LDWT

Tapes’n’Tales: HuskMitNavn

LDWT — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:58:24 +0000

Over the years, Copenhagen-based illustrator and street artist HuskMitNavn (RememberMyName in Danish) has focused on the dynamic interplay between western culture, technology and contemporary society as refracted through the lens of everyday life. “I have worked full time as an artist for the past 12 years”, the artist tells us when asked about his personal experience growing up in Copenhagen. “Most of my childhood I sat and drew in my room in the house in the suburb where I grew up. I began painting graffiti in 1993 at the age of 17 and against all odds I made an art career out of it, simply by having fun with it and working my butt off”.

Drawing on a vast range of cultural and artistic influences, from Keith Haring to Belgian cartoons, HuskMitNavn has been enthralled by simple and common things since his early years, painstakingly carrying his ingenious ideas and intuitions in a sketchbook along with the memories connected to them. “I did a lot of artworks about everyday life. It’s my favorite subject. The inspiration is always right in front of me”, he tells us. “My art can be described as Disney characters with heavy hearts and funny bones. When I need to come up with an idea for a piece of art I use a sketchbook. I draw whatever comes to my mind. Sometime I come up with ideas I can use later and sometime I can´t think of anything. But I keep on going until I come up with something useful. After that I start to work on the actual artwork”.

A compelling fictional theatre in which genuine characters, words and situations deliberately based on real life combine in a fresh, cohesive excursion into the artist’s unique perspective. HuskMitNavn’s thought-provoking and inspiring imagery never fails to elicit an emotional response in the viewer. A soft-hearted painterly sensibility, along with an apparently deep-rooted romantic bitterness, seeps through the artist’s vivid work. Unexpectedly, the vibrancy of his canvases is soon accompanied by the memory of the past which sounds like a forgotten echo, a poetically arranged orchestra for violins and lost hopes. Painful or not, it doesn’t matter. Some melodies deserve to be remembered and music necessarily contribute to the scene that HuskMitNavn sets for his paintings and murals.

“I listen to lots of different music”, he says, “but I have always had a soft spot for melancholic rock music that you can dance to (mainly British and mostly New Order). I try to hit the same tone in the artwork that I make. The dance is the humor I put into my drawings and the melancholy is the real life that I’m trying to portrait. When I’m working and I have to come up with ideas for artwork or I have to concentrate a lot I listen to music. When I’m just filling in colors and I don’t have to think too much I listen to internet Radio (www.thisamericanlife.org and www.thirdcoastfestival.org) Tons of amazing programs and stories”.

Having garnered significant attention in the international art world, HuskMitNavn’s paintings, drawings, graphics and murals have been exhibited in famous contemporary art galleries and museums including the KØS (Museum of Art In Public Places) and the Louisiana museum of modern art in Denmark, V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, The Hole Gallery in New York, Alice Gallery in Bruxelles and at The End of The World in Vardø, Norway. HuskMitNavn is currently working on a book with new drawings and lot of new lithographic prints and woodcuts. In addition, this summer the artist will paint at some festivals and later in the year he will have a couple of solo shows and a lot of smaller projects. From June 22nd to July 7th, 2013, HuskMitNavn will be participating in the group show The Future/Memory as part of the Street Culture @ Hellerau Festival. Curated by SuperBlast, the exhibition will also showcase works by Boogie, Martha Cooper, Horfée, Cody Hudson, Stefan Marx, Cleon Peterson, Jay “One” Ramier, Skki and SuperBlast.

HuskMitNavn’s playlist as follows:

# 1

ON THE TURNTABLE: Radiohead, “Reckoner”

# 2

ON THE TURNTABLE: The Cure, “Just Like Heaven”

# 3

ON THE TURNTABLE: Sonic Youth, “Tunic (song for Karen)”

# 4

ON THE TURNTABLE: New Order, “Age of Consent”

# 5

ON THE TURNTABLE: Cat Power, “Speak For Me”

# 6

ON THE TURNTABLE: The Stone Roses, “Fools Gold”

# 7

ON THE TURNTABLE: Elliott Smith, “Independence Day”

# 8

ON THE TURNTABLE: The Smiths, “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”

www.huskmitnavn.dk

Travelling Through Soundscapes: FRANCESCO GIANNICO and ALESSIO BALLERINI

LDWT — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:02:49 +0000

Soundscapes, the “unfinished symphony and without which we are simultaneously shaped the composers, performers and listeners” (Raymond Murray Schafer). In our accelerated world, these soundscapes, the mixing and fighting of nature and industrial landcapes, the sounds that come with them, the sounds that we make, represent an incredibly interesting proposition, the ultimate frontier and an heritage which needs being preserved. It is with this idea that Francesco Giannico and Alessio Ballerini, already respected artists and musicians in the field of multimedia installations and field recordings, decided to team up and form “Archivio Italiano dei Paesaggi Sonori” (Italian Archive Soundscapes), a loose collective that since 2010 has launched numerous projects, workshops and festival appearances.Making the immaterial material, recording it, creating with it has also become a neverending journey through Italy, mapping the sounds, creating a network of likeminded artists and sharing experiences. In two weeks time (june 28th-29th) they will be in Bari, for the Sonorapuliae workshop, an event promoted by Mediateca Regionale Pugliese and which sees also the collaboration of this website. We met them to discover more about their work and what to expect from the forthcoming workshop.

Hello Alessio and Francesco, introductions first. Can you tell us who you are, what you do?

