Is it bedtime?

These bizarre-looking creations wouldn’t look out of place...

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:00:49 +0000

These bizarre-looking creations wouldn’t look out of place as characters in Dr. Who, but they’re sculptures made by Jean-Luc Cornec for an exhibition in Frankfurt.

(via)

World's 'most expensive' ham

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:00:51 +0000

World's 'most expensive' ham:

Nope, not an overpaid actor but an actual piece of dead pig for £1800 that, once the acorn-fed pigs die, takes three years to cure and is described as “amazing value”. I’ll take two.

(via)

Next stop Barking?

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:56:26 +0000

Next stop Barking?:

But beggar dogs have evolved the most specialized behavior. Relying on scraps of food from commuters, the beggar dogs can not only recognize which humans are most likely to give them something to eat, but have evolved to ride the subway. Using scents, and the ability to recognize the train conductor’s names for different stops, they incorporate many stations into their territories.

Polar Bear makes a friend. Near Hudson Lake in Manitoba, German...

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 20:42:14 +0000

Polar Bear makes a friend.

Near Hudson Lake in Manitoba, German wildlife photographer Norbert Rosing spotted a polar bear coming near his sled dogs. He took pictures of what he thought would be the end of his dogs. Apparently the bear came back every night for a week to play with the dogs.

Realism in UI Design

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:51:00 +0000

Realism in UI Design:

Graphical user interfaces are typically full of symbols. Most graphical elements you see on your screen are meant to stand for ideas or concepts. The little house on your desktop isn’t a little house, it’s «home». The eye isn’t an actual eye, it means «look at the selected element». The cog isn’t a cog, it means «click me to see available commands».

Details and realism can distract from these concepts.

So, in your mind, what makes a good monster?

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:01:05 +0000

So, in your mind, what makes a good monster?:

I don’t understand any of the references, but the pictures are pretty, and the insight into monster-creating is a little bit interesting.

The Quietus Reductive & Subjective Albums Of The Year

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:00:48 +0000

The Quietus Reductive & Subjective Albums Of The Year:

The Quietus doesn’t review as much as Pitchfork or Drownedinsound, and as such it’s a bit easier to identify with the tastes of the writers, and that means that when they say things are worth listening to, I normally take their advice and do so. This is the 2nd half of their top-albums list for 2009 and (along with the first half) has plenty of new bands for me to listen to. They’ve made a Spotify playlist for those who can use it.

Jacket+Bookmark - lovely. (via)

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:00:49 +0000

Jacket+Bookmark - lovely.

(via)

Little scenes inside toilet-roll tubes, by Anastassia...

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:01:49 +0000

Little scenes inside toilet-roll tubes, by Anastassia Elias.

(via)

kaeru-san: Teaching felt friends how to be Safety Cones (via...

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:00:54 +0000

kaeru-san:

Teaching felt friends how to be Safety Cones (via alicia954)

Adorable.

A new MIA video? People seem to think so, and it’s pretty...

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:15:50 +0000

A new MIA video? People seem to think so, and it’s pretty cool regardless.

Walking Through Walls

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:14:57 +0000

Walking Through Walls:

Die Hard asks naive but powerful questions: If you have to get from A to B—that is, from the 31st floor to the lobby, or from the 26th floor to the roof—why not blast, carve, shoot, lockpick, and climb your way there, hitchhiking rides atop elevator cars and meandering through the labyrinthine, previously unexposed back-corridors of the built environment?

BLDG BLOG takes a meandering, but all the better for it, look at how Bruce Willis and the IDF deal with walls in places they don’t want them, and with doors providing nothing but predictability to the people they don’t want to find them.

As well as linking to an interesting-looking report on how the IDF operate in such quasi-tunnels in an urban area, the post provides an alternate scenario for Die Hard 2, suggesting that maybe Nakatomi Plaza rather than Mr. Willis was the reason for the first film’s brilliance.

Lastgraph for 2009

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:02:01 +0000

Lastgraph for 2009:

Lastgraph lets you create posters showing your listening trends for a period of time. I’ve generated one for me based on the whole of 2009, and it’s pretty bumpy. Spot the week where my hard-drive died and I was computer-less!

Antagonistic Books

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 11:07:49 +0000

Antagonistic Books:

A book that sets itself on fire when you open it (instructions on how to make your own), and one that is impossible to shut once opened.

(via)

Beautiful in the living room...

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:07:19 +0000

Beautiful in the living room...:

… glorious in the street? Some pretty sad pictures of what happens to Christmas trees come the beginning of January.

(via)

I don’t really drink tea, but would if it came on...

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:31:50 +0000

I don’t really drink tea, but would if it came on coat-hangers.

(via)

kottke.org's best links of 2009

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 10:00:00 +0000

kottke.org's best links of 2009:

There’s plenty of stuff here that’s worth a 2nd look, even if you think you’ve seen it all before. I haven’t made it all the way through yet, but the post on Beep Baseball is particularly interesting. Also, Pete Campbell dancing.

Crime is a way to use the city

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:14:13 +0000

Crime is a way to use the city:

Someday I’d like to write a cheap book about the architectural side of burglary—bank heists, home invasions, jewelry thefts, wall-scaling girl gangs of the Global South, trans-metropolitan tunnels dug vault-to-vault through crypts by men with names like Terry Leather, smoke & mirrors, props and decoys, CCTV control rooms, lock-pickers’ guides, hourly updated routes of gold trucks leaving Manhattan, deterritorialized histories of the getaway car, impersonations and forgeries, spatial camouflage, criminal blueprints and future dream-technologies of the ultimate break-in—all in the name of looking at buildings, and the city itself, as puzzles, spatial systems you try very hard to get into. The well-guarded entrance and its multiple delays. Kafka meets HSBC.

BLDG BLOG with some links to previous posts there and elsewhere on the analysis and planning of crimes.

Best of 2009

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:30:51 +0000

I haven’t been too kind to this little old blog in the 2nd half of this year but it has been music that’s pulled me back, so seems fitting to end the year with a best-of as I’m something of a fan of lists.

Now, for someone who buys a lot of music this might be surprising but this year saw my first iTunes purchases. The dropping of DRM inspired me to grab an album that I’d have otherwise had to import, but since then I’ve been seduced by the convenience and immediacy on more than one occasion. I also moved house, to a place with no furniture and I realised how much space I need to store all those I have already, without adding to the collection. I’m sure this won’t be the end of CD-buying for me, as I do love shiny packaging, but I can see physical purchases becoming reserved only for those albums that do put some effort into their appearance.

I was able to put together a playlist for last year’s list on Spotify, picking one track from each of the artists. It turned out that I couldn’t get most of the albums though, and looking back at the playlist even more have become unavailable. As much as I love Spotify, and can’t imagine finding new things to listen to without it, I don’t see it stopping me from buying albums (whether iTunes or CDs). It has meant though, that this year I have favourite albums that I haven’t got around to buying.

So for a list (album names link to Spotify, tracks to Hype Machine)…

Humbug by Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone
It’s Blitz by Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Dragon Queen
Travels with myself and another by Future of the Left- Arming Eritrea
Temporary Pleasure by Simian Mobile Disco - Audacity of Huge
xx by The xx - Crystalised
Dance Mother by Telepathe - In Your Line
For lack of a better name by Deadmau5 - Hi Friend!
Album by Girls - Laura
Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors - No Intention
East of Eden by Taken by Trees - Day by Day

10 Julian Plenti Is… Skyscraper by Julian Plenti

I wrote a bit about this one in the previous post here…back in August. It’s a shame there’s been nothing since, as it would be a bit weird to wax lyrical about it all over again. It’s like Interpol, but different. And when you here Interpol being used to advertise perfume, “but different” is a good thing.

Listen to: Only if you Run

9 Jewellery by Micachu (& The Shapes)

I think this ones wins the prize for the most-fun album of the year, it’s really bouncy and frantic, not one to listen to while trying to do anything else but the shifts in style and tempo, alongside amusing lyrics make for an enjoyable listen.

Listen to: Calculator

8 A Woman A Man Walked By by PJ Harvey & John Parish

I love listening to PJ Harvey sing so much, and to have an album that’s almost as mesmerising as White Chalk, but with the jerky riffs of the earlier albums makes me a happy listener.

Listen to: Black Hearted Love

7 Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective

This was the first Animal Collective album I’ve listened to and having heard others since I’m not really seeing what I’ve missed…but I do love some of the songs on this album, and I can stare at the album cover for longer than is probably good for me.

