Microphones: “Solar System” Video

To fall asleep to. Via P4KTV:

King Khan & The Shrines: “Torture” MP3

King Khan & The Shrines is a real band. Raw and hyper-talented. Bringing to mind the best of 60s garage-punk. They are friends with Black Lips Their new album, “The Supreme Genius Of…”, comes out June 17th. Great aesthetic - musically, visually, and otherwise. I love what they are about. Can’t wait for this album to come out and to catch them live on 7/10 at the Echo. Get a bunch of their songs here and here. Also watch the video below.

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King Khan & The Shrines: “Torture”

Black Lips: “It Feels Alright” Video

Great song from one of my favorite bands currently making music. Some great context via Hypebeast:

The most recent video and single “It Feels Alright” from last year’s album is an ode to the most famous strip club in Atlanta “Magic City”. Already immortalized in several hip hop songs, the band takes on the subject without any tongue in cheek sarcasm but rather a full on anthem to getting drunk and riding down Peachtree street for a night of debauchery. The video is a black and white tour guide to Atlanta and of course some well appreciated obligatory shots of the gyrating dancers from the club. Let’s just hope next time you’re at Magic City you hear this blasting through the speakers.

War/Humanity

Not a pleasant way to start your Sunday - an incredibly provocative piece that evokes a bevy of emotions: sadness, anger, frustration, despair, depression, confusion, hollowness, conflict. Via SLOG.

Uncontacted Tribe in the Amazon

The power of the image. From National Geographic (via BB):

“We are very confident the photos are genuine,” said Miriam Ross, a spokesperson for Survival International, which estimates that half of the hundred or so uncontacted tribes in the world live in the rain forests of Brazil and Peru.

Some experts say few, if any, tribes have had no outside contact. It’s more likely is that previous generations had negative encounters, prompting social taboos that continue to drive clans deeper into isolation.

Due to their vulnerable immune systems, these groups are highly susceptible to diseases borne by outsiders such as missionaries, loggers, or oil workers.

MGMT: “Electric Feel” Video

My favorite song off of Oracular Spectacular gets the video treatment and ends up looking like a cross between Fern Gully and the rave scene from The Matrix: Reloaded. Weird.

Pete Rock

Via Line Out. Beauty out of nowhere. This is what a master-of-their-craft sounds like.

Chikita Violenta: “Laydown” Video

I don’t know anything about Chikita Violenta except they are from Mexico City, have an album out produced by David Newfeld of Broken Social Scene fame, and have an awesome 8mm-oriented video for their song “Laydown”. Via The FADER (who may or may not have just ruined the Lost Season 4 finale for me):


Chikita Violenta, “Laydown” from The FADER on Vimeo.

“Flashing Lights” Video(s) and Kanye West

This is the first video they shot for “Flashing Lights” (mine and seemingly everyone’s favorite song off Graduation). It is cool, but not nearly as cool/interesting as the Spike Jonze directed video. Also not as interesting as the other video they shot for the song. Obviously KW wanted to get the visual component for the song right but a couple of questions come to mind:

    a) Would an artist without the financial capital of Kanye be able to go at it for three takes, only one of which looks like it didn’t cost a ton of money (Spike Jonze can’t come cheap, even if the video is simple)?
    b) What kind of artistic vision does Kanye have to recognize that both other videos, which are certainly rad, could be improved upon by making a video that has very little ‘flair’ to it?
    c) Kanye has always been one of my favorite artists simply because he is so contradictory in terms of being hyper-boisterous and hyper-self-deprecating. I think all of these videos showcase this contradiction in a variety of ways.

Nonetheless it is interesting to see the process develop over these three different videos. And let’s not forget about this.

Add-Art Firefox Plugin

The Add-Art Firefox plugin is something of true beauty. Replaces the ads on most websites with pictures of a particular piece of art. Wonderful. Via Rhizome:


Introduction to Add-Art from Steve Lambert on Vimeo.