Alessio & Francesco: Hi! We are both musicians, soundscapers and we work with everything that can be considered “multimedia”. We funded Archivio Italiano Paesaggi Sonori (Italian Soundscapes Archive) in 2010, an artistic network aiming to promote the concept of soundscape through workshops, live performances, installations and mixed media.

I find interesting that neither of you use the term “musician” in your biographies, preferring instead “sound engineer”. Do you consider it a step forward, even with classical music backgrounds or previous experiences in bands, or is it because the term could be considered too restrictive?

Alessio & Francesco: We are still musicians but we prefer to use “sound designer”. It is similar yet diffent from “sound engineer”….It works best to define a musician who also works with computer music together with traditional instrumentists like pianists, guitarists and so on, as taught by Brian Eno.

Your solo works have often been described as “cinematic”, and they are often accompanied by visual installations. How do you work the music and the video together? What comes first and how does it develop?

Francesco: I used to just create music and shoot videos. Only later I realized that some of the material had a common thread and the concept emerged naturally. From that point on, I moved in a more conscious way, following the style and concept that was developing organically. I work a lot with video editing to make sense of the sound, and vice versa, especially when I produce site-specific installations. Different examples: Urban Sounds from The Factory City with Amy Denio or Suggestions with Mary Levykina.
Alessio: Sometimes I start to work with video and sometimes I start with music. In same cases music and video are related and sometimes they aren’t. For example in “Natura e sua trasfigurazione fuori sincro” I was inspired by Michel Chion’s famous book “Audiovision”: “When we delete the original sound of a movie and we try to add different and also contrasting musics we can obtain amazing and unexpeted results”.

AIPS: Postcards from Italy | Trailer from Gianmarco Del Re on Vimeo.

You started working together as the founders of Archivio Italiano dei Paesaggi Sonori. How did the idea come about?

Alessio & Francesco: A project like this was in the air for a long time. Someone talked about it on facebook chats. When we first met, we simply materialized the idea of the network and found the suitable name. Today AIPS is an acknowledged italian reality and it is finally reaching out of the peninsula thanks to Gianmarco Del Re, a curator and a fan, who, thanks to his column on Fluid Radio, helped us greatly with the project “Postcard from Italy”. This project, in particular, started as a collection of interview and an exchange of audio material among members of Aips, with the files being redistributed amongst the group on an anonymous basis in order to be reworked and manipulated to create soundscape compositions. and no one knew who had been manipulating the files previously. The result will be presented in London at the Cafe Oto on June 16th during a live set with 9 AIPS members and with an audiovisual installation at the Soundfjourd Gallery, also in London, from June 14th until 21th, with other AIPS members also taking part. All this material will be subsequently published by Oak, the label connected to AIPS: this will be its first CD.

Field recordings remain still a niche pleasure, even if at the beginning of the century it seemed to witness a potential crossover success with Christian Fennesz. Is there still a potential there, in your opinion? Do you find kinships in other artists (italian or not)?

Alessio e Francesco: With AIPS we’re just trying to spread these sounds to a wider audience. If you look at the number of people going to see live performances and count the times that artists like Fennesz, Alva Noto, etc. have come to play in Italy, you get a sure idea that this is not nearly as a niche phenomenon. Surely in Italy there’s a lot to say. For example just consider the “Becoming Sound project”, a project born in Italy for large number of churches and other reasons or Pastificio Lab at “Fondazione Cerere” in San Lorenzo (Rome), a site specific installations collecting works by all AIPS members and a bigger one in the center of the room called Chronicle. Considering the mood of the sounds of AIPS members, there are many links to other artists like Fennesz, Ben Frost, Tim Hecker, but now we have something different, we have a focusing network. These days we don’t want to do something that does not belong to us, but something that is connected to the space in which we live.

AIPS | Sleephonia from Gianmarco Del Re on Vimeo.

I am particularly interested in the project “Sleephonia”. Can you tell us more about it?

Alessio & Francesco: ‘Sleephonia’ is project created specifically for a live performance into the amazing scenary of a methodist church in the center of Rome, during the “Chorde Festival” in Rome. We walked the streets of Rome all night to record audio samples and shoot video of the “sleeping city”, atypical sounds for the chaotic Rome.

For such an avant-garde genre, which still wants to keep its sources and materials raw, you are now faced with the almost forced option of digitally storing and using the sources. Is it a contradiction, and if so, how is it solved?

Francesco: In general I think the use of digital tools to “preserve” is a good thing, but as we say during our workshop, no digital storage system is completely safe. I also think that sometimes people confuse us with a library or an ancient public archive. We actually do not store all the sounds collected on our site (sometimes so, like for example in the soundmaps), but above all we store experiences. If you go to the “archive” section of the site you will see all the most important experiences about Soundscaping carried out in Italy.
Alessio: I believe that the Internet is already in itself a large archive, but sometimes too large. I think it’s very important to create archives that deal specifically with certain categories .. and now thanks to the web that has become easier to do.

teaser Bari Sonora from alessio ballerini on Vimeo.

What will you prepare for the Bari workshop?

Alessio & Francesco: For the Bari workshop the “screenplay” includes 2 days to spend between soundwalks, lectures and a final group live performance created by manipulating collected audio samples. After mapping the old town of Bari, members of the workshop will learn to use a software for real-time manipulation of samples and they will perform together during the evening (29th june – 9 p.m.) at the Mediateca Regionale in Bari, under our direction.

