The upheavals sweeping the Arab world have arrived in Jordan. In the wake of protests King Abdullah abruptly fired his entire cabinet. Yet another autocrat appears ready to fall as something extraordinary takes hold of the region.
Awesome simplicity in the flickr portfolio of Horizon Fire, aka Paul Tebbott.
Mexican illustrator, known only as El Grand Chmaco has a cool little collection of vector-styled posters and typography. Loads of personality.
A great grip of illustrations and animation by Irish illustrator Eoin Ryan who is based in London. Recent Clients include Wallpaper, GQ Magazine, New Scientist and Wired Magazine.
The Spanish collective Canada has yet again turned out an incredible music video, this time for the Northern Irish band Two Door Cinema Club’s ‘What You Know’, off their debut album Tourist History. The song is pretty damn catchy and the art direction for the video is spot on, featuring a chorus line of dancing girls that all look like they stepped out of Barcelona in 1986. Directed by Lope Serrano and produced by Partizan.
Brothers Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramirez, aka The Date Farmers, are the shiznit of the art world at the moment, blowing up all over the place. The duo incorporates found objects, commercial ephemera and Mexican folk art that is a bit of a mash up of Basquiat and Barry McGee. There’s a cool video of the duo in action over at Current TV. They really are (or were) date farmers from Indio, a dusty farm town to the east of Los Angeles.On exhibit now at the ACE Gallery in LA through March.
You have to give it up to Grace Jones. The woman’s got grit.
Released in 2008 off her album Hurricane, Corporate Cannibal pretty much sums up the scene in America that has defined our era. “You’re my life support. Your life is my sport.” I fully expect Grace to be cranking it out well into retirement age and giving me chills.
Sometimes you come across so much good stuff all at once it’s hard to know where to look. Such is the case with this little treasure over at yourstru.ly, an oh-so-very SF music and film blog that features the work of my new art crush, Heidi Petty. Also based in San Francisco, Petty’s work is a great aesthetic blend of woolly film stock and digital, although the stand out is this intimate piece for Toro Y Moi, aka Chazwick Bundick (seriously?).Mr. Bundick’s music is on pretty heavy rotation here at the CTT studio. That chillwave vibe was definitely the trend of 2010, but damn it melts your core. So check the vid, give a nod to Brian Wilson, the originator of multi-layered chill and enjoy some good old fashioned music and video.
Off of their 4th LP titled LP4 (what else) from XL Recordings, Ratatat’s own Evan Mast, aka E*vax, delivers a totally stupid surreal bit of awesomeness starring Fellini, Mike Stroud’s pet parakeet. The band is currently on tour in Australia…stay dry, Fellini.
