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.
Category filter: Music
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.
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 »)
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 »)
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.
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 »)
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.
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.
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 »)
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 »)
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 »)
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 »)
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 »)
Make Believe
It makes me really happy to see the great work coming out of small shops in the middle of the country. One such studio is Omaha Nebraska’s own Make Believe. There is a nice textural feel to all their work. Awesome range as well, from identity and apparel design to music collateral and web stuff.
(via The Best Part »)
1-Bit Symphony
Tristan Perich is a visual artist and musician from New York has created a new piece entitled 1-Bit Symphony. Similar to it’s predecessor 1-Bit Music, the symphony lives on only one microchip and is played back using a very limited set of components.
“I wanted to respond to the symphonic form and think about how simple audio waveforms (1-bit tones) does not necessarily mean that the music itself must be simplistic. That it could be possible to create a long-form rich composition with 1-bit audio.” – Tristan Perich
(via minimalissimo »)
Jean Nouvel’s: Paris Philharmonic
This 1:10 scale model of Jean Nouvel’s Paris philharmonic, is breathtaking in it’s own right. I cannot wait to see the real philharmonic completed, now under construction in Parc de la Villette in Paris.