What are your next projects?

Alessio & Francesco: As we mentioned, the next step is the setting up of the label called “Oak” We have readied the web platform but the website is not visible at the moment. We are currently working on more releases.

For more information and submissions to “Bari Sonora Workshop”:
www.archivioitalianopaesaggisonori.it

Francesco Giannico
www.francescogiannico.com

Alessio Ballerini
www.alessioballerini.com

KOTOKO: MOTHERHOOD VIEWED BY TSUKAMOTO SHINYA

LDWT — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:25:10 +0000

Kotoko is the new film directed by the visionary cult director Tsukamoto Shinya , born as a collaboration with the Japanese singer-songwriter Cocco, whose songs had already used in the previous Vital (2004), and here instead plays the role of the protagonist, offering different vocal performances, as well as collaborating on the design of the interior décor as production designer.
Kotoko tells the story of a girl suffering from mental disorders that lead her, on the one hand, to forms of very strong self-harm, and on the other hand, to have double vision in which the same person who is in front of her is doubled, one positive and the other, the negative, who tries to hurt her.
Kotoko has just had a child, whose father is unknown.
Her paranoia prevents her from experiencing the otherness with the world that lies outside of her mind, plastically represented by the interior of her house. This difficulty is also developed in the relation with her son: she loves him so deep but this feeling collides with her solipsism, until she imagines to kill him.
In the throes of a nervous breakdown, Kotoko is no longer able to care for her son whome social services rely on her sister.
Only singing appeases her.
The meeting with a successful writer (played by Tsukamoto) who falls in love with her, seems to bring emotional and mental balance in her life, so that social services let her son come back to her. But her strange relationship with the writer, who becomes a victim of her violence, is marked.
The disappearance of the man drives her into madness, in a time when she’s no longer able to distinguish reality from what she watches on TV.
Kotoko is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where her son often goes to visit her. The light of hope has not been turned off.

Winner of “Orizzonti” section at 2011 Mostra in Venice, this film has been presented in Italy in our hometown, Bari, thanks to a good job by Apulia Film Commission, Uzak and Caratteri Mobili together with the University of Bari.
Tsukamoto directed a film in which many of his motifs return: the oppressive and claustrophobic interior, the cement of the buildings, the streets of the suburbs of Japanese megalopolis, the splatter sequences, compulsive and schizophrenic editing of home-made quality images, the abnormity of noise and sounds among which stands out the sound of the friction of metal bodies.
The research, then, of strong aesthetical experience, which has not happened for years now, now is very successful.
But there are also several new features for the cinematography of this Japanese genius. For the first time Tsukamoto directs his gaze to a family relationship, in particuliar between a mother and her little son. The picture he draws is obviously psychoneurotic and alienating.
The anxiety of motherhood and the fear of not being able to protect her own creature amplify Kotoko’s inability to open her world to others, even when the other is a part of herself.
The film is definitely a pearl, and marks a new path for Tsukamoto’s art, a journey that we hope will be long and full of experiences like this that remind us of the strength and authenticity of his origins, of Tetsuo that marked the history of cinema, albeit with certainly more mature shades.
Welcome back Maestro.

Visiti Official Tsukamoto Shinya’s Website

Lasers, smoke and sounds: TOY

LDWT — Tue, 28 May 2013 10:07:07 +0000

In recent months, Toy have established themselves as one of the best new bands to come out of London in years. Having formed around the core of Tom Dougall, Dominic O’Dair and Maxim “Panda” Barron, who had briefly been in the much hyped Joe Lean & the Jing Jang Jong, they started playing live with the help of old friends Charlie Salvidge and Alejandra Diez, getting residency at The Cave Club and The Shacklewell Arms. Theirs is a lysergic yet assured take on psychedelia and krautrock which inevitably has won comparisons with The Horrors; ask them and they will rightly say that rather than a scene, it’s a case of shared attitude and friendship.

Surely, they got Heavenly Recordings’ interest, and the debut single, Left Myself Behind, released in the last days of 2011, sold out its initial pressing of 100 copies in a day. Fast forward to a year later, and you could see their debut album, “Toy”, in almost every magazine’s best-of lists. It’s easy to see why: with crystalline guitars, swirling keyboards, motorik rhythms and the wide-eyed tones of Tom’s voice, they make music which sounds like a discovery, arcane in every turn the voyage takes, infectious in its clear pop sensibility and enthusiasm displayed. While travelling to one of their many gigs, Alejandra kindly talked to us.

How would you describe Toy’s writing and recording process?

We have been collecting songs over the last year and a half, almost two years. That meant being able to record the album very quickly. I think we were the first to be surprised by how fast things went, as we recorded everything last may, just a couple of weeks after “Motoring” was released, fuelled by the great response to the single.

Was it intenational to record your debut so quickly? How was it?

It was intentional, as we all agreed to record the album live. I know it sounds like a very old fashioned idea, but we were all against building each song instrument by instrument. We thought that a live recording would have given a more cohesive feel. Still, we played each song for two or three takes, choosing afterwards which one we preferred. A big deal, nowadays, but remember that The Beatles’ “White Album” was made in 9 days. We took just as much.

And still, “Toy” is one of the most intense and best sounding records I have heard in a long time. What do you think?

We cannot thank Dan [Carey, the producer], enough for it. We have described at the time as the sixth member of the band, though we have known him for years, so first and foremost he is a friend. Before entering the studio, we had long meetings and discussed what we wanted., and he was always full of ideas. I think the best one he came up with was making the recording feel like we were playing a gig; the morning we were entering the studio he went to the shops and bought lasers, strobes and a smoke machine. It got us in the mood quite quickly. We spent 5 or 6 days mixing the record, because having got the energy of the live gig we also wanted to be able to listen to all the different nuances and details, of the recording. Which I guess explains the feeling of a multi-layered sound, as you say. Since then, we have been basically touring non-stop. We like to leave some space to improvisation when playing a gig, so I guess that If we re-recorded the album now, it would sound quite different

Left Myself Behind was a very bold statement as a debut single, lasting almost 8 minutes. And yet, you decided, well, to leave it behind and not include it on your debut album. Why?

When we got to release our first single, Left Myself Behind was our simply favourite song, which means we didn’t have a plan. It was a limited release anyway, and to be honest, the original idea was to include it in the album tracklist but we were limited by space: with all the songs, “Toy” was already an hour long. We couldn’t help but making that choice. Luckily, the single got such a great feedback that Heavenly had to press more and more copies and eventually we decided to give it away as a a free download, so no harm there.

We can hear glimpses of so many different bands, from Neu to My Bloody Valentine. Are you avid music listeners?

We became friends through music, listening and sharing what we liked at the time; what do you think?

The visual side seems to be essential in Toy’s esthetics: initial band photos showed the band against a projection of the band logo and pychedelic colours, Motoring promo video showed you in an empty space, all colourful and multiplied, Lose My Way promo morphs stars into faces’s outlines. Is this intentional?

We did it intentionally, we never wanted to be anything more than a band caught in the act of playing, but free to play that idea with some effects. The video for Lose My Way took about an hour or two to shoot and then all the production was spent into creating the sky behind us. A similar idea that we had already explored on Motoring when the colours were kind of loosely connected to the sounds and instruments that we play. Having said that, with the videos for Make It Mine and Heart Skips A Beat we are more moving towards storytelling.

You have given a couple of songs out for remixes by Andrew Weatherall and Ant Theaker. Would you consider do it yourselves?

We love those and the art of remixing in general. Tom has reworked tracks for Coves and Bo Ningen. We may do it to one of our songs soon

You were described by many as the new band to watch in 2012. Who would you personally pick for 2013?

I think we’d all agree on this one. Charlie Boyer and The Voyeurs.

“Toy” is out now on Heavenly.

toy-band.com

Life Is A Beach: CAYUCAS

LDWT — Fri, 03 May 2013 10:16:54 +0000

Cayucos is a surf town in San Luis Obispo County, California. Santa Monica’s Zach Yudin decided to adopt the name, after twisting it to Cayucas, for the songs that he started writing a couple of years ago. Exotic, yet redolent of beaches, sun, good vibes and girls (obviously), it must have sounded like a statement, a manifesto. Clearly influenced by The Animals and The Beach Boys, and with the help of fellow Secretly Canadian multi-instrumentalist Richard Swift – who, unsurprisingly, has also produced joyful retro-rockers Foxygen – he has just delivered a debut album, “Bigfoot”, which is upbeat but dreamy, drenched in an innocence which was the mark of 60′s pop but sounding incredibly clean and modern. Tales of longing and missed opportunities, sung through sepia-tinted glasses and with a relaxed smile.
Needless to say, songs like East Coast Girl and Cayucos seem to have immediately found a captivated audience, so that Cayucas has become a touring five-piece with the help of his twin brother Ben, Banah Winn, Casey Wojtalewicz and Christian Koons. As they are about to embark on a European tour which will end at Barcelona’s Primavera Sound, we exchanged a few quick words with Zach. Typing these words by a window on a not so sunny day in the north of England, Cayucas’ music sounds even more the promise of a season to come.

First of all, can you give us a little background about Cayucas: how did you start? How did the band come together?

Cayucas started in early 2011. It was just me writing little songs under the moniker Oregon Bike Trails. I ended up signing with Secretly Canadian, and changing the band name to Cayucas. Then recorded the album in 2012, put a band together, and started playing shows.

How did your debut come about? When did you start writing and how was the songwriting process? I have read about you citing sampling old records as a starting point…

I started sampling records in 2008. At that time I was listening to Daft Punk, Justice, French DJ music. I still like sampling all sorts of stuff, for Cayucas I like using 60′s drums mostly.

“Bigfoot” ended up being produced by Richard Swift. How did it happen and how was it?

A couple people recommended him and thought it would be a good pairing. I had been a fan since around ’03 and completely agreed. It just so happened he was on the same record label, so that helped too. One interesting fact is that his recording studio is in Oregon and the entire time the album was recorded I didn’t see the sun once, and it pretty much rained all day everyday.

An obvious reference point, musically and lyrically, is the Beach Boys, but another one that comes to mind is Vampire Weekend in the rhythm sensibilities and breezy harmonies. Personally, I detect a nod or two to The Feelies (the intro to East Coast Girl, in particular). Which would make you a West Coast band in love with the East Coast…

I like The Feelies, but I don’t know their music that well. I am not in love with the East coast, in fact I know nothing about it. It’s basically a foreign country to me. I’ve lived in California my whole life and haven’t really traveled there yet.

You sing “summer’s starting to drift away” and “you should have been my high school lover”; even the band name is incredibly evocative. Is the longing a more treasurable feeling than the actual having/owning?

