This year LA’s beatsmith Free The Robots finally released his new full length Ctrl Alt Delete on Alpha Pup Records. After a string of The standout track that shuffle seems to compelled to make me listen to is ‘Select/Start’, where the loping Coleco arpeggios wrap themselves around a barrage of other sinewave synths. Running up the spine is a clean beat full of claps and crackle that unifies the song. I listen to one of the other big post-breaks releases of the year like Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma and am severely disappointed, Ctrl Alt Delete saves the day.
This week’s graffiti post is less about illegal art and more about some epic commissioned street art on an awesome scale. Miami duo Friends With You who made their name with a charmingly minimalistic, brightly colored pop art style, have worked with the Fubon Art Foundation to install a massive art piece on the exterior of the Fubon Financial building in Taipei, Taiwan.
In keeping with the “looking up” theme of the Very Fun Park festival, the installation has become a massive focal point with its brightly colored flowers and wide eyed critter drawing people’s gaze skyward. It’s a beautiful work, the type of public art I wish American cities would get do more of. I’m still happy to see FWY doing more of their large scale installation work, akin to some of their earlier ones:
Dream Maker at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2008.
Beyond installing rainbows in unexpected places, Friends With You have accumulated a great selection of prints and clothing over the years.
left – Malfi Club Men – a limited edition shirt produced for the opening of their flagship boutique, 2009 right – Friends With You x Beautiful Decay – a collaboration between FWY and the design magazine Beautiful Decay, 2006
Beautiful Decay is having a pretty massive sale on their website. The Friends With You shirt is only $6 and every other one in the shop is discounted. Check out their online store.
If you’re into spending a little more money, Friends With You sell a variety of limited edition prints in their online shop. You’ll cough up more than $6 though, as their art goes for between $35 and $200.
Clicking on each image will take you to FWY’s shop.
Well, this concludes the second week of Graffiti Thursdays. While I hate that name, that’s just the day these posts fell on…and yes, this doesn’t really fully qualify as graffiti, but it’s what I like. I do enjoy keeping with the multi-national theme of the art posts, so we’ll see what next week brings. Hopefully pictures of Bengalise graffiti portraits of 1930′s American political figures.
I’m slowly getting back into the swing of reviewing for other sites. It’s something I used to do before I had Taking Tiger Mountain. Click on the link above to check out my review of Shoulders of Giants for the awesome site Knocks From The Underground. I’ll have more coming from them and the equally awesome Short and Sweet NYC very soon.
Remix Artist Collective have built a pretty excellent portfolio of high profile remixes of bands like U2 and Yeah Yeah Yeahs as well some great left field stuff like Anamanaguchi. They’ve got a particular polish to their sound that I love. A RAC remix often takes rock songs outside their genre into a slick, beat driven style. Recently they tackled ‘Wait Up (Boots of Danger)’, a track from Tokyo Police Club’s awesome release Champ, which has grown to be one of my favorites of the year.
TPC released video for the original version of the song, which focuses less on the band and more on a rather ragtag bunch of dogs charging about the neighborhood and sneaking into a backyard pool. What better than the marriage of dogs and indie rock? By purchasing the single through the band’s website for a price of either $1, $5 or $10 you get the video, remixes by RAC and DOM and 100% of your money goes to the ASPCA. Get a videos of dogs jumping into a pool, good music and help save future dogs. Win-win…er, win.
RAC have allowed you to stream their great remix, so check it out:
Gone are the guitars and live drums, replaced with some electro synths and a head-nodding beat. The new sun drenched, almost tropical feel is something I never could have possibly conceived of working, but like with most RAC remixes…they manage to make magic.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention their RAC’s Nintendo vs. Sega remixes. Their version of the Super Mario theme is amazing enough, slapped with a sick Justice style compressed beat and some squiggly synths.
Hell, I’m listening to all the tracks as I write and remembering how fucking fantastic they are. You can download the whole EP via the player above. Sonic’s level music was always far funkier than was probably appropriate for a hedgehog. A perfect example: this shockingly good Lady GaGa vs. Sonic mashup. (download link on the youtube page)
And that’s how you abstractly connect Tokyo Police Club to Lady GaGa.
Maps & Atlases have released a clip for the track ‘Solid Ground’ from their recent, wonderful release Perch Patchwork. It’s a brilliant album from front to back, one I’ve been meaning to do a full review of for a while now. The video places the band member strewn about a grey forest, each performing alone till night falls and everything is consumed with colorful projections as they play together. It was directed by Taryn Gould and Emily Kowalczyk, who recently helmed a clip for fellow Barsuk-ians Ra Ra Riot.
From the directors:
Many things appear solid that are not. We wanted to play with this uncertainty so we placed Dave in the middle of a small lake in a yellow canoe lined with soil. He’s created a little faux island for himself, isolated and protected himself so he thinks. As Dave sings his first verse the band gathers around the edges of the lake and it becomes clear that they don’t intend to leave him be. Instead they use the intricate melody and rhythms of the song to push pull and rock his boat in an attempt to lure him to shore. Eventually all of this musical mayhem crests and Dave’s boat is left spinning melodramatically into the night, even the water loses track of its physical properties and seems to disappear, diminishing the once sweeping space and allowing the band to close in on Dave and get him to their stark version of solid ground.
From Maps & Atlases guitarist Erin Elders: “The video shoot for Solid Ground was like what I imagine a rainy day at summer camp to be like. During the day we trudged through the damp woods with guitars and drums in hand and at night we sat around singing Tom Petty songs. At the end of it all, it was really sad to have to leave our new camp friends and head back home.”
Maybe one of the best videos ever? That’s a bit brash, but there’s something magical about Evan Roth’s “Cache Rules Everything Around Me,” which smashes together animated gifs to the equally smashed together sounds of Girl Talk. I bet if you could go back in time and show this to someone leaning up against the hood of their Ford Torino in 1970, drinking a Schlitz…their head would most likely explode. This kind of video is, to me, the gleaming heart of the internet: multiple streams of hyper referential audio and visual data, most of it delightfully crude. Roth even made a web portal for making your own gif mashups, complete with mp3 streaming capabilities. Check it out here and maybe make your own.
Need a suggestion? How about a tribute to the recent viral hit: girl getting her face smashed in the face via catapult and watermelon paired with all 76 minutes of the Koyaanisqatsi soundtrack. Just sayin’
Also worth checking out is this amazing website crafted by Edd Hannay, which lets you stream Feed The Animals with a second by second breakdown of every sample used in each song. It’s wild to see how incredibly well known songs show up for something as brief as a drum fill. 2 seconds of Never Gonna Give You Up? Check – Track 7, about 30 seconds in. The future is grand.
FREE THE ROBOTS – SELECT/START
