Changethethought

Here is the copy from Vimeo about this video:
“Radiohead held an online contest to remix “Nude” from their album – “In Rainbows” This was quite a difficult task for all the electronic musicians that entered, as Nude is in 6/8 timing, and 63bpm. Most music that’s played in clubs is around 120bpm and usually 4/4 timing. It’s near impossible to mix a waltz beat into a DJ set.

This resulted in lots of generic entries consisting of a typical 4/4 beat, but with arbitrary clips from “Nude” thrown in so that they qualified for the contest.

Thom Yorke joked at the ridiculousness of it in an interview for NPR radio, hinting that they set the competition “for a laugh” and to find out what would come out of such an impossible task.

I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit.

Based on the lyric (and alternate title) “Big Ideas: Don’t get any” I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they’re trying their best to do something that they’re not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.

It doesn’t sound great, as it’s not supposed to.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum – Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer – Drums
HP Scanjet 3c – Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array – Act as a collection of bad speakers – Vocals & FX ”

You kind of have to wait this one out for a bit but once it gets rolling its absolutely brilliant. What a great idea.

written by Christopher | tags: In Rainbows, Music, Nude, Radiohead, Vimeo

This new video for the single “Pork and Beans” off of the new Weezer “Red Album” dropping June 3rd made me realize all over again why I love this band. The video is a massive collage of all the internet all stars from the last few years.

The video and the song kick ass. Double whammy style.

written by Christopher | tags: Music, Pork and Beans, Red Album, Weezer

The Whitest Boy Alive was far and away one of my favorite music purchases of last year. I still listen to the album all the time. It’s a truly memorable album. I saw the video for my favorite song off the album at a film festival last year but never thought to seek it out on Youtube. The video was animated by the very talented Geoff McFetridge. He has the kind of style you either like or don’t but I happen to really like the video. The song is one of my favorite songs from last year.

written by Christopher | tags: Geoff McFetridge, Golden Cage, Music, The Whitest Boy Alive

If you didn’t know already Scott Hansen, of ISO50 fame also produces music under the name Tycho. His music draws influence from Boards Of Canada but it is every bit his own and is always a good listen. Scott is inarguably one of the most talented designers out there right now and the album cover for his new single is fantastic. The single / b-side entitled “Adrift / From Home” will be out next Tuesday, May 27th, 2008. You can hear some samples below and read more on the always inspirational ISo50 blog.

written by Christopher | tags: Adrift From Home, Iso50, Music, Scott Hansen, Tycho

A coworker turned me on to La Blogotheque today. It is a really extraordinary site where you can watch impromptu music videos and previously recorded live performances from some of the best musicians out there. Vampire Weekend’s performance was particularly impressive. The site really is amazing. It is in French so I would encourage you Americans, like myself, to click around until you uncover all the content that’s on the table. One part of the site that you absolutely cannot miss is the “Concerts A Emporter” section. There are some really exciting performances there.

Why don’t we have anything like this stateside yet? It’s a brilliant idea. This site makes me want to get out there and see more shows. It’s perfect for a Friday afternoon.

written by Christopher | tags: Indy Rock, La Blogotheque, Music

I have been waiting for some time now for Santo Gold to release her first album. It was finally released this week and it does not disappoint in any way shape or form. It’s a genre-bending album in every sense drawing from be best of pop, 80’s, rasta, hip-hop and rock. I first herd Santo Gold on Mark Ronson’s album Version. Her single, titled ‘Pretty Green’ really jumped out and me and I made sure to make note of her and watch for what she did next. There has been buzz around her for a while now and she has been making appearances just about everywhere.

