It's been a while, but finally there's new music from Mt. Sims, the current incarnation of the act responsible for my favorite album of 2005.
Over the last three years, ringleader Matt Sims has moved from L.A. to Berlin, and picked up some new collaborators. A new EP, A Grave, came out last week (in digital and 12" vinyl formats); a new album is due this fall. Both releases are via NYC indie label Hungry Eye.
More on Mt. Sims soon. Meanwhile, here's a clip from a show in Budapest earlier this year, including a gritty, anthemic rendering of the amazing "No Yellow Lines" (starting at 2:27):
posted by Maximus |
4:23 pm EST |
2008.07.18 |
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A couple of weeks ago, my friend the stereoptical photographer and video artist Carlton Bright invited me to a small video screening. The featured presentation: Björk's new video for "Wanderlust." The clip was released in March, but this was only the fifth time it's actually been projected as intended before an audience: in glorious 3-D.
Stills from the video -- which looks like a chapter from Tibetan mythology as reimagined by Sid and Marty Krofft -- can be seen at Pitchfork. But you have to see it in three dimensions to get the full effect.
Wired has a version of "Wanderlust" presented in anaglyph, the old-fashioned 3-D process that uses red and blue images, viewed thru red and blue glasses. But this distorts the colors. The polarization process, which is what was used at the screening I attended, looks much better.
posted by Maximus |
1:05 pm EST |
2008.07.14 |
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The Leonard Street building was recently sold, and while the club’s lease runs through next July, Mr. Hoffman said it has no future in increasingly upscale TriBeCa.
It'll be interesting to see how this works out. Williamsburg itself is "increasingly upscale," so they're not really getting ahead of the gentrification curve. They're actually coming into the neighborhood after many artists and musicians have fled, displaced by condos for yuppies.
The new location is a few blocks west of the BQE on Metropolitan Avenue, right across the street from Black Betty.
posted by Maximus |
4:03 pm EST |
2008.07.12 |
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Check the insanely over-the-top video for Russian metal band ANJ's song "Mikael Gorbachov." It's 3.5 minutes of animated Constructivist posters, zombie Stalins, chesty maidens, and a giant warrior with a familiar birthmark on his forehead:
But I'm not sure what to think of the final scene, when the girls go into heat as American consumer crap falls from the sky.
Is it an example of how "New Russia" can take the most kitsch elements of Western culture and make them even trashier? Or is it really a sly critique of that tendency?
Exciting news: Missing Metropolis footage has been found:
The cinematic world was today celebrating the rediscovery of missing scenes from German director Fritz Lang's legendary silent film Metropolis - thought lost for 80 years, until they were found in the archive of a museum in Argentina. ...
The uncut version is said to solve the mystery as to why Maria, the workers' insurrectionist leader, is mistaken by a baying mob for her doppelganger, a female robot.
Schmale, a spy who is sent by the autocratic leader of the futuristic city, Joh Frederson, to pursue his son, Freder, plays a minor role in the cut version, but a significant supporting role in the original. "The role ... can finally be understood," Rother said.
A scene in which children are saved from the workers' underworld is also said to be "much more dramatic" - and more violent - than in the cut version.
- Sally Shapiro - "Time to Let Go" (Lindstrom Remix) - The sensations of a summer weekend walk thru Prospect Park: Enveloping heat and green. Distant drums on the breeze. A slow-building wave of bliss. Lindstrom's cosmic rework of this whispery disco track makes it even dreamier, as shards of funk guitar and synth shimmer like sunlight off a lake, and two alternating notes are enough to suspend time.
Here are 2 short and lo-fi (but fun) YouTube clips of Chromeo in performance, adding their talkbox magic to a couple of covers: Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" and 2Pac's "California Love".
posted by Maximus |
10:44 am EST |
2008.06.11 |
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________________
MADE YOU PRISONER INSIDE YOUR OWN FREQUENCY
»General
The Guardian's profile of Ladytron covers the band's record label woes, their international following, and the emotional essence that animates their icy sound:
The key to Ladytron, though, isn't technology, it's songs. Their topics suggest a yearning for a future sanctuary from the past, but they insist this isn't because they're "sci-fi" - it's more about their songs' human core.
Aroyo sings two tracks in her native Bulgarian on Velocifero, and calls Ladytron's new album folk music. "We're just writing about what we know, and it happens that we're surrounded by technology. Certain technological objects didn't exist 60 years ago as they do now, so all we're doing is building them into our songs." She smiles. "So to me, our songs are like fairytales."
Tickets for Ladytron's June 25 show at Terminal 5 in NYC are still available here.
posted by Maximus |
4:35 pm EST |
2008.06.04 |
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I thought the uptick in good Mexican food in NYC was due to illegal immigration. But Idle Words offers a more entertaining story:
Who can imagine New York City without the Mission burrito? Like the Yankees, the Brooklyn Bridge or the bagel, the oversize burritos have become a New York institution. And yet it wasn’t long ago that it was impossible to find a good burrito of any kind in the city.
As the 30th anniversary of the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel approaches, it’s worth taking a look at the remarkable sequence of events that takes place between the time we click “deliver” on the burrito.nyc.us.gov website and the moment that our hot El Farolito burrito arrives in the lunchroom with its satisfying pneumatic hiss. ...
