Throwback Thursday | On a Cloud

If you aren't grooving to this, your favourite condiment is probably mayonnaise.

▲OMG✞WTF

Man with a knife (part 2)

The marriage collection is silly and innocuous, or so it seems. A friend said they reminded her of Punch and Judy dolls and she’s right; he is playing puppeteer. But just as the mask collection carries poignant duality, these marriage frames are also hardly one dimensional.

Stezaker’s patience and precision first to find the two faces and then to seamlessly align lips, eyebrows, chins, hairlines is noteworthy. He has said that before he cuts into the portraits he feels like a surgeon. What a deft simile it is. Both use scalpels. Both alter. But while a surgeon aims at leaving no traces of incision, the scar is vital to the artist. It’s a sinister jarring and awkwardness which gives these their eerie shots such appeal.

Whether or not you find his work as intriguing as I do, don’t tell me you didn’t look twice.

Man with a knife (part 1)

I get his name muddled with French prez Sarkozy, but rather than marrying (ex) supermodels, John Stezaker prefers to slice and carve up their glamour shots and then transplant landscape postcards to represent their brains, eyes, and lungs.

He operates in various ways. His work is founded on the acute juxtaposition of man and woman, human and nature, place and nothingness.




The old mask collection is disturbing gruesome at first glance. It appears like the people posing for the camera have been shot in the face at point blank by Javier Bardem from No Country for Old Men. Yet the gaping holes where one expects to see brain matter and remnants of skull instead reveal cascading waterfalls from a fantasy lands, cool dark caves, and archaic bridges from the French countryside. Here, Stezaker’s ability to jolt emotion from horror to beauty is awesome.









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Weekend Tunes | Punks Jump Up

Here's a bit of original stuff by Punks Jump Up. I guess you can classify it as dance punk, or something. But what's the sense of putting things into a box?


I'm pretty sure these guys might be better known for their remixes. Who knows. Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.

The first bit is some remix of some fucked up guy from some fucked up Nordic country. His name is Kent. The original version of this song is stupid, and really it's a waste of bandwidth to post it. Here's what PJU had to say about it:


Miike Snow puts out some pretty proper tunes. And then there's a lot of b-rate remixes that have come out. Here's one that doesn't suck:

Mornin'

Throwback Thursday | Big Willie Style

New installment of posts. Retro, funky, soulful tracks. Stay tuned.

♫

Austra The Beat & The Pulse from The Glitoris on Vimeo.

Cut Copy | Zonoscope

A little late on "breaking" this one, but hey, better late than never, right?

The Aussie electropop group are back at it again with their newest release "Zonoscope". Great mix of melodic elements and some real catchy tunes (if you want a full description of their sound, go ask Pandora to do it for your).

Here's some of the tracks that I've been digging as of late:



How you like the Fleetwood Mac bass line?



That's it for now. I suggest you go check out this album. And if you haven't take a listen to their old stuff. Rare for these guys to put out a bad track.

Cheers.

Weekend Tunes | Digitalism

If you follow electronic music and you haven't heard of Digitalism you must be living under a rock. The German's have a long tradition of bringing out some of the best in Electronic music. Kraftwerk inspired producers around the world, and even made it's mark on Hip Hop. Today we see quite the stable of talented electro producers coming from the Fatherland. Few are better than Digitalism.

To be honest, some of the "hardest" electro tracks come out of your speakers sounding like utter noise. Digitalism manages to mix a fine blend of grit without losing the melodic elements which make their music so appealing to me. In a cluttered landscape of music, and do it yourself producers, it's refreshing to hear a group with a very unique and likable sound.

Here are two of their classic, and probably best known tracks they've released:





And after keeping us waiting for what seemed like forever, the two boys from Hamburg are finally back on the scene. Here is some of the latest stuff they've released:






Good stuff, and a proper way to get your weekend kicked off.

Anyone in the SF Area, be sure to check out The Twelves this Saturday @Mezzanine.

Thieves Like Us | Never Known Love

I wrote something sweet and intimate but I'm just too shy to share it.
Fortunately for you, Thieves Like Us are more than happy to share their sweet and intimate melodies which effortlessly stack sticky synth, upon rich guitar loops, upon the densest of baselines. They then ice it with harmonious musings of love, loss, drugs and feelings to create one truly decadent layer cake which gives anyone with any taste a real sweet tooth.

Don't even get me started on the music videos: clips from obscure foreign films made in the 1970s and 80s perfectly spliced and scratched so they sync with the beat. The videos have men with dodgy haircuts flying down staircases on motorcycles, teenagers engaging in foreplay, and drug induced suicidal tendencies.

I'm not sure what movie this is taken from but who doesn't enjoy watching a fine young woman hold up rings of fire while lions jump through them? Then a skeleton soon joins the fun- he must signify death....but he's holding a rose which definitely signifies love.

I think the contradiction and irony is insanely deep and poetic and I would try to explain my interpretation further but until you listen to more Thieves Like Us I really don't think you'll understand.

(A prize for whoever can inform me what film this clip is taken from )

Fred Falke: The Remix

We've seen the rise and fall of the mash-up, but for years, the remix has been a tried and tested medium, especially in the world of dance music. One of my favorite artists is a french bloke by the name of Fred Falke (although he does sound rather German). Some of his stuff is a bit off, but overall the guy pretty much turns anything he touches into audio gold.

Here's his brilliant take on the Whitest Boy Alive and their indie track "Golden Cage" (they're actually worth a listen themselves).



And here he takes Blackpool's finest export, Little Boots (who seems to be quite a big slag in her own right) and turns it into something a bit more upbeat.



*EDIT* Had to add this track. At first it struck me as a bit of a fruity house track, but I think I've come around to this one. U2 is kind of lame, but I can't argue with this one: