Filed under: photo of the day
Some office bikes
Filed under: art
The work of Southern California artist Justin Bartlett is dark, twisted and evil. It has a beautiful naive twist to it as if it was scratched into the walls of a sanitarium. Go over to his site and check out his extensive body of work. I could spend hours looking at the detail in this work. Justin, I officially jock your shit homie. Here’s a blurb from Justin’s about section: “Inspired by religious and theological conflicts, environmental decay, and man’s inhumanity, the pen-wielder spends hours and hours obsessing on every last detail.”
Filed under: music
This week: A lot of Metal, Black Metal, Thrash Metal… oh yeah and maybe even some gothy synthpop? Weird
Mgla – Groza (2008)
This is a black metal release from Mgla from last year. As far as black metal albums go they absolutely nailed their sound. It’s perfectly twisted, evil and melodic. It doesn’t hurt that they have an incredible album cover as well. Mgla (Fog in Polish) also have some great lyrics: “Lo and behold: the finely crafted, Precise mechanism of sheep and scapegoat. Relative within the borders of universal logic. Collective confidence in moral permanency.” For those of you that can get down with some great Black Metal I highly recommend this one.
Fukpig – Spewings from a Selfish Nation
Definitely topping my charts for most brutal crust infected grindcore massacre with just a bit of black metal is Fukpig. One of the strongest and hardest pieces of grindcore mayhem to be released in a while. I’m sold on these guys across the board. I love the way they mix the deeper death metal style vocals with higher black metal shrieks of terror. Be careful with this one, it may make you smash or set fire to everything in sight.
Cold Cave - Death Comes Close 12″
Following their full release entitled Love Comes Close, goth pop rockers Cold Cave released this 12″ entitled Death Comes Close on Matador. As usual, Matador is still putting out some of my favorite releases around. This 12″ is no exception. I actually like some of these songs more that their full length. Cold Cave won’t be fore everyone but if you like the very goth inspired synthpop sound with a lot of lo-fi instrumentation give them a try. Good stuff.
Slayer – World Painted Blood
Ok, now it’s time to get to the big guns. If I need to explain who or what Slayer are, you should just stop reading now. In my opinion Slayer paved the way for the true trash/speed metal genre. They set a stage for evil metal across the globe and have been one of the most consistent bands of all. This album is no different. If you like Slayer this is another 11 song album to add to your collection. One song after the next of nonstop trash guitars and heavy drums, brutal vocals. They continue their overt criticism of human culture, politics and of course… GOD! They hate him! They love SATAN dummy! A standout track is Hate Worldwide, this song defines what metal is to me. I saw Slayer live when I was 11 years old, that performance and what took place when they played can only be described as absolute chaos done with laser technical accuracy. They are the GOAT!
Filed under: photography
The work of Desiree Dolron is many things; it’s soft at times, emotive and incredibly beautiful. Her Exaltation series is one of the most impressive photo series I’ve seen.
Filed under: art
I’m really digging these new French prints. Highly considering purchasing one or two of them. They are for sale on the Archipelago site.
Filed under: photography
Great moments captured in this portfolio by Pierluigi Riccio.
Filed under: art
One of my favorite NYC artists, Neckface, drops a new book entitled “THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT.” The book looks filled with inspiring artwork and photography. I am a big fan of Neckface’s work and always look forward to seeing new inspiring pieces pop up from here to Tokyo. You don’t need to be from NYC to appreciate how original and talented this body of work is. Long live Neckface!
Go purchase THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT here
More book previews after the jump.
Filed under: photography
Hugh Lippe, born and raised in Texas. His background lies within the arts. Since graduating from Rhode Island School of Design, he has had numerous group and 6 one man shows. His work is exhibited at Rare Gallery in Chelsea, New York and survived in many private collections. His rural background brings a unique edge to his approach with the camera. Hugh currently lives and works out of New York City. Make sure to check out his sketchbook too, great stuff.
Filed under: music
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve gotten a solid music roundup in. I’m back from vacation in Tokyo though so here’s a few albums that I’m really into right now. Again, I’m not reviewing them, just recommending them.
I’ve been waiting on this one for a while. One of the best Hardcore/Metal bands of today with another solid release through and through. If you don’t like Converge you won’t be swayed to all of a sudden listening to their music. But if you’re a fan you will have another album to add to your iPod. Converge has always been one of those bands whose energy is undeniable. I love to listen to them when I’m biking through the city, snowboarding or running in the morning. They are a constant onslaught on your ears and as always bring well written choruses and lyrics. Highly recommended for the non-soft listening fans.
Excoriate – On Pestilent Winds…
Excoriate: a verb, meaning to censure or criticize severely. Two things I’m not really going to do because this album was such a pleasant surprise to me. I had expected it to meld in with all of my other recent metal releases, but this one completely exceeded my expectations. There’s a few main reasons behind this; one being the vocals are so fucking solid and different and the guitars somehow draw the line between thrash and death metal so perfectly. I was trying to describe them to a friend and said that it’s almost like Lemmy yelling into a megaphone. On their myspace page Excoriate puts it bluntly as their status reads “What kind of Core are you guys?” That sums it all up in my book, who fucking cares. There is also a Sepultura cover of Mayhem which made me even happier.
On a way more chill note, Washed Out released another cassette release entitled High Times. As they tend to do, they only released like 200 of them on white/clear cassettes, so they are sold out. You’ll probably have to find some other mysterious way of listening then? (Google?) Either way, it’s a great release, whateverthefuck kind of fi they’re calling it these days. Olivia is by far my favorite track, with it’s 80s retro, dance, love. Belong and Good Luck are also great. Highly Recommended!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Big win last night! Cliff Lee blew my mind once again. Utley did what he does. Let’s go boys!!!
Filed under: film
I finally saw this movie on my flight back from Tokyo. I couldn’t believe how much I loved this movie. Parts of it had me laughing out loud, others had me noticing it’s relevance even today. I love the style in the movie as well. This is by far one of those movies that I could watch again and again.
Filed under: art
I am so into a lot of modern Japanese artists these days. I love the figurative abstraction with bright pop-inspired color. A lot of grittiness and texture but still clean. Hiro Kurata is one of those artists I liked right away. Something still in line with Matzu and Murakami, maybe I’m just in a very baseball inspired mood.
Hiro Kurata is an artist who is based in Brooklyn, New York.
One of the characteristics that makes Kurata’s painting unique is the way he renders his figures with distortion but yet well balanced. The figures looking innocent and strong are often portrayed as a baseball player, heroes from the Greek myths or comical characters from animation works. Kurata spent his childhood going back and forth between the U.S and Japan. The cultural differences between those places have been a natural source for the themes in his paintings. He skillfully digests the gaps between the two countries and expresses it in his work with a sense of cynicism. Depicted in bright pastel colors, the disproportioned figures simultaneously show confidence and sickness. Innocent but frightened by an enemy at the same time, his subjects being covered with macho bodies seem to hide inside extremely weak souls. Thus the heroes Kurata creates give viewers a complex impression within which happiness and nihilistic feeling coexist.
Filed under: music
I can’t think of a more perfect artist to make a Halloween mix than Karin Dreijer Andersson aka the driving force behind Fever Ray. If this dark mix can’t get you in the mood for a ghoulish 31st I don’t know what will. When it gets to about 29 minutes in, prepare to have your mind blown. Just a note, you have to sign up on the RA website to download the mix, but I wouldn’t post it unless it was worth it. If you don’t own Fever Ray’s full length album by now or seen them live you are way overdue…