Taqueria owners have tried hard to cope with the additional demand, but even they admit that it can get hectic. “The New York metro area has fifteen million people,” explains Javier Corrientes, manager of Cancun Burrito on Valencia Street. “San Francisco is barely a tenth of that size. You got all those people out drinking on a Friday night who want a burrito at ten o’clock, just when the dinner rush is starting here, there’s no way we can keep up.”
posted by Maximus |
10:04 am EST |
2008.05.23 |
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The WFMU blog has unearthed a great circa-1982 clip from a dance party program called The Scene, which aired for many years on a local TV station in Detroit:
I like the retro styles and moves of the kids -- mostly black, Jheri-curled, and dressed to kill (but don't miss the swivel-hipped Napoleon Dynamite lookalike at 3:00). But I really dig the music they're getting down to.
"Sharevari" is a classic: arguably the first Detroit techno record, and a key part of the transatlantic exchange that created modern electronic dance music. In it, you can hear the Kraftwerk and Moroder that the producers had clearly been steeping in.
But you can also hear the many Italo-disco records to come that would cop its Eurotrash-in-deep-space vibe. (For a long time, the singer's cheesy fake accent and broken English had me fooled into thinking this was an actual Italo track.)
And you can recognize the blueprint of almost three decades of hard, dark, late-night floor-fillers that have followed since.
Initial impressions: Solid, familiar. Their trendy French producer didn't take them in any shockingly new directions. I do hear some interesting gated drum sounds -- along the same lines as what Portishead's been playing around with lately.
posted by Maximus |
3:18 pm EST |
2008.05.09 |
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________________
WIR FAHREN FAHREN FAHREN AUF DER AUTOBAHN
»General
The Eclectric Company, Shakey and Moldover present:
WARPER + SPLICE = OVERLOAD!!!
THURSDAY APRIL 24th
at THE TANK NYC
2 floors of biomorphic musicians, eclectic electronics, & multimedia meltdown
Splice celebrates 2 years of bringing live and eclectic electronic music to NYC -- by joining forces with the Warper crew, for one amazing night of audiovisual excess!
PLUS: DJ Maxx Klaxon spins new and classic electronic sounds all night!
7pm - 1am
$10 at the door
$7 with RSVP (contact splice.nyc@gmail.com by 4pm Thursday)
$5 with Bent Festival hand stamp
ALL AGES!
21+ to drink
The Tank at Collective: Unconscious
279 Church St. btw. Franklin & White
A, C, E, J, M, Z, N, Q, R, W, Z, or 6 to Canal Street
1 to Franklin St.
212.563.6269
www.thetanknyc.org
posted by Maximus |
11:38 pm EST |
2008.04.21 |
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After last night's Democratic debate -- which opened with almost an hour of asinine questions about flag pins, the word "bitter", Reverend Wright, etc. -- Obama explained this morning how he deals with the haters:
Here's a screening I've put together in conjunction with the Monkeytown guys. Sorry for the short notice...
Monkey Town presents:
Silent Films + Unique Instruments Festival Battleship Potemkin and Metropolis
7:30 PM: BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN
Sergei Eisenstein's BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN (1925, 73 mins.) is a dramatized account of a mutiny by oppressed sailors on board a Russian warship. Its bold visual compositions and provocative storytelling made it an instant classic; eight decades later, it still stands as a powerful propaganda piece and a stunning work of avant-garde filmmaking. This screening features the electronic/orchestral score composed in 2005 by the Pet Shop Boys, and recorded by them with the Dresden Sinfoniker Orchestra.
10:00 PM: METROPOLIS
Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS (1927/1984, 80 mins.) blended Art Deco futurism, shameless melodrama, class struggle, and a sexy robot into a science fiction masterpiece. Much footage from the 210-minute original has been lost forever; this restored and "enhanced" (with color tinting) version was released by electro-disco producer Giorgio Moroder in the mid-'80s. Moroder also produced the soundtrack, which features Pat Benatar, Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler, Jon Anderson, and other New Wave-era rockers. A heady mixture of cinematic art and pop kitsch.
Sunday, April 13
Admission: Free ($10 drink/food minimum)
Showtimes: 7:30 and 10pm
Reservations are recommended (718.384.1369)
Monkeytown
58 N 3rd St
(btw. Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn Map
posted by Maximus |
2:15 pm EST |
2008.04.13 |
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Simian Mobile Disco gives a video tour of their stage setup:
Lots of cool gear, arranged on a circular table which they move around while performing. Money quote: "The whole idea, really, was that we'd try and create a kind of TARDIS type thing for us to mess around in..."
[The director] told them, “I’m not laughing at you, this isn’t going to be a piss-take joke video.” We talked with [him] and said, you know, “We trust you, ...you go, do it.” At first the people in the village weren’t happy with him filming because they had heard about “Borat.” Eventually through interpreters he explained himself that what he wanted to do was respectful.
posted by Maximus |
12:40 pm EST |
2008.04.08 |
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The Sharper Image catalog listing makes it clear that this is not a real musical instrument:
With the beamz, there should be no performance anxiety at all because — whichever beam you break, in whatever sequence — your music is guaranteed to be harmonious. All discordant chords and sour notes have been programmed out so everyone plays great.
Basically, the software chooses the notes and sounds, with the user merely controlling (to some degree) the timing.
Unfortunately, the video gives the impression that all the music this thing comes preprogrammed with is utter shite. And the people "playing" it look like big dorks.
Perhaps there's a way to adapt/abuse/hack this device into producing some interesting sounds (does it output MIDI signals?)... but for $600, I'd rather buy some real music gear instead.
posted by Maximus |
5:54 am EST |
2008.04.05 |
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