I think so. When you look back in High School, summer camp etc., it’s nice to think back at all the interesting experiences but I wouldn’t really want to go back now.

Both Cayucos and High School Lover have received a video treatment, the first which looks straight from The Royal Tenenbaums and the other which uses the stop/start motion to great effect. Did you contribute or have any saying in them?

Not really. I did have some ideas for the Cayucos video but I was going for a Goonies vibe. The glitch effect in High School Lover was the idea of the director, I thought it fit the song so went with it.

Finally, something we don’t know about you.

I can say the alphabet backwards, very quickly.

“Bigfoot” is out now on Secretly Canadian.

www.cayucas.com

Tapes’n’Tales: Emiliano Ponzi

LDWT — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:22:33 +0000

“It’s possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language to endow those things – a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring – with immense, even startling power […]”(Raymond Carver, A Storyteller’s Shoptalk, 1981). An artistic oeuvre that can be interpreted as the expression of a stylistic research that aims to explore the complex and stratified field of everyday life through the use of an ordinary language that is essentially plain and devoid of any visual-narrative frills. Qualities like linearity, humour and a refined unpredictability mark the work of the already well-known Italian artist and illustrator Emiliano Ponzi.

A unique work, according to many, based on a perfect graphic combination of different elements and an exemplary result of an accurate and gradual elaboration of images distilling from an idea, an observation, an intuition, as the artist illustrates when talking about his creative process. “Idea – Project – Executive”, he says. “Intuition is the first step, followed by a starting minimum development. This is necessary to test its effectiveness – considering both content and aesthetic value – and evaluate if it can turn itself into a structured project or not. Not every good idea is the right idea, a very important part of my creative process is the exclusion of secondary concepts in order to choose the only ones capable of properly interpreting the subject in question. The client will pick just one out of two or three submissions. This one will be the illustration published on a book, magazine or advertising billboard”.

Alternating moments of smart humour and latently dramatic illustrated sequences, Emiliano Ponzi has rapidly achieved a very personal style, widely recognized, as well as recognizable, in Italy and overseas. “You can’t ignore the global market”, the artist says. “The line on the horizon is not the national one anymore but continues as far as the eye can see. Italy’s marketplace is too small and you can’t stop, not because It lacks qualities or prestigious clients but because the only way to evaluate the universality of your own work is to let it spread over”.

This natural and fierce desire to communicate a message through the use of an immediate and widely accessible expressive code has allowed the artist to establish himself on the global scene. Besides boasting a long and continuous series of international collaborations with various artistic, editorial and advertising realities such as The New York Times, Le Monde, The New Yorker, Time, The Economist, Newsweek, Penguin books, Saatchi&Saatchi New York, La Repubblica, Feltrinelli, Il Sole 24 Ore, Mondadori and Wired, Emiliano Ponzi has also received a series of prestigious awards including the Young Guns Award, three gold medals from the Society of Illustrators New York and the Gold Cube at the ADC 92nd International Annual Awards.

More recently, the young illustrator introduced his original and extraordinary revisitation of Dante’s Inferno to the Bologna audience. Presented during the course of this year’s edition of the BilBOlBul International Comics Festival and hosted at the Corraini MAMbo artbookshop in Bologna, the exhibition included prints taken from the plates created by the artist for one of the volumes of “Un Sedicesimo”, engaging book series edited by Corraini. “Un Sedicesimo is a visual magazine designed to give the artists, which are asked to create something for it, absolute creative freedom”, the artist tells us about the conception and progression of his Inferno series.

“My intention was to give narrative sense to its pages, being unable to write an ad hoc story, I thought to use one of the most famous stories ever. To condense the nine circles of hell from Dante’s Inferno in 16 pages seemed to me a useful stylistic exercise on the one hand and a good practice on content synthesis on the other one: a magnificent work full of specific narrations, details and quotes summarized in a few iconic images. My goal was to imagine a scene in all its smallest communicative elements: analyzing the tables you can notice that it’s not possible to remove any element without losing significance, I worked it till I was left with its bare, essential core”.

Ponzi’s Inferno, an emblematic example of a creative vision that implies bizarre associations, unexpected concurrences and inlaid visual codes naturally alternating within a rather minimal, fluid and evocative composition. The essentialization of forms, combined with the harmonious chromatic solutions, highlights the warm rigour of a manifold and versatile imaginary perfectly in line with the times. “I need to be omnivorous”, the artist emphasizes, “because different and even diametrically opposite stimulations are important to see the various sides of the prism”. As it happens with music, he says, “From Bob Dylan’s early folk to 1990′s dance music, from British pop to Erik Satie’s classical music, all good music sets a pattern for my working hours, setting the mood for different days”.

A fascinating flexibility we rediscover today punctuated by a soundtrack that doesn’t leave room for ephemeral interpretations. It’s our new Tapes’n’Tales. Conceived and compiled for us by Emiliano Ponzi.

