“New York, just like I pictured it.” Well, almost…just add in some live street drumming, with some tight edits and on-the-fly remixing, and you’ve got yourself a slick video. Showcased here is a nice cross section of the people who roam the streets of Manhattan on an average evening. This was produced by three creatives: Tim Hahne (film maker), Thomas Noesner (creative director), and Toussiant (who handled the audio). 

The idea came about when they were watching the street drummer after a client shoot. The best ones often come at times when least expected!

A trip to Spain might not be in the cards, but at least there are plenty of talented peeps out there to take the scenic pics for your viewing pleasure. This is a timelapse video by a guy named Ben (link to his Vimeo channel here), which he shot and compiled earlier this year. It’s basically a tour of the central highlands of Spain, and includes some stunning shots of hillsides, small towns, and vast farmlands.

Not only is it a timelapse video, but it appears most of these visuals are HDR. Although HDR (which ensures rich color and texture in both the sky as well as the land) is common for stills, it’s still not all that common yet with live timelapse and video projects. This should be changing very soon however, as both the graphics software, as well as the camera hardware, continue to get more advanced. Ben also uses a dolly here, which he programmed to move the camera across a short distance over a long period of time. This creates the panning effects seen here.

Aah, the collectible MP3 release sitting on your hard drive right now. Does something sound morbidly paradoxical about that statement? Despite the sheer convenience of having instant access to 10,000 songs at all times via your MP3 player (and most likely a bunk pair of earbuds), there is still something to be said about having the hard copy of a release. Regardless of whether it is a vinyl record, a CD, a limited-edition jump drive, or the like, many people still feel that having a hard copy of a release is the true definition of “ownership”. 

Part of the reason the hard copy has not gone away is because of the packaging. Call it a gimmick if you will, but there have been some very interesting concepts that have risen to the surface over the past several years that have allowed the theme of the album to extend beyond just the music. Bad packaging often drives people away from the release, and even good packaging often gets taken for granted. However, amazing artwork or a completely ridiculous concept will often be one of the key driving forces to a successful album, gimmick or not!

Let’s have a look at some of the weirdest and wackiest releases that have been dictated by their cover art, or in extreme cases, how the physical disc itself was manufactured! A bit of Internet research, as well as some of my own exploring, has led me to find some crazy concepts that just would not be possible through a series of 1’s and 0’s sitting in your iTunes library.

Jeff Mills: “The Occurance” VinylDisc

You might be tricked into thinking that this is just a mix CD, hence irrelevant to the scope of this article. However, Detroit techno pioneer Mills, who has consistently found ways to push the envelope as a DJ over the past three decades, might be fooling you here. Earlier this year he released a strictly limited edition “hybrid” CD that actually had two thinner discs bonded together. One side is a standard, hour-long DJ mix, namely of his own material. It is playable in a standard CD player. However, the other side of the disc is actually made of vinyl and has one short track etched into it titled “Markings”. Although you need an adaptor for the hole in the center of the disc in order to play the vinyl side on a turntable (which is fortunately included here), it’s a neat concept and you may see more releases down the road in this format.

 
Caustic Window: Joyrex J9

A classic release that dropped near the end of the acid house heyday in 1993, Caustic Window’s “Joyrex J9” two-tracker was extremely limited: only 303 copies produced. That was for a specific reason. What makes this a unique record is that pictures of the classic synthesizer and drum machine, which were epitomized in the music on both sides, were actually printed inside the discs themselves. The vinyl was clear and about 10” in diameter, with the Roland 303 sticking out of one side, and the similar-sized 606, on the other. Similar to the beloved TR-606 and TB-303, the value of this record has done nothing but appreciate heavily over the past 15 years!

Wolf Eyes: Pentagram

A purely experimental unofficial release by Wolf Eyes, Pentogram was a 12” disc that showcased two short songs on each side. Although the music itself, which mainly consists of heavily distorted and reveberated feedback and what sounds like a piano going through a lobotomy, is interesting, the medium is a bit of a corker too. Only one side is standard vinyl. The other is a 12” laserdisc (remember those?) - the grooves cut right into the surface. Although the resulting quality sounds something like a worn out acetate, with more surface noise due to the different properties of the material, based on a listen to sound clips of this EP I was actually pleasantly surprised. 40 sets were produced, by hand, with custom cover art. Good luck finding one, you’ll need all the help you can get.

