A bilingual blog by Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero dedicated to all things fun, like music, cinema, comedy and sci-fi. Contact: ruiz@tutanota.com - Un blog bilingüe de Carmelo Ruiz Marrero dedicado a todo lo que sea divertido, como música, cine, comedia y ciencia ficción. Contacto: ruiz@tutanota.com
Wanderers is a collaborative project between Neri Oxman (and the team at the Mediated Matter Group at MIT Media Lab), Christoph Bader & Dominik Kolb (Deskriptiv) to create four digitally grown and 3d printed wearables that could embed living matter. The teams have been working on a computational growth process which is capable of producing a wide variety of growing structures. Inspired by natural growth behaviour, the computational process creates shapes that adapt to their environment. Starting with a seed, the process simulates growth by continuously expanding and refining its shape. The wearables are designed to interact with a specific environment characteristic of their destination and generate sufficient quantities of biomass, water, air and light necessary for sustaining life: some photosynthesize converting daylight into energy, others bio-mineralize to strengthen and augment human bone, and some fluoresce to light the way in pitch darkness. http://www.creativeapplications.net/featured/10-most-memorable-projects-of-2014/
Merry Ellen Kirk is a poet. Perhaps “songwriter” is a more commonly used term, but it’s also too commonplace for Merry Ellen’s glittering narratives, songs that spring up wildly from her subconscious and bloom into vibrant, lilting melodies. Her sparkling piano refrains sweep and spill into fresh, sweet rivulets of notes; her lyrics weave bright, halcyon tales of dream sequences, the light and dark polarities of the human experience, and beauty in its many forms. “I write about light and dark a lot… good and evil, dreams and reality, the darker and lighter parts of the human soul,” she explains.
"I've always been a fan of reduction," Austrian artist Oliver Thomas Johnson said of his new album, Joined Ends. Ironically, the music he made his name on was rather maximalist, including classics of the post-dubstep explosion like 2009's When Planets Explode. Now at home on Ninja Tune, Johnson's latest record sees him stripping back his repertoire to a few analogue synths, an electric piano and his own vocals.
Johnson's adventurous RA podcast outlines the inspiration behind his recent self-reinvention. Heavy on his own songs but also featuring the likes of Dimlite, Letherette, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Oval, it looks unusual on paper but makes total sense in execution. Part of that comes down to extra effort: Johnson colours between the transitions with synths, turning the mix into a sort of hybridized live/DJ set. It's an intimate look into what makes him tick.
Jetty Rae (born January 13, 1987) is an unsignedindie folk singer/songwriter whose career began in Kona, Hawaii but now resides in Michigan. Notable appearances include Lilith Fair 2010, CMJ Music Festival,[1] and a number of CFA festivals including Agapefest,[2] Big Ticket,[3]and Fandana Festival.[4] Jetty Rae also sang the jingle on three nationally televised Truviatelevision commercials in 2011-2012.[5] She is known for "taking lyrics and adding a depth that few artists can.".[6] Jetty Rae's album "Drowning in Grain" peaked at #130 on the CMJ Top 200 Radio charts.[7]
Squeaky Lobster – Live “Sprout Session” (10.31.14)
Squeaky Lobster came to the dublab studio for a live set. His sounds kept our heads moving and our hearts pumping. This artist from Belgium is part of the Vlek roster, and one of the most progressive sounds being made these days.
Most paeans to New York club culture focus on bygone nightspots like the Paradise Garage, David Mancuso’s Loft, and the Mudd Club. But would-be archaeologists hardly need to dig so deep into the city’s asphalt to be reminded of what the city has lost as it has gentrified. Manhattan has become a playground for the superrich, Williamsburg has become Condoburg, and in Brooklyn alone, hallowed venues like Glasslands, 285 Kent, and Death By Audio have all recently been ousted.
Just a decade ago, it was still possible to dance to experimental techno in a basement bar on the Lower East Side, where the invitingly seedy feel of the place was accentuated by booths tucked inside repurposed wine casks—an extra layer of privacy inviting patrons to get up to who knows what kind of mischief. The room in question was subTonic, the basement extension of Tonic, a storied venue for improv and experimental music. While Tonic was the stomping ground for musicians like John Zorn, Marc Ribot, and Christian McBride, subTonic was home to The Bunker, a weekly party that hosted a wide array of underground electronic music—from Akufen to DJ /rupture. (A full list of artists who have played the party can be found on The Bunker’s website, and it’s really kind of a sight to behold. Full disclosure: I even played records there on occasion.)
