Friday 21 May 2010

Turn Electronic Music into Art

and this is what you could end up with




Artist Richard Colman definitely knows how to make you feel sad if you were colour-blind. Taking neon colours and contrast shades to the extreme, the mass scale of Colman's work can make your head spin after staring at the paintings for a few moments, or causing some visual impairment when you start to wonder if you could see red out of blue. But behind all these obsessive patterns and geometries, Colman depicts day-glo orgies, headless men, silhouettes, piles of internal organs, often sinister and comical at the same time.
If there is any music being played in the gallery, I've been told there is, surely they should spin something like Hudson Mohawke or the Bloody Beetroots to match Colman's colour violence and brilliance.


 Colman's solo exhibition Keep Out The Light  is open on the 22nd of May at New Image Gallery in LA. Full post...

Bands highlighted: Bears on Parade

Panda Bear at the Bowery Ballroom, New York, 2007


Ten plus fingers are required nowadays to count bands with names that involve animals. Take bear as an example, Grizzly Bear, Gold Panda, Panda Bear, Polar Bear, Bear in Heaven, Bear vs. Shark. It's a good job that we have so many different bear species. Unlike The Antlers, who only have Crystal Antlers to screw around with them.

Some bear news

Gold Panda
Self-named Darwin Panda at one stage, Gold Panda went from Peckham to Essex and then to Japan, a big fan of German electronic who takes on the role of a mixer/producer regularly. The latest EP You is no doubt a healthy continuation from  Quitters Raga his first hit last year.


YOU EP by Gold Panda


Panda Bear
This New Yorker is definitely not Gold Panda's twin brother, before you confuse the two like I did a few months back. Think of Animal Collective not Four Tet. Panda Bear AKA Noah Lennox's latest single from his 2010 album Tomboy would be released on the 13th of July this year by Paw Tracks


Polar Bear


This group is relatively unknown in the indie circle due to its cross-territory into Jazz and beyond. Their fourth album (yes, they have been around for six odd years) Peepers (Leaf Records) came out in March and no, it's not something that only 40-50 year-old upper-class golf enthusiasts would listen to. Quite on the contrary, these "dream-jazz" post rockers take a very liberal approach to Jazz in which Saxophones play in and out among cello and electronic drones, with a few squeaks and squawks..



Polar Bear - A Morning Will Come
Enhanced by Zemanta
Full post...

Saturday 15 May 2010

Anais Mitchell's Hadestown

                                                   My fondness of Anais Mitchell’s new album Hadestown could possibly match many loyal Joanna Newsom followers’ enthusiasm for her third album that came out out earlier this year. Taking the tragic Greek myth of Orpheus’s journey to the underworld to bring back his beloved Eurydice, Mitchell reset the scene in the post-depression era America and encompasses Jazz, Blues and Gospel as well as folk, classical music elements to construct this stage-like performance. 


One of the many highlights of this epic “folk opera” is Greg Brown’s voice as Hades. Eerie, weathered but hefty, particularly in Why We Build the Wall, Brown makes a perfect King of the underworld. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon,  who contributed and played the part of Orpheus beautifully as the story progresses from Wedding Song to Doubts Come In.

If The Knife’s latest collaboration was in soul a tribute to Darwin and evolution, then Anais Mitchell’s effort was in flesh and bones to rebuild the living underworld we are in today




Anaïs Mitchell ft. Justin Vernon - Wait for Me by stndrdeviations
Enhanced by Zemanta
Full post...

Monday 10 May 2010

The Dark Force Returns: Star Wars in Contemporary Art




The dark force is incredibly strong this spring. Following the hype around Agan harahap’s photoshopped political photos featuring Darth Vader and famous comic book heroes, more interesting works surface in the recent months, such as paintings by the Jacksonville-based James Hance and a project with drawings and installations that put together Star Wars and Sadaam Hussein. American political artist Michael Rakowitz explores the links between American science fiction and military activities in Iraq on a grander scale including fictional story, drawings and a centre piece of installation. 


The Gentle Sith II

Young Stormtroopers In Love - Part II

Michael Rakowitz, The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one's own, 2009. Installation view at Lombard-Freid Projects, NY.

Michael Rakowitz, Victory Arch 2009, plastic toys, books, wood, foam, plaster 8'x18'5. Part of The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one's own, installation view at Tate Modern, exhibited between Jan 22 - May 3 2010

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
Full post...

Monday 3 May 2010

Nedry does not equal Nerd


There is nothing nerdy about Nedry’s music. Formed in summer 2008, this ‘post-dubstep’ (everything is ‘post’ nowadays) band brought out their debut album Condors in February 2010 which has gone largely unnoticed due to it’s ‘soft’ launch until Huw Stephens and 6Music started playing them.

They are recently touring with 65daysofstatic which should see them gathering followers and recognition fast and strongly. After their previous tours with Maps and Pivot, Nedry now certainly feel comfortable performing live and recreating everything on their MPCs and DAWs.

The band consists of Ayu Okakita, Matt Parker and Chris Amblin, whom all share a love for Jurassic Park, and the possibility of fusing electronic with analogue instruments. To me their excessive baseline, dubstep beats and glitch mixed with Ayu’s vocals is like Bjork being handled by a grime producer and the XX being plugged in with electronically charged balls. Unlike many critics who have named Apples and Pears as their favourite, I much prefer the NIN-inspired Scattering opening and the heavily dubbed and synth layered track A42.

Be sure to watch out for Nedry whom have been predicted to be ‘the first mainstream dubstep indie band’ by the Guardian.

Nedry - a42 by musicnerds Full post...