Music . Packaging . Print . No Comments

The Natural Speaker

Studio Joon Jung have attacked the problem of creating a speaker system from a far different angle and with far different goals from your typical speaker designer or engineer. The Natural Speaker creates a softer more natural sound using a wood, ceramic and porcelain construction for the casing and transmission components. This gives a certain resonance or echo that makes the sound quality softer and more natural feeling. I also really love the more organic qualities of the design, most speakers stick out in a home, and rarely do they match the lived in aesthetic of our other things.

(via The Fox Is Black »)

30 May 2011 . Design . Music . Tech . No Comments

Experiments Around the House with Lullatone

Lullatone, the awesome Japanese music group, made this great little video(“Experiments Around the House”) where they explored what kinds cool noises could be created using only things around the house. The art direction is very simple and playful, which really lends itself to the nature of the experiments and implements used to create the sounds.

(via grain edit »)

1 March 2011 . Color . Design . Music . No Comments

Reid Miles HI-FI Album Covers: By Bante

I am blown away by the shear level of awesomeness in this short film by Bante. The main goal was to animate the HI-FI album covers of Reid Miles, but between the direction and the techniques used for the motion and lighting design this film really elevates that simple goal to a higher art form.

(via Swiss Legacy »)

16 August 2010 . Design . Music . Typography . No Comments

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