Some very beautiful CD packaging was recently sent to me from the RX:TX label in Ljubijana, Slovenia. It’s a tri-panel CD pack with die-cut windows that show through various layers of card to reveal parts of the CD disc inside as the only colour.
The CD disc is designed so that it can be viewed either regular or upside down and the titles still readable. Depending on which way up you have the disc it changes the colours viewed through the windows on the other panels.
The amazing Augustine Kofie returns to the White Walls gallery in San Francisco next month for a new solo exhibition called ‘Circulatory System’.
I was lucky enough to see his previous exhibition there last year and he has posted two pieces from the forthcoming show here.
Also Kofie makes music as 4×4 Tracktor and he posted a soundtrack to the show
Match made in heaven, looking forward to this.
Lovely poster for the forthcoming Videocrash AV gig at the Rhythm Factory in London on Nov 11th, featuring DJ Cheeba plus Tom Central & Cosmo Lopez. Tom also designed this poster and there might be copies for sale on the night.
More gorgeous work from Simon Bent at Volume2a. “Science Vs Delerium is a series of illustrations celebrating some of the greatest scientists in history. The series was created to re-popularise these iconic figures.”
CD on body for the Japanese release of ‘The Search Engine’ with two bonus tracks – ‘Beast of Prey’ and a new version of ‘All Covered In Darkness Pt.2’
by Dr FaustusAU via Live For Films
Lovely book on the design of Sainsbury’s Own Label packaging from the 60s and 70s, curated by Jonny Trunk and designed & published by Fuel. Available now through the Fuel shop and coming to a bookstore near you soon.
[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU4KnzY7Db4&feature=share[/youtube]
[youtube width=”640″ height=”375″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCwfX9mkXSA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
incredible, beautiful, bravo!
The new EP – ‘Magpies, Maps & Moons’ – is up for pre-order on 12″ vinyl or download at the Ninja shop. The 5-track vinyl comes with a full colour inner sleeve, A2 poster cover and plastic sleeve, all for £5. It’s out in exactly a month but vinyl is limited so this is a heads up way ahead of time.
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from the diary of David Vallade
Amazing work from the tumblr of Volume 2a aka Australia designer Simon Bent.
Remember this a few weeks back? Well, they are available to order now if you send a ten pound note in an envelope to:
Matty Skylab c/o The Bootstrap Company, The Print House, 18 Ashwin Street, London, E8 3DL.
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They are also asking people to include with their order anything related to The Night Sky – Space, Planets, UFO’s, Space travel etc for a mail art project.
Loving the new Martyn album on Brainfeeder, you can listen to a stream of it on their site.
The cover art by Erosie from his ‘Horror vacui’ series’ is exceptional as well.
I think we’ll be seeing more and more of these, this one is Star Wars meets Full Metal Jacket.
Today sees the release of DJ Shadow‘s new album, ‘The Less You Know, The Better’, in case you hadn’t seen all the press and publicity recently. He’s taken a fair bit of knocking these last few years, since ‘The Outsider’ rode into town and divided opinion, with the majority, unfortunately, not in its favour. It had its moments, others were tucked away on B-sides and extras on special editions too, but the mix of Hyphy Hip Hop and indie rock with too few of his usual beat workouts led to a very uneven record that would have worked better as a series of themed EPs in my opinion.
It’s a favourite pastime to build ’em up and knock ’em down in this country, and being a Shadow fan was almost a dirty word for a bit. His involvement in the DJ Hero game probably didn’t help that situation but the appearance of limited handmade records, a series of archive tape compilations via his site and then the Shadowsphere has helped rebuild his profile ready for the new release.
The new record has some great material on it and is a return to form whilst still taking steps outside his comfort zone. ‘Border Crossing’ and ‘I Gotta Rokk’ are as strong as any of his more guitar-led material like ‘The Number Song’ and ‘High Noon’ and ‘I’ve Been Trying’ is an update on tracks like ‘6 Day War’ and ‘This Time’, using a sampled vocal entirely as the voice of the song, a trick he seems to repeat a few times here. One of the highlights of the album is ‘Redeemed’, a female vocal-led number that, on first listen, didn’t do much for me but just gets inside your head. For those that love the Shadow of heavy breaks, spoken word and scratches, there’s plenty of that and we get possibly the first RnB pop ballad(!) in ‘Scale It Back’. The howling Beat poetry in ‘Give Me Back The Nights’ doesn’t quite work for me and, again mystifyingly, several bonus tracks are more worthy of album inclusion in ‘Come On Riding’ and ‘Let’s Get It’. I’d like to know how many get involved in compiling the running order for his records these days as album sequencing is an art in itself.
It’s a shame the UK media has wanted to focus on ‘Endtroducing’ so much in the press surrounding the new album rather than let it stand on its own merits but it has produced a couple of very worthwhile radio shows which you can hear below courtesy of the ever faithful Joost over at Solesides.com. Coupled with his live show, which I saw a few weeks ago, and the self-depreciating artwork by Tony Papesh, it’s a great return to form.
DJ Shadow – THE MUSIC THAT INSPIRED… by Solesides on Mixcloud
I’m always messing around with photography apps on my phone, whether on boring car, train or plane journeys or just capturing artwork I see on my travels. Here’s the best of last months snaps in the order they were taken. Top to bottom, left to right: Kid Koala at Music To Draw To – London, Eurostar window shot, Judge Dredd – Shoreditch, Cept – Village Underground – London, Zombies vs Robots vs Amazons x 2 – Hoxton flyover – London, The Shard – London Bridge, on the way to Gatwick, aircraft window – Gatwick, street scene – Montpelier, spiral staircase – Rockstore backstage – Montpelier, Off World T-shirt – mine, train interior double exposure – Luton, tower block – Elephant & Castle, London.
