Fleet FoxesFleet Foxes 2011 Pitchfork Music Fest

http://pitchfork.com/news/43253-pitchfork-music-festival-2011-video-portraits/ –  So i’m a year late, and several dollars short but thought i’d share this for posterity.

The cavalcade of hipster magic that adorns most summer festivals now comes in animated .gif form.  Okay so yeah, this is partly a post about how photographers Sanchez and Kitahara (http://www.higgsandboson.com/) have gone forth and made animated .gifs into something i’d love to hang in a digital poster frame above my bed (tis the future after all).  Plus, if  i’m going to have a seizure i’d rather have it induced by something cool n’pretty.

My kingdom for a press pass and a trusty SLR.

Cut Copy Cut Copy avec Balloons

Twin ShadowTwin Shadow

Allo allo! And thank you all for your continued support during those droughts we sometimes experience here at the Carbon/Nation/SplashFantastic HQ!

This was linked off my Twitter account the other day, and in the spirit of superiffic 3D music videos which melt our minds, I decided it was worth posting. Oh, and it’s a beautiful song, too.

Tah-tah for now!

Some of you may know I have a soft spot for music. These days however I’ve been quite nonplussed by the lack of quality in music videos. So when I saw this amalgamation of gorgeous 3D & sound I was quite struck. Struck by awe. Check it out for yourselves, and make sure to sit through at least a minute and a half of it. It gets better and better. Need more? Visit the Myspace(s).

There is some seriously weird (and wonderful) stuff going on in this one. Pedigree aside, Beck’s output as of late has been astounding. Definitely a top-notch player of this past couple decades.

But I suppose that’s what you do if your entire life is related to music. Ahhh, one can only dream…

Anyways, you get the gist. There’s a nice line-up of artists, with 2-5 songs per musician so prepare yourself for a night of intimate performance!

ps. The quality is 10x better on the site than on YouTube.

Here’s a few clips to bang off this Friday. First up, Moby’s absolute obsession with nerdy drum machines. Can’t help but be a lil’ bit envious of his setup. Next, a lighthearted tune from your favourite Fresh Prince character, and those ultra-pop Swedes. Enjoy!

I was in search of the photographer who did the incredible artwork on the sleeve of my Flying Lotus Los Angeles vinyl. Guess what? I found the source of said material and I can’t believe I haven’t discovered Timothy Saccenti until now.

Mr. Saccenti is New York based photographer and video director. His specialty is music… like good music… really good music. I was just going through a few of the shots on his website and he’s got quite the client list: Prefuse 73, Bloc Party, El-P, Sparklehorse, Peaches, TV on the Radio, DangerDoom, Fourtet… I could go on but it’s not the name dropping that’s so amazing, it’s that you can see why he gets those names. His imagery is so rich and imaginative yet still retains a simplicity that reinforces the subject.  Now let’s talk music videos. Well there’s a beautiful video for Chairlift – Bruises (yes the iPod song), and the outstanding video for Battles – Atlas.  Enough already. Checkout his reel! More pics & video after le jump.

If you’re in the market for this man’s services you can visit his site.  For music videos, he is represented by Partizan (who looks very interesting in and of themselves). For photography, visit the fine folks at Stem Agency.

WOOD, by mcbess

I can’t get my head around the work coming from the mcbess machine (Matthieu Bessudo and friends ie. Simon).  It’s not just incredible illustrations or incredible music, it’s both wrapped in a 3D tortilla shell and smothered in a dark and moody chipotle sauce.  “wood” is a music video for Matthieu’s band the Dead Pirates and produced by the Mill, (the Mill has worked with the likes of Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry to name a few).

Let us know what ya think!

What happens when you combine 1 building, 40,000 LEDs, a couple of electronica tunes, and 4 programmers/composers? An entire building can come to life, and dance to the rhythm while accenting the melodies. Front and foreground, standing in the limelight is the Ars Electronica museum in Linz, Austria. The project was developed using a mix of Ableton Live, Max/MSP, PureData, and OSC. Thankfully, the members involved had the foresight to record the performance, and the museum can replay the audio w/ the visuals at any time. (audio starts around 20 seconds)

Source: Create Digital Motion

Mercury Rev is one of those bands who seem to fall just under the mainstream radar, yet maintain a wide variety of tunes for hepcats to enjoy.  In my humble opinion they are one of the groups that really kick started the whole indie trend of the 2000’s.

Menomena’s Under An Hour is one of the lesser heard collections from the trio. This gem took me a while to indulge & absorb, as it was written as an accompanying piece for a Portland dance company. Now, it finds itself on high rotation for when I want to shut my mind off and glaze to some nice instrumental’ism.

Mercury Rev – Opus 40 – Album: Deserter’s Songs { Released 1998 }

Menomena – Water – Album: Under An Hour (Music for Modern Dance) { Released 2005 }

There’s some classic Rev videos after the jump!

I’ve been absolutely hooked on this Battles album for the past couple months. Originally, I was giving LittleBigPlanet (the latest hot platformer for PS3) a shot and encountered a Battles tune mid-game. I had previously written Battles off as just-another-indie-rock-band (JAIRB), but was awestruck by the technical nature of their (primarily instrumental) compositions.

Battles – Ddiamondd

Battles – Race: Out

Could this be a call for all game developers to contract more deserving musicians and add flavour to the game industry?

Check out their videos for Atlas and Tonto.

Battles – Tonto

Battles – Atlas

mcbess The art of Matthieu Bessudo

Here be an extravaganzalopagos of media from the mind of Matthieu Bessudo @ mcbess.com.  I’ve admired Matt’s illustrative style for sometime now, and in the vein of ISO50 I caught on to the notion that supplementing your talent with more talent is the way to go!… as you can see in the following show reel after the jump.

If video killed your radio star, head to mcbess radio for resuscitation.

And the frosting on the cake that never gets stale: blog.mcbess.com

This past Wednesday in Montréal I saw the advent of “In The Wake Of Hinamaturi”, a Japanese night at La Sala Rossa social club. I arrived just in time to catch Dynamo Coléoptera which was the first MTL band I fell in love with since moving here.

Between two musicians and a dancer, these sexy machines can put on quite the spectacle. They’ll entertain your minds in both the visual and audial spectrums using a large array of props, instruments, gadgets, magic tricks, languages, synchronized movement, and waves of emotion you can’t put in words.

The entire event seemed to have all the charms of a carnival show, rather than squished between two sole musical acts. Experiencing them is best served live, as throwing down $10, $20, even $30 is a small price to pay in comparison to how rich it was. There are just some things that cannot be translated  properly in recorded format. How can you go wrong with a band whose named loosely translates to “Dynamo Beetle”?

Photo Cred: Ulysse L. B.

It seems like Israel is a hot spot for great media lately. Recently I came across Kutiman’s remixes of all those funky boys and girls on YouTube, who spend countless hours recording themselves with their favourite musical gadgets and tools. The site is surprisingly kickass, too. Who knew mocking up YouTube videos in a “mock”  YouTube site would turn me on so much?

Check out the whole thing.

Source: Ze Frank and his tweet for this here masterpiece. Go Go Twitter Propagation!

Here’s one of my favourite pieces to come out of the early 2000’s. Nicola Conte’s Jet Sounds, brought to life for a filmography workshop. Also worth checking out is Conte’s 2004 album Other Directions, which features some smooth relax tracks with various vocalists. I’ve yet to check it out, but word has it he’s released a new album just recently, will keep you posted!