So excited to finally be able to see this, I’ve been privy to some of the workings of this for the past year now (my wife works for them) and it opens this week in London at the National Maritime Museum. Part of a major new exhibition, although this will be a permanent installation, content-heavy video mapping based around the moon’s relationship to the sea, this is just a tiny part of it.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”360″]http://vimeo.com/26328656[/vimeo]
I’m currently enjoying People Like Us’ (aka Vicki Bennett) new album ‘Welcome Abroad’, it’s a frequently hilarious mixture of cut and pastry based around her time stuck abroad due to the recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland. You can listen to the whole album on her Soundcloud page or buy it here. She also has her first solo exhibition, ‘The Doors of Perspection’, opening at the end of July in London at the Vitrine Gallery, previewing new films she has made by extending panning shots from existing films into widescreen format (if i’ve understood the press release correctly).
Also a few months back I received a lovely box set from the Edinburgh Printmakers‘ ‘Prints of Darkness’ exhibition, which includes a gatefold sleeve housing a poster and 12″ picture disc by Vicki entitled ‘This Is Light Music’. This 10 track mini album heavily cross references some of the music on ‘Welcome Abroad’ too and can still be bought here although it is limited to 250 copies.
PS: I actually think this is even more wonderful than ‘Welcome Abroad’, I’ll never be able to hear certain well known classics the same way again.
I was very excited to learn that Remi and Augustine were going to be painting a wall together in London whilst Kofie was in the UK taking part in a couple of exhibitions. Little did I realise that they would be painting a local pub on the high street of the neighborhood where I (and Remi) live. Said pub is the Bishop on Lordship Lane in East Dulwich, South East London and they spent two days in very changeable weather transforming the side of the building much to the surprise of the locals who don’t have anything like this round here. The first three images are by Timid, via Remi’s blog.
Here’s a selection of pictures I took this afternoon and there should be a timelapse film at some point in the future. Kofie is off back to the US tomorrow and Remi has a new mini book out of Selected Paintings as well as an EP of new tracks, available here.
Finally Augustine Kofie will be making it to the UK and showing work in two shows, one in Glasgow, one in London. First off he is part of ‘Rudimentary Perfection’ with work by: SheOne / Duncan Jago / Jaybo Monk / Matt W. Moore / Poesia / Nawer / Derm / Morten Andersen / Mark Lyken. It’s at the Recoat Gallery 323 North Woodside Road, G20 6ND, Glasgow and opens July 1st.
The second is Scream presents West End Rebellion, a group show featuring urban and contemporary artists including;
Faile, Retna, Banksy, Futura, Swoon, KAWS, Giles Walker, Aroe, Antony Micallef, Adam Neate, Os Gemeos, Herakut, Chaz Bojorquez and Shepard Fairey. At the Scream Gallery, 34 Bruton Street, London WIJ 6QX, UK and it also opens July 1st and runs for a month.
More info on both HERE
Looks amazing, more info here
So wish I could go and see this, looks incredible. I was lucky enough to shake the man’s hand one time at Ninja Tune HQ when he was in town with New Flesh.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”370″]http://vimeo.com/24481589[/vimeo]
[youtube width=”640″ height=”385″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0GRxu0oIEA&feature=player_embedded#at=22[/youtube]
I went to the opening of Amon Tobin and Tessa Farma‘s exhibition last night, showing original sculptures from the ‘ISAM’ album artwork at the Crypt Gallery in St. Pancras, London. It’s on between the 26th May and the 5th June 2011 and is free, before being taken to Paris (Galery Art Roch) between the 13th and 23rd June. Dates are also being confirmed for Brussels, Berlin, and North America later in the year.
Also very much looking forward to seeing Amon’s live set when it comes to town, it debuts at Mutek next week.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”385″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umf0C0WCsr8&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
My good friend Riz Maslen aka Neotropic has a new sound piece installed at Kew Gardens in London called ‘The Alpine Path’. It’s on from May 14th to Sept 25th at The Davies Alpine House, more info here
Check the ball section near the end – amazing
[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0fjUgopSdw&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
Lots of my friends seem to be turning 40 this year, this is for them, illustrated by Richard Williams from ‘The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin‘.
My good friend David Vallade did this for our very own local record store – Rat Records in Camberwell. Even though they are a used store they’re celebrating too and I’ll be playing up at the Lock Lounge in Camden Saturday night too.
In June I’ll be mixing the next installment of the 64 Bar Music challenge, first instigated by members of the Ninja Tune forum. A quick crash course in 64 Bar Music: the concept is simple, a tempo is decided upon for each new challenge and you write a piece of music, in any style, no longer than 64 bars. The poll to decide the bpm for 64:6 (there have been five so far) has just been set at 110 bpm.
Anyone can join in and the best of the entries will be turned into a mix by yours truly, debuting in July. If you fancy a bit of that then hop along to 64BarMusic and check out the details, deadline is June 1st. It’s an excellent way to get your production heard in amongst producers both released and unreleased. People like Dr. Rubberfunk, Proof of Concept, Remdog, Tom Central, dtnl, AGT Rave Cru and DJ Moneyshot have already contributed and there are many excellent unknowns who have taken part in the past.