Batch Totem: Funktion Series

It’s always interesting how the drone and experimental artists like Batch Totem tend to be the ones who convey their unique ideas not just in the music, but in the physical medium as well. Starting in 2008, this group released a series of records called “Funktion”. What makes these hip is the fact that each one is printed on a small colored 4” flexi-disc, one track per side. The flexidisc is then housed in the casing of a 5.25” floppy disc, instantly bringing the elementary school nostalgia back of when you used to try beating your mates at a game of Oregon Trail on the classroom Apple II. Although it has yet been proven possible to try etching the grooves of the music onto the actual disk that came with the 5.25” floppy, it comes bundled in each package anyways. Batch Totem is currently on their fifth release of the series.

Spazz: Funky Ass Lil’ Platter

Another noise release, albeit a brief one, considering the fact that the record it was released on is a SINGLE INCH in diameter. For maximum fidelity, the track on side A (“Hemmorrhidal Dance of Death”) was cut at 78 rpm. An inch gives you a great deal of playing room, so you may as well max the sound quality out by cutting it at a faster speed with wider grooves anyhow. Needless to say, I don’t think either song on this “platter” clocked in at more than a few seconds. Only 14 copies are known to exist, several which have traded hands on the auction sites at several hundred dollars a pop. Equating roughly to about $2,500 per minute of music if you did the math.

Libertine Libertine X Pantherman LP

Looking for some brand new Boards of Canada-esque trip hop to sort out your day? Well, this release sure does remind me of Canada all right, in the format the medium itself comes in. WOOD. That’s right folks, 100% pure unadultured oak with a 2 GB USB drive neatly encased inside. Not only is the music on the drive fantastic (check this link to listen), but you won’t ever have to worry about your copy drowning if it somehow lands in a river somewhere. (I’ll let you fill in the blanks as to how it got there in the first place).

 
The Chocolate Record

You know the feeling when you bought a record that was horrifyingly bad? Yeah, I’ve been there too. The suspect record proceeds to sit on the shelf for years afterwards. You can’t sell it because nobody else wants it either, but you hate to just throw it out too. Well how about if all records were made of chocolate? Then you could at least make good use out of that 12” reissue of “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Em” your mother-in-law bought you because she thought it would be uber-cool again since Hammer’s all the rage on Twitter these days. Although the chocolate record is still just a concept, a German culinary expert is in the process of making it come to life. Non-Antarctica residents might consider investing in an air conditioner if they choose to collect these once they do start appearing on store shelves.

RA-X: Opium Den

Remember how cute scratch-and-sniff cards were when you were a child? Scratch scratch, hey it’s orange! Scratch scratch scratch…hey, chocolate! Scratch scratch…strawberry-banana! Scratch…human feces?! Wait, three out of the four of these scents were Hallmark trademarks. Let’s discuss the fourth. This is a 4-track 12” single released by longtime producer Vincent Koreman. In the vein of much of his other work, this record had a bit of an electro feel to it, with plenty of action from the usual arsenal of Roland drum machines. But according to a comment left on the Discogs page for this record, the brown-colored release has more than just a weird color beneath the surface: 

“The browny-purple colouring is obtained from adding small amounts of hemorrhoid infected diarrhea to the vinyl mix before pressing. When chopping this up on the ones and twos (in this case, “scratch” refers to the DJ technique) a subtle but detectable odour of human faeces emanates through the air around the DJ. Very cool, but best played at open air events.”

Well, at the end of the day, this is obviously a joke. But if someone actually pulled this off, wouldn’t it be, for lack of better terms, the shit? I guess we can still give this one an honorable mention for the horiffic color of the record itself.

Chromeo: Drive Time

So I might as well end this with what is probably the most contemporary release of this entire lot: Chromeo’s new, ahem…LP…entitled “Drive Time”. With 55 tracks, you would think this would be the “All Things Must Pass” of dance music. Wrong. Pressed on a 5” plate, there is just over three minutes of music total. And of course, despite this electro band’s popularity, this one is limited to 40 copies, so it’s no more abundant than many of the other records here. You can still head over to YouTube to check it in its entirety though. The signature legs make their normal appearnce even on this album cover, as per the course.

Image credits: http://www.psfk.com/ | http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/ | http://www.kingbeerecords.co.uk/ | http://1.bp.blogspot.com/ | www.discogs.com | http://www.popsike.com/ | http://www.aiaiai.dk | http://www.limitemagazine.com/

This is an amazing documentary I found completely at random the other day while surfing about Vimeo. It’s a comprehensive time capsule of the drum and bass scene in America exactly one decade ago. “Concentric Beats” was compiled by Valida Carroll, an extremely talented artist, model, and designer from Los Angeles.

What I find most intriguing about this video is how objective it is: it touched on both the good parts of the community, as well as pretty much all of the issues they faced. And much of the subject matter remains highly relevant even a decade on.