Her new album is self titled and full of good music from front to back to back to front. There aren’t really any really weak tracks on the album and that is always refreshing. Head over to her MySpace page for a listen or watch the video above to hear the first track from the new album. If you are feeling it like I am, its an easy download off of iTunes.

written by Christopher | tags: Genre bending, Mark Ronson, Music, Pop, Santo Gold

Wow, this video is cool. I love Boards of Canada and this video for Everything You Do is a Balloon is fantastic, weird but fantastically so. The video splices in samples from “One Got Fat,” a (1963) bicycle safety movie. I have been a fan of the Scottish music duo, comprised of brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin for several years now. If you haven’t heard of them, take the time to look them up and do yourself a favor and buy one of their albums. They are mellow, but well worth the price of a CD or download.

written by Christopher | tags: Boards of Canada, Everything you do is a balloon, Music

Adult Swim, who gained fame with their efforts to promote and support the likes of Dangermouse and MF Doom have released a new album of electronica that is available for free. I actually downloaded all of it myself and gave it a listen this morning before I thought I would write a post about it. The album is titled, ‘Ghostly Swim’. You can download it free here. It is surprisingly good. There are some really great tracks on the album and it is a really quality album to be giving away. The very first track is good and it kicks the album off strong and the album closes out well too with some good smooth tracks near the end. The album is a collaborative effort of several artists including Tycho (the musical stylings of design hero ISO50). Overall, you can’t beat something this good for free. Download it and enjoy. The album also comes with an image of the album art depicted above.

written by Christopher | tags: Adult Swim, Free Download, Ghostly Swim, Music

The new Mates of State video for the single ‘Get Better’ off of their upcoming album entitled, ‘Re-Arrange Us’ just hit the net. The full album is set for a mid-May release. Their last album was released in 2006. The new video was directed by Daniel Garcia, who also works as a designer and art director.

Here is the track list for Re-Arrange Us:
01 Get Better
02 Now
03 My Only Offer
04 The Re-Arranger
05 Jigsaw
06 Blue and Gold Print
07 Help Help
08 You Are Free
09 Great Dane
10 Lullaby Haze

And here are some upcoming tour dates:
05-25 George, WA – Gorge Amphitheatre (Sasquatch Festival)
05-28 Los Angeles, CA – Henry Fonda Theater
08-08-10 Jersey City, NJ – Liberty State Park (All Points West Festival)

written by Christopher | tags: Daniel Garcia, Get Better, Mates of State, Re-Arrange Us

I just have to write about the Melbourne, Australia-based band Cut Copy’s new album, In Ghost Colours. I bought it this week and I just can’t stop listening to it. I think I have listened to it about 20 times already and I just can’t get enough of it. It seems to take everything I loved about 80’s new wave and combine it with everything I love about indy rock. It makes me tap my feet and want to get up and dance. It wasn’t until I did a little homework that I also found that this band has a design twist.

Cut Copy began in 2001 as a project of front man Dan Whitford. In 2003 he joined forces with Tim Hoey (guitar/bass/backing vocals/sampler) and Mitchell Scott (drums). In 2005 they began touring internationally, opening for bands like Franz Ferdinand, Junior Senior, Bloc Party and Mylo. Last year they toured Australia opening for Daft Punk on the Neverland tour. Apparently the Sydney leg of the tour hosted an audience of 50,000 strong. Cut copy is signed to Modular Recordings who has also signed Wolfmother and the New Young Pony Club.

If you are not a fan of the 80’s, you probably won’t like this album. If you like to get up and dance, have fun and don’t mind listening to something poppy and optimistic, then this album is a winner. I absolutely love it and as I said, I just cannot get enough of it. It’s the best album I have purchased in a long time and my favorite so far this year.

You can listen to more tracks from the album at Cut Copy’s MySpace page and buy gear from their online store. You can also keep track of the band via their blog.

So after all of that, you are still asking, ‘Where is the design twist?’ Well Cut Copy frontman Dan Whitford is also a graphic designer. You can read more about the design endeavours of Dan Whitford on his page at Modular here. He founded a creative studio called Altar in Australia while working on his music. You can see Altar’s work at their website.

Talk about serious talent, Cut Copy has it in spades. Good music and design. I’m sold.

written by Christopher | tags: Altar, Cut Copy, Dan Whitford, In Ghost Colours, Melbourne, Music

A fellow Denverite, Anthony Cozzi who has worked under the name Snowblinded for some time now has started a record company called Plastic Sound Supply. They have just released their first CD entitled, ‘The Reprogramming Project‘. The clincher is that they released a video for the 8th track on the album (Scaffolding – Rebuild (Cacheflowe Remix) and the video has apparently been the most popular video this week at XLR8R. That is a pretty exciting accolade for a first video and Anthony is really excited.