1#

ON THE TURNTABLE: The Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

2#

ON THE TURNTABLE: Lola Beltran, “Soy Infeliz”

3#

ON THE TURNTABLE: Goran Bregovic, “Porsuite”

4#

ON THE TURNTABLE: Charles Aznavour, “Les Comédiens”

5#

ON THE TURNTABLE: Emiliana Torrini, “Jungle Drum”

6#

ON THE TURNTABLE: Berlin Symphony Orchestra, “Dance of the sugar plum fairy”

www.emilianoponzi.com

www.corraini.com/10×10

Hatching The Plan (slowly): ANDY STOTT

LDWT — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:23:15 +0000

Sometimes all you need is to slow down. Manchester dj and producer Andy Stott has been active on the techno scene for over ten years, with a number of eps and two albums (2006’s “Merciless” and 20008’s “Unknown Exceptions”), to his name, but 2009’s “Night Jewel” and “Tell Me Anything” marked a clear change, dramatically rendering the frequencies lower and the beats slower. Words like crepuscular, deconstructed, claustrophobic got to be used more frequently in the reviews. As if finally hitting his stride, Stott became more prolific by releasing in 2011 two short albums, “Passed Me By” and “We Stay Together”, that can be considered with hindsight as the true watershed of his production and a preview of things to come.

It’s in “Luxury Problems”, one of 2012’s best albums and released like all his previous work on Modern Love, that the alien ondulations and cavernous stomps seem to melt in a female voice. Stott, for the first time, decided to make good use of the ethereal presence of Alison Skidmore, his former piano teacher. It is quite fitting that the first word to be heard on the record is ‘touch’, a statement and a mantra, as progressively her voice gets rubbed, altered, dissolved in the dense and deep fervor of Stott’s music.
Andy kindly took us through the process of recording the album, being finally free from dayjobs, influences and the city he can never be too far away from.

“Luxury Problems” follows a very prolific 2011 with the release of “Passed Me By” and “We Stay Together”. The three releases, as a whole, sound radically different from your previous work. Did they start as a concept or did you feel the need to keep exploring this slower approach?

I think these tracks from “Passed me by” onwards are a natural progression, my material was beginning to get these vibes on the “Love nothing/Ttell me anything” e.p, that vibe just intensified as I got more into and that gave us “Passed Me By. I felt the same way through the we stay together release but i tried to give it a slightly different slant and around the time i was writing for luxury problems i felt that i had just wrote enough in that slower style to know exactly what i wanted for this next album.

How did the new album develop? The presence of Alison Skidmore makes it sound like a more collaborative effort. Did you feel it was about time to add vocals to your songs?

Again, it felt like a natural progression. The vocal idea was suggested to me, I didn’t like the idea of it at first, but after a while I just thought “well, this could be really interesting”. Alison wasn’t hard to track down at all as she she is a family friend. We started talking about the idea and before you know it, Alison was sending me vocals and I went to work on them right away. From that point on we were bouncing files back and forth, a really nice way to work, was really exciting to see an email from Alison with an attachment to it. It did feel like a collaboration although Alison just sent me vocals and I did what I do with them, she never once gave any input after I had written then tracks. I guess she just trusted me. So yes, it was a collaboration but in a limited nature.

What is most striking about “Luxury Problems” is that the inherent contradiction between the deep, murky, almost sinister music and the soulful, almost etheral voice works even better because each one turns out to beall the more powerful because of this contradiction itself. Would you agree? What do you think?

I agree. I think the balance of it really works, the first thing I used to do when getting a file from Alison was mess around with that on its own and see what I could create just from her voice which was usually this really beautiful wall of sound from her vocal. Then i would simply say to myself “ok, lets smash this to bits”. Simple. In a bizarre way, it seemed to work and even everything out.

Even if the album can sound inspired at various turns by Chicago house, Berlin techno and dubstep, “Luxury Problems” largely eschews the dance floor. Is it a conscious decision? Do you think about ever stopping going slower than 110 bpm?

Of course it has its inspirations, but they are there all the time, it’s something you can’t get away from. I think in a way that’s what makes you write what you write, but for me it was about working with these pieces of you in a way they aren’t meant to be put together. Saying that though, these tracks didn’t sound right any other way, even going back to “Passed Me By”, I tried speeding them up a bit and they just sounded a bit silly to me. I wouldn’t say I think about going slower or faster than 110bpm, those tunes sounded perfect as those tempos. The next thing I do might be 140bpm because to me that’s how it should be. It’s not a conscious decision to set the metronome at 100bpm and say “right, lets do stuff at this pace”.

If you had just to pick one song off the new record, which one would it be and why?

There are a lot of memories attached to this album, I think Leaving will have the most nostalgia attached to it for me. It was a track that was being a bit of a pain, there were a couple of other version of it before I got it down to its bare bones, but also it was one of the tracks that were left to finish so then we could send the album off for mastering. Above all that, it will remind me of when I got the oppertunity to leave my job to go ahead and do music full time which is something I had been trying to do for an age! There is more than that attached to it, I think that will be the track for me in years to come.

Are there any artists you feel close to in style or approach? I have read that the album was mastered at Air Studios with the help of Matt Colton, who has worked with James Blake.

If i’m being honest, I haven’t heard to much new music lately so I’m not really familiar with who it might sound similar too but I feel that I have a similar working style to my labelmates Demdike Stare, although their material is totally different to mine. I think we both want the same reactions from the tracks we are making.

You have been attracting attention far beyond the techno/house community. What do you make of Burial’s comparisons, in terms of crossover potential?

I wouldn’t like to say really, it would be really nice to think that my material has the potential to cross over on that sort of scale but I don’t think I’m quite there…..yet.

To my ears, at least, your music seems to inhabit the same ghost land of Holy Other. You both happen to come from Manchester. Is it just a coincidence or does the city affect your music?

I get asked a lot and I still don’t think I have a proper answer. I don’t think that the city has a direct influence, but I feel I have adopted a similar attitude in my music to which some of the manchester bands have, that kinda no nonsense no messing about approach, but maybe thats just what Manchester is all about.