Some topics touched on include the origins of the music, the amount of competition that exists (especially amongst DJ’s), dubplate culture, sexism, UK distributors showing a lack of interest in US labels, the lack of promoters willing to support the music at their events, many of the weekly nights happening in the larger cities, and the embryonic Internet scene in its earliest incarnation. Dara, Reid Speed, Sage, Hive, DJ Sifu, and dozens of others made appearances and all provided great insight.

Ever wonder what happens to a droplet once it hits the surface of a large container of water? These guys at MIT had the same curiosity, and used a camera that shoots 10,000 frames per second (400 times faster than the human eye). The events captured would have been impossible for humans to have ever witnessed if it were not for these camera.

The Elephant Project from Tessa Monash on Vimeo.

Nice stop motion animation video by Auckland University student Tessa Monash. The fictitious life of an elephant has been very colorfully rendered here, hand painted on a single canvas, evolving over the course of just under a month. Over 15 liters of paint used! Once the stills were color corrected and re-positioned, this video became possible. 

Upper First - Showreel 10 from Upper First on Vimeo.

If you have a minute, check out this neat little demo reel of recent work produced by Upper First. A 3D and motion graphics shop based both abroad in Sweden, as well as in the US, they have some pretty incredible work here. I especially love the tilt-shifted photography and the MTV Supercharts promo pieces. Also check out their website as well as their Vimeo if you want to find out more about these guys.

David A Smith - Sign Artist from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

This is a short documentary a work colleague (Conor Feely) passed on to me yesterday. Filmed and edited by Danny Cooke, it is about a very highly skilled British sign maker named David Smith. He has the ability to etch glass to make decorative patterns, as well as use gold and silver to craft ornamental effects, to create glass signs that end up being displayed in shops and pubs around the UK.

The amount of patience one must endure to generate these signs is immense. Smith states that a single piece of glass can take over 20 hours to properly etch and emboss! Additionally, it becomes very clear by the end of the film that this is a dying art; few have any sort of interest in spending the years required to learn what he does. However Smith is doing what he can to ensure the craft remains in good hands long after he retires.

Great documentary overall. It was shot on a Canon 7D, and was musically scored by Tony Higgins.

Of all the authentic photographic manufacturers based out of Germany, Leica is the equivalent of the last man standing. 3 years off from their one hundredth anniversary, their sales continue to remain steady while all of their counterparts faded away or were bought out. Recently giving many of their classic rangefinder cameras a digital overhaul, at the end of 2009 they launched one of their first pro-sumer level cameras: the X1.

Most photographers, both amateur and professional, know full well the full extent of how expensive a Leica is. With many of their classic “M” models, coupled with a good lens, easily approaching the $10,000 range, a Leica is not for the faint of heart! The X1 is one of their least expensive rangefinder models, weighing in at around $2,000 (street). Although this is NOT a proper review piece, in an objective nutshell the X1 has received relatively positive feedback. The classic Leica glass, build quality, and image quality are there, however it is marred by a slow auto-focus, lack of a viewfinder, and poor macro focusing abilities. If you want a true Leica, however, you cannot beat this price; other models will run you more than double.

I’d have to say that the box and packaging that Leica built around the X1 perfectly sums up how authentic of a brand they are. I love the dresser drawers at the bottom for the manuals and cables, with a top-loading box for the camera itself. Giving it a “showroom” sort of feel, Leica spares no expense here. Oftentimes, the way a product is presented helps give the consumer a good first impression, and I think Leica has succeeded at doing so here. Let’s hope they stick around for another hundred years.

Proper review of the Leica X1 (dp Review)
Image credit: http://28.media.tumblr.com/ 

It’s hard to imagine a world of portable music before the iPod. In a relentless race to create the smallest player possible that can hold your entire music library multiple times over, it’s hard to imagine how you were able to take your beats away from your crib a couple decades ago. In the 1980s, the de facto standard was quite the opposite of what we can easily tuck into our jacket pockets today. Large, menacing boomboxes were all the rage! To hell with their notoriously short battery life, shoulder-collapsing weight, and often questionable build quality; vintage boomboxes from that era still hold a special charm to this day. Let’s take a look at some of the more swagger-iffic models that stood out amongst the monotony.

 
Sharp VZ-1000 series. What’s that giant compartment in the front, you say? Oh, that’s just the slot for the vertical-mounted turntable. Although Sharp wasn’t the first to market with the concept of being able to lug your vinyl on-the-go (Marantz holds that title with their box that had a fold down deck that played 7” records), they were probably the first to make one that could rock a 12”. Starting with the original 1000 model, Sharp seamlessly housed a turntable, single cassette deck, and AM/FM radio into a single console, which took on a design and layout of increased simplicity and elegance with each passing iteration.