You can view the video above. Congratulations Anthony.

written by Christopher | tags: Anthony Cozzi, Music, Snowblinded, The Reprogramming Project, XLR8R

The new Portishead album entitled, ‘Third’ drops April 29th. You can view the video from the latest release off the album entitled, ‘Machine Gun.”

I am a long time fan and I have no doubt there will be something worth listening to on the new album. It’s been 10 years since their last album. They will also be playing a series of live shows in the UK, throughout Europe and the U.S. to promote it’s release.

The album is being released on Island Records. It weighs in at 11 tracks and 49 minutes and 13 seconds. Portishead was one of the most influential British bands of the 90’s. Their album ‘Dummy’ released in 1994 and 1997’s self-titled album defined a new music genre dubbed ‘Trip-hop’. Other than a charity event in 2005 and a secret show mid-2007 there has been little seen of the band. They are coming out of hiding in a big way now, as you can see by the show dates below:

March Tour Dates
26 – Porto, Portugal (Coliseum)
27 – Lisbon, Portugal (Coliseum)
30 – Milan, Italy (Alcatraz)
31 – Florence, Italy (Sashall)

April Tour Dates
2 – Munich, Germany (Tonhalle)
3 – Berlin, Germany (Columbiahalle)
4 – Copenhagen, Denmark (KB Halle)
6 – Cologne, Germany (Palladium)
7 – Amsterdam, The Netherlands (HMH)
9 – Manchester, England (Apollo)
10 – London, England (Hammersmith Apollo)
11 – Edinburgh, Scotland (Corn Exchange)
13 – Wolverhampton, England (Civic)
17 – Brixton, England (Brixton Academy)
26 – Indio, California (Coachella Festival)

May Tour Dates
5 – Paris, France (Zenith)
29-31 – Barcelona, Spain (Primavera Sound Festival)

The band will be webcasting a performance of eight tracks from the new album on their website tomorrow. Current TV has scheduled to air the performance eleven hours after the debut on Portishead’s website. You will be able to view it there until after the official U.S. release on April 29th. It’s an interesting idea and presents good fodder for the already circulating argument as to whether the band is still relevant after a decade long hiatus.

written by Christopher | tags: Machine Gun Video, Music, Portishead, Third

Michel Gondry teamed up with his brother, yes he has a brother who is a video editor, to shoot a video for the French electronica band Lacquer. They mounted a camera on the backseat of a convertible to capture a cross country trip from the coast of Los Angeles to the streets of New York. Shot on 16mm film, they captured one frame every second during daylight and then one frame every 10 seconds at night. The video lasts 4 minutes and entails the entire trip over the course of seven days and nights. The song is also very good.

You could file this under the ‘why hasn’t anyone done this yet’ category. When you first see it this is the first thought that enters the mind and that is exactly why Gondry is a genius because he did do it.

written by Christopher | tags: Lacquer Music Video, Michel Gondry, Music, Olivier Gondry

Uber popular Music review portal and all around command center, Pitchfork Media has released a beta version of their online music network Pitchfork TV. There is already some great content on display including the fantastic new video Graveyard Girl video for the new album release from M83.

written by Christopher | tags: M83, Music, Pitchfork Media, Pitchfork TV

The new Bjork video that one of our other Editors, Celeste wrote about earlier last week premiered today. The video was directed by the maddeningly creative minds at Encyclopedia Pictura. It really is an amazing video but then again so is pretty much every single video that has ever been produced for Bjork. She is a crazy little woman and that is why I love her so much.

You can now view the video in higher resolution via Motionographer here. There is also a nice ‘making of’ video available here at YouTube.

written by Christopher | tags: Bjork, Encyclopedia Pictura, Motion Graphics, Music, Wanderlust Video

The Canadian Indie Rock/Folk Collective The Acorn released their new album Glory Hope Mountain in early March. “Flood Pt. 1″ is the first video release promoting the album and it is worth noting as a fine piece of art as well. The video was directed by Christopher Mills. Apparently Mills hasn’t really been on the music video scene for a few years now since his earlier work with a few of my favorite bands like Broken Social Scene and Interpol. The video is very unusual and puts in the work to help deliver on the narrative of the strangely driving if not somewhat tribal song. Production-wise it appears to be mostly 3d but the weaving in of analog accents like sketches and fine art give it a more visceral and dreamlike quality. It is definitely one of the most interesting and original videos I have seen so far this year.