Can you tell us something about the album (and eps) artwork? I find them both fascinating and incredibly fitting to the music.

I think they are all amazing, they always link really well with the material, it’s another exciting part of the release just to see what sleeves ideas are floating around.

What’s next for you?

I have invested in some new gear in the studio so we’ll see what comes of that. I’m just starting to find some more time to sit down and write these days in-between looking after our little boy and getting my MK1 Escort Mexico restored .

“Luxury Problems” is out now on Modern Love.

modern-love.co.uk/artists/andy-stott

Soldier of a Secret Kingdom: STEPHEN APPLEBY-BARR

LDWT — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:56:43 +0000

Religion, Science, Philosophy and Superstition. Toronto-based artist Stephen Appleby-Barr demonstrates an exceptional ability to (re)create and, above all, manipulate early modern European historical references with infinitesimal doses of humour and intrigue. His ideal vision, inextricably linked to the old masters of the painterly tradition such as Rembrandt, Velázquez and Sargent, continues to evolve and reinvent itself by exploring the connections between classical aesthetics and contemporary art. Set against a backdrop of esoteric secret societies (and possibly crime, robbery or deceit), Stephen Appleby-Barr’s alluring paintings are open to endless interpretations, as illustrated in the darkly and powerfully evocative cover painting created by the artist for the Canadian dark synth-pop duo TRUST. The same unlimited versatility and subtle sense of humour is also strengthened in the artist’s parallel artistic endeavour, Team Macho, a collaborative illustration and fine art project formed by Stephen Appleby-Barr, Lauchie Reid, Chris Buchan, Nicholas Aoki and Jacob Whibley. Today, we sit down with Stephen to find out more about his artistic legacy and intuitions lying at the core of his army of disguised identities.

Hi, Stephen! First of all, would you mind introducing yourself to our readers? What was it like growing up in Toronto and how did your interest in art begin?

Hi Valeria. Sure. I’m a painter based out of Toronto. I studied Illustration at Sheridan college where I learned a lot from a man named Paul Dallas and participated in the formation of an art collective called team macho. Toronto was good to me as a kid. Once I figured out the transit system I realized I could find the best comic book stores and miniture shops. I couldn’t buy anything, but I could look, and if something really struck me, I’d remember it. A good way to discover the direction of one’s taste. This was pre-internet.

Your paintings and works on paper are strongly influenced by Flemish and European Baroque Era. Daguerreotype photography also plays an important role in your creative vision. We’re particularly intrigued by the way you seem to deconstruct some of these main sources of inspiration into a completely new and personal mythology. What draws you so much to the past, Stephen? What does reinvention in art mean to you and how would you describe your creative process? What are some of its most challenging aspects?

I think it’s just a question of taste. I like these old paintings. They say something to me. They suggest things. When I look at them I feel provoked in some way. The era these paintings, sculptures or drawings originate from are almost irrelevant to me. It is what, I suspect, is essential in them that interests me. I get a similar feeling from looking at Lucian Freud, Shary Boyle or Ryan Trecartin. Whatever the form or expression, there is something primary at work. For whatever reason, the Daguerreotypes call me out in this way. It would be criminal not to respond. It’s a conversation. Call and response.

In 2009 you presented a solo show at Narwhal Art Projects titled “The Invisible College”. As the name suggests, the exhibition was directly inspired by the independent organization of natural philosophers whose purpose was to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation in the mid-1600s in Europe. Why did you decide to explore this peculiar theme for this solo show? How do you think it evolved or progressed over the past few years in your personal vision, conceptually and stylistically?

I came across “the invisible college” while researching secret societies. Secret societies were of interest to me since my own college days when, in order to keep the tedium of our surrounding at bay, my friends and I started a “fraternity of frustration” in college. This group later became Team Macho. My solo work began as an attempt to create false documentation to enhance, in my mind, the pedigree of our ideals. Our central thought was to challenge our own expectations but creating a forum for critique and consideration outside of the main group. A place where we could set the bar where we felt it should be and then make endless attempts at clearing it. Heroics ensued. Results varied.

Can you tell us more about the portrait of Owen Pallett in the series?

I met Owen while doing a stint as a go-go dancer and choir boy for the queer folk church outfit “the hidden camera’s”. I love his work. At some point he lived down the hall from my current studio. I asked him if he would sit for a piece involving hemlock and a teacup. He agreed. I tend to approach people who live and work in a way that seems beautiful to me. He is as disciplined as he is sensitive. I have a lot of love for this combination of traits.

The Toronto-based duo TRUST recently unveiled the album cover art for their latest single “Heaven” which features an original portrait you created of the artist Robert Alfons. First of all, how did this collaboration with Trust come about? Where did the inspiration for Heaven artwork come from and how long did it take to actually paint this cover?

Aw, Robert’s great. I’ve painted his bandmate Carolyn Gordon a few times. I’ll probably try to paint her for the rest of my life. It was probably about a year ago that I asked Robert if he would sit. Carolyn was listening to a rough cut of something he had made and I was excited by what I was hearing. This was before he had released anything. As they were preparing to publish, Robert reminded me that I’d asked him to sit and suggested the results be used for some release.

The first record I listened to on repeat was the B-side of Bowie’s “Low”. I would stare at the cover trying to figure out what I was listening to. I think I was eight at the time. These things tend to catch up with you.