Sharp had about a half-dozen different versions of the VZ series, most of them pretty much accomplishing the same thing but with small benefits (aside from the design) such as radio programming and longer battery life. Oh yeah, let’s not forget the ability to not only auto-reverse the cassette, but also the turntable as well. How was this possible?  First of all, two separate tone-arms were used to play each side; no sweat when the wax is mounted vertically. Second, Sharp utilized BSLT (Both Sides Linear Tracking) technology. This kept track of the position of the needle relative to the vinyl at all times, making it not only easy to switch sides at any time, but also to do so automatically when one side finished. Can your Technics 1200 play both sides of a record nonstop or flip sides at the push of a button? Didn’t think so!

Casio KX-101 boombox. Casio is infamous for their cheap, mass-produced synthesizers they churned out in the early 1980s. Making sure that no target audience was left out of the boombox craze during that era, Casio made a special blaster that they hoped would appeal less to the breakers, poppers, lockers, and hip hoppers and more to the band camp crowd. Housing a mini-keyboard that had 37 keys (3 octaves), pre-loaded sounds and percussion rhythms, and even an internal sequencer that was just as capable as many of the professional synths on the market at that time, the KX-101 remains a desirable and appreciated boombox to this day. Let’s not forget about its ability to record your synth sounds right to cassette. I bet attempting the same with a Roland Juno 106 back then would have involved many more wires….and headache. And being able to do it all on your patio? Heh.

Unfortunately, the buck pretty much stops here if you are thinking this is somehow a top level synth. The sounds it played were all pre-defined; although it did boast a single virtual analog oscillator (sound generator), envelope control was extremely limited so modulating and shaping the sound to create something expressive was out of the picture.

Recording sequences could be performed either by upgrading the internal memory, or using cassettes which were designed to hold the data. There were also line-in jacks for microphones, cables, and external speakers. Despite some of the limitations with the synth itself, this box was well ahead of itself, pulling more computing power into a single component than pretty much anything that came out for the next 15 years until the first digital Rio/Diamond MP3 player in 1998! 

 
Dynasty Disco Lights Boombox. Some people argue that hip hop killed disco. Or maybe it was new wave. Or a random mid-summers baseball game in Comisky Park in Chicago. Some people obviously still thought disco had some degree of relevance well into the 1980s, or there wouldn’t have been a boombox modeled after the genre that inherited all of its flamboyance. Obviously a love-or-hate deal for many people, the DDLB shared the same fate that many argued truly killed disco: lots of flare and character on the surface, but too much imitation and lack of substance beneath. With so many artists trying to jump on the disco bandwagon in 1980 (anyone remember Kiss’s disco album?!) everything started to sound similar, stale, and mass-produced. This boombox suffered a similar fare: it looked good on the outside, but the manufacturers only wanted to capitalize on the boombox craze. They went for the bottom line, cutting corners everywhere just to deliver a product that barely worked properly from the get-go. Bad sound quality, blown speakers, and jammed cassettes were the norm in the DDLB. They can be obtained for pretty cheap these days, and the bright colors and flashing lights on the outside are still as timeless as the 2001 Odyssey dancefloor. 

AIWA CS-M1. Who said ghetto blasters were only for the b-boys? As the Beastie Boys fought for their right to party in ‘86, the ladies fought for their right to carry their CS-M1 boxes. Or so Aiwa hoped! Targeted towards the female population, Aiwa kept this box just slightly larger than a Sony Walkman so it was easy for them to just sling it over the shoulder and be over and done with it. One slight problem here. Although the size sounded tempting, it was made possible by swapping out a standard cassette deck with a micro-cassette player! At the time, micro-cassettes were pretty much only used for voice recording. You couldn’t just stroll down to Tower Records and grab Madonna or LL Cool J’s last records on a micro-cassette. In fact, pre-recorded material was never sold in this format. Recording was possible, so if you wanted to record Marley Marl and Mister Magic on WBLS, that was still a piece of cake. Needless to say, the CS-M1 never caught on. Good concept (size), but poor execution (irrelevant medium)

There were probably dozens of other neat boomboxes that came out during that era, but these were four that stuck out in my mind the most. I’m going to leave you with an awesome video that was recorded a couple years ago that takes the art of DJ-ing using one of these things to the next level! Thought scratching on a cassette deck wasn’t possible? DJ Ramsey of Arizona proves this WRONG.