written by Christopher | tags: Canada, Flood Part 1, Indie Rock, Music, Music Videos, The Acorn

A new Gnarls Barkley video for the single “Run”, one of my personal favorites off of their new album The Odd Couple has been out on the airwaves for a few weeks now. One of our readers was nice enough to alert my attention to the fact that there is also a video out for the song. The video was directed by HAPPYduo Richard Farmer and Guy Shelmerdine. The video is a bit of an homage to American Bandstand and includes B boys and girls getting freaky. It starts with Justin Timberlake who also makes a few vocal contributions to the album as well.
The video has also been labeled as potentially seizure-inducing. This clip came straight from the Gnarls Barkley website: “Contrary to rumor, MTV and VH1 censors did not reject the video because of liability issues related to strobe effects and seizures. ‘Initially, there were fears the video was going to fail the Harding Test,’ says a spokesperson for the band. ‘But, for the moment, indications lead us to believe the video passed.”Well, I personally guarantee that the video is better than that seizure-inducing Olympics video. So judge for yourself at your own risk.

written by Christopher | tags: Gnarls Barkley, Happy, Music, The Odd Couple

I purchased the new Gnarls Barkley album this week the second it was available. I was a big hip-hop (back then we called it rap) fan when I was in highschool. I have to admit, I think the genre has slipped a lot since then. Back then, it was the new ‘anti’. It was more rock than rock and roll. If you were a rebel, you listened to rap as much as you listened to grunge. When I was younger they didn’t rap about Cadillac Escalades and stock portfolios. They rapped about selling drugs, getting beat down by the cops and living on the street. Ironically, it was from this very same lifetime that Gnarls vocalist Cee-lo (Thomas Callaway) first emerged. Cee-lo first entered the music scene as part of the Atlanta hip-hop group Goodie Mob which had a large hand in the Dirty South Movement of the 1990s. He left the group after their third album to embark on his solo career in 1999. After releasing 2 of his own albums he eventually parlayed his individual success into what is now Gnarls Barkley. Combining his unique style with multi-instrumentalist and producer Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) from New York, who was straight off a successful stint for his work on Gorillaz‘ Grammy winning album Demon Days that was preceded by his Grey Album, which blended samples from Jay-Z‘s The Black Album and the Beatles‘ White Album. No one wants to call an album a ‘sure-thing’ in the music industry anymore but the combination of the two enormous talents was as close as you could get. Downtown Records knew they had a hit on their hands when Danger Mouse presented them with the song Crazy. After sealing the deal with two Grammy awards in 2007 for Best Urban/Alternative Performance (“Crazy”) and Best Alternative Music Album (St. Elsewhere), the rest you could say is history.

So you ask, what is the new album like? Well, in my humble opinion, it is every bit as good if not much better than the first. It is known throughout the music industry that there are few things more difficult than releasing a sophomore album that can live up to the success of a great first album. On Gnarls new album, the Odd Couple, it feels like they have found their sound and also become totally confident with their style. The mixing on the album is some of Danger Mouse’s finest work so far. Cee-lo’s vocals harken back to the glory days of Motown, with a touch of roaring 20’s vaudevillian panache. I cannot stop listening to track 4, ‘Run (I’m a Natural Disaster)’. Don’t get me wrong though, great songs abound on this album and you can easily sit down and listen from start to finish with zero disappointment in between.

I felt on their last album that since the project was a bit of an experiment, some of the songs were over reaching and hit or miss. The Odd Couple is no experiment, it is an exercise in confident bravado. As an old friend of mine used to say, usually right before we were almost arrested, “It’s all good”. That exactly what the new Gnarls Barkley album is. With cover art commissioned by Big Active and completed with loving artistic care by rising-star designer Siggi Eggertson, it may even be an album that inspires you to refrain from downloading and actually make a much needed pilgrimage to the record store.

No one paid me to say this, download or not, go buy it now and be happy. It will make you so.

written by Christopher | tags: Gnarls Barkley, hip hop, Music, The Odd Couple