Photo by Seze Devres
Tonic and subTonic closed in 2007, but The Bunker is still going; the party moved first to Galapagos (renamed Public Assembly when the space was sold) and now at a variety of venues, depending upon the bill, from the comparatively large-scale Output to upstart spaces like Bossa Nova Civic Club and Todd P’s Trans Pecos. And despite the conventional wisdom that this is a terrible time to be getting into the record business, they’ve even extended their operations to include a record label, sensibly named The Bunker New York. “Launching a label is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” says Bryan Kasenic, head of the label and a co-founder of the parties, “but 2014 was the year I finally had enough time and extra cash to do it properly. After many years of being surrounded by incredibly talented artists whose music wasn’t being released, it was time to start putting it out there.” When Kasenic talks about doing it “properly,” he’s not kidding: The Bunker New York has put out an impressive 10 records in its first year of operation, some of them from incredibly storied musicians, like Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom™), and Jonah Sharp (Spacetime Continuum) and David Moufang (Move D), reuniting as Reagenz, their long-running collaborative project. A goodly number of the label’s releases come from within The Bunker’s own New York community, as one might expect. “It was very important to me from the start to include a lot of New Yorkers in the label, focusing on unknown and somewhat forgotten artists,” says Kasenic. “There is so much great music coming out of New York right now, the techno scene specifically.” Although, he admits, “I wouldn’t say there is necessarily a specific sound that people are going for. I think, in general, people are more open now—it’s not as common as it used to be to find people who are super deeply into just one sound or genre. People want to push boundaries and do their own thing, which is fantastic!”
A world class, virtuoso percussionist, Trilok has attracted a world class set of collaborators over a long career; these started with John McLaughlin in whose trio, Trilok flourished as the featured soloist for 4 years, other jazz greats continued this path – Joe Zawinul, Jan Garbarek, Don Cherry, Bill Evans, Pharoah Sanders, Dave Holland were all attracted to Trilok’s burning sense of rhythm. Of course he is deeply rooted in the Indian tradition, so it is no surprise to see that collaborations also took place with the glitterati of Indian musical society – his mother, Shobha Gurtu, Zakir Hussain, L. Shankar, Shankar Mahadevan, Hariprasad Chaurasia, The Misra Brothers and Sultan Khan. World music has become an established genre in which Trilok has further “ploughed his own furrow” with his own group, to great effect, performing and recording with Salif Keita, Oumou Sangare, Angelique Kidjo, Neneh Cherry, Omara Portuondo, Tuvan throat singers, Huun Huur Tu, to such effect that . Rita Ray of BBC Radio described him as “a serial collaborator”.
UFO first aired in the UK and Canada in 1970 and in US syndication over the next two years. In all, 26 episodes, including the pilot, were filmed over the course of more than a year, with a five-month production break caused by the closure of the MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, where the show was initially made.
Zakir Hussain is today appreciated both in the field of percussion and in the
music world at large as an international phenomenon. A classical tabla
virtuoso of the highest order, his consistently brilliant and exciting
performances have not only established him as a national treasure in
his own country, India, but gained him worldwide fame. His playing
is marked by uncanny intuition and masterful improvisational
dexterity, founded in formidable knowledge and study. The favorite
accompanist for many of India’s greatest classical musicians and
dancers, he has not let his genius rest there. Widely considered
a chief architect of the contemporary world music movement,
Zakir’s contribution to world music has been unique, with
many historic collaborations, including Shakti, which he
founded with John McLaughlin and L. Shankar,
Remember Shakti, the Diga Rhythm Band, Making
Music, Planet Drum with Mickey Hart, Tabla Beat
Science, Sangam with Charles Lloyd and Eric Harland and recordings and performances with artists as diverse as George Harrison, YoYo Ma, Joe Henderson, Van Morrison, Airto Moreira, Pharoah Sanders, Billy Cobham, Mark Morris, Rennie Harris, and the Kodo drummers. His music and extraordinary contribution to the music world were honored in April, 2009, with four widely-heralded and sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall’s Artist Perspective series.
This week sees UK producer Craig Bratley issue his debut LP, Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride, a 10-track effort which showcases the man's propensity for tweaking disco formulas into any number of shapes and sizes. One such track is "Analogue Dreams," a production driven by cascading hardware tones and some light percussion (which is anchored by deep-tuned kick drums). Atop this bed, Bratley effortlessly floats in a number of interlocked arpeggio melodies, which are hand-tweaked as they glide across the track before eventually being joined by a procession of bouncing piano chords and fast-moving digital strings. Out now in vinyl form (and set to see a digital release on December 15) via the Tsuba label, Bratley's Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride LP can be further previewed after the jump.
With a four-track EP due from the pair early next month, London outfit Casino Times(a.k.a. Nicolas Church and Joseph Spencer) has offered up bonus production "Lost" for free download. A track steeped in late-night vibes, "Lost" wraps filtered chords, a muffled bassline, and—eventually—a slow-burning lead synth around a set of skeletal rhythms. A subdued five-minute effort, "Lost" can be grabbed below while Casino Times' forthcoming Lower Level Sounds EP can be previewed after the jump before it lands viaFuture Boogie on December 8.
sparkling piano refrains sweep and spill into fresh, sweet rivulets of notes; her lyrics weave bright, halcyon tales of dream sequences, the light and dark polarities of the human experience, and beauty in its many forms. “I write about light and dark a lot… good and evil, dreams and reality, the darker and lighter parts of the human soul,” she explains.
