Posted by
ben
at
03:35on Saturday, 24 December 2011
A beautiful new discovery care of Gorilla vs Bear blog.
Very lovely in a Cat Power meets Joanna Newsom manner. Been on pretty heavy repeat lately. Love that line "I heard that you like the bad girls/Honey, is that true?" Its delivery is simply perfect.
Posted by
ben
at
06:51on Sunday, 11 September 2011
Although i have many opinions about what happened on September 11th i don't wish to go into these online, this blog is for music, so music it is.
You may have heard of Stephen Vitiello, a sound artist familiar to any close follower of 12k, who released his wonderful collaboration, the Gorilla Variations, with Molly Berg. Back in 1999 Stephen was given a residency in an unoccupied office on the 91st floor of Tower One at the World Trade Center. With contact microphones fastened to the windows, he converted one of the world’s tallest buildings into the world’s largest microphone, the vertiginous glass curtain acting as a distended microphonic diaphragm. The resulting recordings depict a sound world beyond the reach of most human beings; even beyond the reach of most of humanity’s edifices. We hear wind and street traffic, the bellow of a ship in New York Harbor, and can even pick out an occasional voice from the streets a thousand feet below. Unsettlingly, there are several planes in the air, and the building itself creaks like an old wooden ship, straining against the torquing of its frame in the howling gales of Hurricane Floyd. Vitiello also employed photo-sensitive cells at the eye-end of a telescope to translate discreet light sources in the late-night New York skyline into eerie aural ghosts of the visual world.
The album is available to download care of The Radiant Now
"In this video for the Living Sisters' song "How Are You Doing?," disaster has never sounded so sweet. And disaster is everywhere, albeit in cutesy form, in Michel Gondry's vision of a day in the life of Eleni Mandell, Becky Stark and Inara George, the latter of whom, at the time of the video shoot, was four months' pregnant with twins.The lyrics may tell of an afternoon of ho-hummery, but Gondry, a punishing Frenchman, has other tests of fortitude in mind for these harmonizing ladies." Los Angeles Times
I guess how much you like this post will depend on just how seriously you take your music. I'll be the first to admit that I can't get enough of the soothing sounds of BvDub or the deeply mysterious sounds that i'm listening to right now of the Xela side project Twells & Christensen, however every now and again something light hearted is needed and light hearted is exactly what Yo Gabba Gabba is, after all it's an American kids show.
It's often said that they don't make kids programmes like they did when I was a lad, and I tend to agree they do come with a healthy dose of biasedness linked to other fond childhood memories and the complete freedom of being a child. Though I will still argue again against that last comment that i'm yet to see a recent series as good as either Willy Fog or Mysterious Cities of Gold.
I've not actually seen Yo Gabba Gabba but from the album, it seems that they do still make childrens TV gold.
Don't forget about this, Darren Hayman of Hefner fame is treating us to a song a day for the month of January.
Here's number one, pretty good stuff. There's also a calendar showing his movements throughout the month and who he's planning on collaborating with, should help pass this traditionally long month, plenty to look forward to.
My name is Darren Hayman. I'm going to write, record and release a song every day during January 2011. They won't all be good but some might be.The songs will be available as high quality MP3s for free for a day or two via SoundcloudThereafter the songs will be available to buy in MP3 and higher quality formats via BandcampHere is a calendar to help show what I am doing and when.I'm pretty full up for musicians and collaborators but that shouldn't stop you asking. I would particularly like to hear from film makers who might want to make videos etc. You can contact me here januarysongs2011@gmail.comOn this page I hope to post the songs, a daily blog, videos, drawings and photos. Wish me luck.