News filtered out recently that The Beach Boys‘ (or just Brian Wilson if you’re being picky) original ‘Smile’ album sessions are going to get the deluxe box set treatment. If you don’t know what ‘Smile’ was / is then here’s a good place to start: Smile wiki.
A beautiful record that I’ve been fascinated with for over ten years now and never thought I’d hear finished. I was lucky enough to see it performed live by Brian Wilson and his band for the first time in 2004 – absolutely one of the best concert experiences I’ve ever had.
An interesting article with the engineer on the project, Mark Linett, is here which certainly promises the goods later this year. If your interest is not satisfied by the wiki then Dominic Priore‘s ‘Look, Listen, Vibrate, Smile’ book is excellent.
[flv width=”312″ height=”255″]http://www.djfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/GAL-BANDEANNONCE.flv[/flv] [flv width=”312″ height=”255″]http://www.djfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/MO-DESSLIVE-STELETATAN-1-MUSIQUE.flv[/flv]
The Moebius exhibition in Paris ends this weekend at the Foundation Cartier. I sadly didn’t make it back there but hope it will come to the UK some day. Here are a selection of the films featured on the exhibition site.
[flv width=”312″ height=”255″]http://www.djfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/E-CARD-2011.flv[/flv] [flv width=”312″ height=”255″]http://www.djfood.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/MO-DESSLIVE-MAJOR-5.flv[/flv]
New Jersey-based radio station WFMU is completely run by donations, each year they have a week long Marathon to raise money to keep the station operational. Their approach to music and breadth of programming is one of the best in the world. As they are paid for by the listeners they are not accountable to advertisers and the usual daytime radio playlists so many stations are. You can make a pledge and pick up some decent items in the process, I just got this Tim Biskup T-shirt for my troubles but over $75 gets you a handmade ‘DJ Premium‘, an artifact made specially for the marathon, usually a mix compilation of rareties or oddites.
Their Beware of the Blog pages are also crammed with so many audio treats it’s ridiculous. If you don’t know the station then now’s a good time to dive in, I mean, these guys let people like Steinski and Noah Uman have shows!
The opening of ‘Subduction Zones’ at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ is on Thursday 17th March from 17:00 – 19:00 www.Deltainc.nl
The opening will also be the warm up to the World Minimal Music Festival. Viral radio, Future Vintage, Subbacultcha and 22 tracks will take care of the music.
Some pictures from the show over at the Graffuturism blog
A couple of friends of mine, Remi/Rough and Augustine Kofie, are involved in a huge mural and gallery show in Vancouver right now, alongside artists Jerry ‘Joker’ Inscoe and Scott Sueme. They’ve just spent the past week painting two huge murals on the Moda Hotel and their four man show opened at the weekend at Becker Galleries for the rest of March.
Here are a few examples of work from the show (sorry but I’m a big Kofie fan).
Photos from the mural painting here, Remi’s photos of the gallery show here, official show website here (where they used a piece of a Kofie piece I own to illustrate him).
I saw about 90 minutes of this last night at the Hayward Gallery on the Southbank. They were screening the entire 24 hour film for free but for one day only so, by the time you read this, it will be over I’m afraid. Marclay’s piece is made from hundreds of snippets of films with the constant being a clock, or time keeping device, present in each scene. The piece starts at 6pm and every clip corresponds to the actual time you are watching it which creates a vortex in which you are hyper aware of each passing minute.
It is hypnotic, fascinating and frequently funny, even though there is no plot, central character or conclusion in sight. The soundtrack creates amazing tension and release moments too, as you can imagine. If a clock is featured in a film it’s usually signaling someone waiting or something about to happen, a race against time or some sort of horror about to awaken. The approach to the hour becomes the equivalent of a major plot event and something that you’re willing to happen faster than it ever will. I saw the section before midnight and on the hour there was a large montage of clocks striking terror into the heart accompanied by suitably demonic music, all ended by a hilarious clip of a grandfather clock opening to reveal a zombie woman which was so perfectly timed the whole audience burst out laughing.
Most people won’t be able to sit through the whole thing and you don’t need to to ‘get’ it but there’s much more to the piece than the basic premise. Certain images become a recurring motif ; lighting candles or ringing phones for instance, and footage from several films repeatedly crops up giving it a certain continuity. I was surprised at how watchable it was, despite having no ending in sight. Waiting for a bus on Waterloo Bridge sometime after 1am, I looked across the river to the see the giant clock near Enbankment Station, as if starring in my own personal version of the film. Recommended viewing even if you can only catch a small portion of it.
I just went to see Norman Rockwell’s America at the East Dulwich Picture Gallery in London. Utterly stunning. It’s only on for another month and they have original paintings, studies and prints as well as over 350 framed covers of the Saturday Evening Post that he did. If you’ve been thinking of giving it a go, make the effort, you won’t see another collection like this in the UK again for a while I think. They even had the original of this April Fools painting below.