Listen to: My Girls

6 Fantasies by Metric

I was made redundant in April of this year and until June was busy looking for a job. Too busy in fact, and more than a little afraid of spending money, that I didn’t go and see Metric when they were playing in Coventry, and I regret that quite a lot. Fantasies is a lovely set of songs, and I hope they come back to England soon.

Listen to: Gimme Sympathy

5 Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion by Fight Like Apes

I was introduced to this lot by my friend Holly (who puts them at #2 on her list…) and they are so much fun. Nearly as fun as Micachu, but not quite. The lyrics are amazingly weird and the songs are more than a bit catchy. The 8 seconds that make up the track Megameanie basically some up this band.

Listen to: Lumpy Dough

4 Two Suns by Bat For Lashes

When Elbow won the Mercury prize last year I was a little bit surprised but they were a band that I’d always liked-just-not-very-much, and so I didn’t question the decision. This year’s joke of a choice baffles me entirely. There’s plenty of precedent for using prizes to encourage future greatness, but it’s not like most of the other nominations were too swamped with exposure to benefit from it. Anyway, this is a long, ranty way of saying that Bat For Lashes should have won. Sothere.

Listen to: Daniel

3 Lovetune for Vacuum by Soap&Skin

I was intrigued initially here by the artist’s name. Then finding out that she was Syrian made me think about whether I’d ever listened to any Syrian music before, and I realised I hadn’t. Then I re-read the wikipedia article, and realised that she’s actually from Styria in Austria, not Syria, and then I thought about whether I’d ever listened to any Austrian music before, and I don’t think I have. So. I found some music from a country that isn’t particularly well known for its music, and it’s lovely.

Listen to: Thanatos

2 Manners by Passion Pit

I read on Pitchfork (I think) about how the singer in this band put together an EP as a valentines present for his girlfriend last year and thought it a bit soppy, but as I tend to do when reading music-sites, stuck the band’s name into Spotify to give them a listen. The EP didn’t immediately jump out at me as being anything brilliant, until Sleepyhead came on. Ordering the albums here took me a while (and should still be considered flexible), but the Guardian had a survey on their site today asking for favourite albums, bands and songs, and for the last box, I didn’t even have to think twice - I love it so much.

Listen to: Sleepyhead

1 JJ No. 2 by JJ

This is another band that I wrote about in the previous post, and I called it ‘uninspiring’. To go from that, to my favouritest album of the whole entire year would seem like quite a change of heart, and I am fickle like that. I think my love stems mostly from Ecstasy, which is just adorable, but I just love the Hawaiian/Balearic-style pop beats.

Listen to: Ecstasy

Music Again

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:26:06 +0100

As I’ve done a couple of times before, I thought it was about time for another round-up of some of the cool new music I’ve found. (New to me, anyway.)

(All links to Spotify. Soon everyone will be able to get it!)

First up, there are a couple of albums from artists who are more famous in other guises:

Julian Plenti is… Skyscraper is an album by Interpol singer and guitarist Paul Banks and while it can’t help but sound familiar, given how distinctive his voice is, it manages to be nice and quirky, not really that much like the band. I’d heard that he had something on the way, but didn’t know it was being released under the alias so after I saw the title and queued it up, I was nicely surprised when it came on.

Dragonslayer is the 4th album from Sunset Rubdown who started life as a solo project for Spencer Krug who, to me at least, is better known as the singer in Wolf Parade but it turns out he’s involved with quite a few groups. Also of interest to me was finding out that Camilla Wynne Ingr of the wonderful indie-pop group Pony Up! is now on of his collaborators (it no longer being a solo project). Pony Up!’s “I heard you got action” was included on Rough Trade Shops’ Counter Culture 04 album and I fell a little bit in love with it and subsequently the band.

Next, my musical explorations took a trip to Sweden where I found first The Tough Alliance and then The Embassy after reading that their label, Service, are giving an album each a UK release:

From The Tough Alliance we got The New School, which brings a mix of synths enthusiasm and just enough attitude that makes me smile when I listen to it. From The Embassy we got Tacking, which also borrows heavily from 80s pop but is a little more chilled out - less sugar-rush and more lying back and relaxing.

The Tough Alliance departed from Service and created their own label, Sincerely Yours, and it’s from there that the rather mysterious group JJ are releasing confusingly named material. The ‘single’, JJ no. 1, was put out back in March while the album, JJ no. 2 was released in July. The album includes a couple of pretty uninspiring, but still lovely, acoustic songs alongside beats and samples that carry along the same, haunting female vocals.