My mate Tosh sent me a link to this video and as he says on his excellent somnolentdeluxe blog: Brilliant hybrid animation with a sharp,witty narrative by Clemens Kogler.Using printed cardboard and turntables.
“Phonovideo is a VJ tool or visual instrument used to display animations in an analog way without the help of a computer. “Stuck in a Groove” is the first film made with this technique, it serves also as a demo for the technique . In the future phonovideo should be used for live performances in cooperations with musicians, performancers and other artists. The music for “Stuck in a Groove” was created by Richard Eigner/ Ritornell.”
Basically Myself and everyone I know wishes they’d been around in New York in the late 70′s (standard), an era which, lets face it, New York still trades off today. As much as I love the city and it is the only other city I’ve visited that rivals London, there is that feeling that it just ‘aint as good as it used to be. Judging by this film and others like it, it’s true. It looks to cover familiar territory, but archive footage of the downtown arts and music scene never gets boring. Ahh nostalgia. I just about don’t even mind hearing Fab 5 Freddy and Co. rub it in about how rediculously cool it was, how much you missed out and how much you owe to what happened.
Anyway, This Sunday sees the European premiere of the highly acclaimed ‘DOWNTOWN CALLING’, documenting late 70s – mid 80′s’ New York Underground and narrated by Debbie Harry, where the street, music and art met and were on the cutting edge… Featured in the film are: ARTHUR BAKER, CHRIS STEIN, JAMES CHANCE, FAB 5 FREDDY, SAL PRINCIPATO (Liquid Liquid), MOS DEF, KEITH HARING, ESG, HENRY CHALFANT, MAN PARRISH, JAZZY JAY, DAVID DEPINO, DANNY KRIVIT, NELSON GEORGE, BOBBITO GARCIA, TOM SILVERMAN & more..
To finnish off the evening the legendary dj/producer Andrew Weatherall will be playing a special 4hr post punk and no wave set – damn that’s gonna be good!
See http://www.visionare.co.uk/ for more information on this 2day event at Village underground which also includes the first Uk screening of David Byrne’s new film True Stories with a live set from dalston based four piece Django Django.
Divisive is the first single on ‘WHB’ the debut album from We Have Band.
Its directed by french duo Jul&Mat who have also done some other interesting work including the video for Metronomy’s ‘On The Motorway’. Their approach is definitely fun and original, so be sure to check out some of their work.
Quite what the hell this is about I don’t know but it’s a jokes short film staring Flat Eric and Pharell (fucking strange I know!). Despite the bizarreness of it, it is actually a very nicely shot little film and the way in which Eric moves and interacts is hilarious. Judging by the ending I’m also guessing there is more to come?!
Finally, the trailer for Chris Moriss’s latest project Four Lions and it looks fucking hilarious, can’t wait. full review over at empireonline, its released in the uk nationwide on May 7th.
Benjamin E. Morsberger is a talented youngun from NY who mixes classically instruments into a stream of conciousness in the form of some great music. Some poppy and pleasent, some complex and chaotic. All with a quality of respect for the artform with only positive results. His music is scattered around the internet for sampling and download. One of my favorite songs can be found at last.fm. A song called The Miles and the Hours. I’ve said it once and i’ll say it again, its all about the buildup and this 8 minute song is a perfect example. Moving on, I must tip my hat to another talented person for enlightening me to the musician after lurking across their twitter page, That is Tracy Antonopoulos. More about Tracy after the jump..
Spanish Sahara is a teaser track released last week for Foals upcoming album Total Life Forever, and the accompanying video has some beautiful visuals in it.
The director Dave Ma has worked with Foals a couple of times before (Balloons & Olympic Airways) and although his work tends to employ a very cool polarising/filter look, there is something warm and relaxing about the videos that i really enjoy. More examples after the break.
An Old friend sent me a link to this great video by Sam O’Hare, it totally appeals to the kid in me that played with Matchbox cars, Lego and Scaletrix. It’s an awesome piece of stop motion, consisting of over 35,000 frames, although worth noting that the tilt-shift effect was faked in post. There are some great moments in there mostly involving the people, I especially like the martial artists under the flyover.
Oh God, is there anything more dull than the modern day tour-documentary? Five minute’s of self-congratulating backstage ‘antics’ cobbled together to help sell the super-special-limited-collector’s edition of Muse’s latest opus. Boring! When the tour in question is 2008′s ‘The Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno’, however, it’s rightly time to get excited. Having already made the second best concert film ever made, Stop Making Sense, (the first is The Band’s The Last Waltz!), this new film, entitled Ride, Rise, Roar, contains footage of rehearsals, the shows and, yes, behind the scenes stuff. I didn’t see the London show of this tour, but my girlfriend did and she said it was bloody amazing, so this film should be a real treat. It premieres in March at SXSW, along with The White Stripes documentary – another one to look out for perhaps.