Stephen, you’re also known as a member of the illustration and fine art collective called Team Macho. What have you learned from this experience about working in a team and how has it contributed to your style and vision?

Oh, lots of things. The lesson that occurs to me right now is that the silliest thing one can do is to become overly serious about one’s own work. Nothing is so boring than something that ceases to play. With Team Macho, the direction of your work is not fixed. It can be taken off into unexpected directions the second you step away from the piece. Results may vary. The only sin is insincerity.
I carry these ideas with me when considering my own work. Trying not to be too tight or controlled about what gets into the work. Letting things change as they feel they need to. The work is a vehicle for sensation. If the original plan for the piece is compromising its ability to respond to new and unexpected signals, then forget the plan. Holding on too tightly to any idea of what I think the work should look like is akin to a power trip. Not healthy. Makes things brittle. Personally, this is what makes me uncomfortable about the idea of constructing a style. I aspire to be vigilant on this point with myself.

How did you guys approach the piece created for the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2012? Can you tell us more about the Axis Mundi installation?

I think it went really well! The first time I saw it being interacted with was such a thrill. Children were crawling all over it, drawing on it and generally freaking out. The cave seemed to have the most profound affect on them. It was practically destroyed within an hour. I still smile when I think of it. I’m not sure what the audience got out of the experience, but for us it was an opportunity to produce a physical representation of literary archetypes in public place.

What are you working on right now? Do you have any upcoming projects planned?

Team Macho is doing some projects in Quebec right now. Something with UQAM and then Art Papier through Narwhal Art Projects. I have a show at Nicholas Metivier Gallery in October. Most of my thoughts are with that project. Paintings, etchings and an installation. The work is getting really exciting. I’m giddy with a sense of risk. It’s all very engaging.

Lastly, If you could travel back in time and duel someone, who would it be and why?

Thomas Edison. Over the honor of Nicola Tesla. Or, whoever it was who was responsible for persecuting Alan Turing.

www.metiviergallery.com/stephen-appleby-barr

www.teammacho.com

Graham Nash: Life on the Road

LDWT — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:14:51 +0000

Showing through May 26th at Proud Camden, Life on the Road is a stunning photographic collection of personal and intimate portraits taken by internationally renowned English singer-songwriter and political activist Graham Nash, founding member of the Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash. This photographic series, spanning from 1969 to 2003, showcases a unique selection of street photographs and portraits of family and friends featuring Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, David Crosby and other legendary musicians of the 1970s.

“I sense the very same energy in photography that I find in music”, Nash said. “Through these rock ’n’ roll photos we are conveying what is so difficult to put into words: how the spirit of rock ’n’ roll is mainly an attitude; an attitude of ‘get out of my way, I have something to say here.’ Whether you’re a country singer, a pop, rock, blues, or gospel singer, it makes little difference to the unceasing eye of the camera”.

Image cover: © Graham Nash, Self Portrait, Plaza Hotel, 1974

© Graham Nash, Joni Listening To Music, 1969

© Graham Nash, Judy Collins and Stephen Stills, Sag harbour, New York, 1969

© Graham Nash, Neil at Stephen’s House, Studio City, 1970

© Graham Nash, Neil Driving Home, Northern California, 1988

© Graham Nash, Sandy Mazzeo, Calli and Nash at a funfair in Southampton, 1974

© Graham Nash, David & Christine listening to the first playback of Judy Blue Eyes at Heider Studios

© Graham Nash, Neil Young in his studio in Northern California, 1988

Graham Nash: Life on the Road runs until May 26^th 2013 at Proud Camden in London.

www.grahamnash.com

www.proudonline.co.uk

Exhibit Openings: Interview w/Elzo Durt + 108

LDWT — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:14:17 +0000

Haunting geometrical compositions, vibrant colours and a sparkling labyrinth of art pieces ranging from a bizarre and provocative surrealism to a gloomy and abstract minimalism were some of the hallmarks of the double solo show recently opened at Doppelgaenger, in Bari, and featuring works by Italian artist and musician 108, aka Guido Bisagni, and Elzo Durt, Belgian illustrator whose swirling psychedelic graphic style is often associated with posters and album covers designed for the likes of Thee Oh Sees and Jack of Heart.

Entitled Crossroad #1, the exhibition refers to “a possible crossing of two different artistic trails, risen from the street but, however, separated” as mentioned in the press release. “The panorama of urban art, prominently evolved during the last ten years, from media, academic and institutional point of view. Usually attributable to graffiti and street art, develops sequences of application and phenomenon, different from its original, pure and well-known characteristics. But, at the same time, it reveals stylistic performances from ‘900, or earlier, avant-garde. The gallery will be reviewing a double prospective of this versatility. Even if artists’ heritage comes from the same urban background, they achieve in a really different style. 108’s works, remind to abstract art and to a survey between geometrical and spatial thematic, supported by theoretical work Abstract Graffiti, by Cedar Lewisohn. Elzo Durt, graphic designer and musician, typifies his silk screen printings with disparate characters and themes; a sort of psychedelic, Flemish, arcimboldo’s style set”.

Crossroad #1 will be on view through April 20^th, 2013 at Doppelgaenger in Bari. Take a look at our photo-gallery from the exhibition’s opening reception and watch our exclusive interviews with 108 and Elzo Durt.

Directed by Love and Dishwasher Tablets
Edited by Nico Murri
Music by LIFE & LIMB

www.108nero.com

www.elzodurt.be

www.doppelgaenger.it