139 posts from 2008

I mentioned the other day a project that I've been working on which I've found to be creative and fun.  It's been a personal pet "thing" that I've had sitting with me for a long time and until now wasn't out in the open.  Now, however, I have made the first efforts to do something with it.

The project is thisisthings - http://www.thisisthings.com - a mix of puns, word play and the kind of design that I don't get to do every day - with a bit of functionality mixed in: notably free e-cards at the moment, but later on perhaps some products (although I've yet to decide what and how and when!).  Most of my web site clients don't really ask for this kind of "thing" so it's been rather refreshing to just relax and have a bit of fun with it.  And, to do something for its own ends and just simply for me, has been quite rewarding.

Anyway, I thought I would share it, since I only hinted at it before, and because there's now something to see. 
I hope you enjoy the site and hope that one or two things raise a smile or perhaps even a little chuckle.

Comments welcomed as always!  Either here or over on thisisthings.com, or by other means if you know them.

I hope the week is treating you well and that some of the festive spirit is rubbing off on you  :)

See what I did there?  Monday music has never been the same.

Without any further ado, today (Tuesday) I bring you some music (tune).  The track is "You Do Not Belong Here" by ESA (aka Jamie Blacker).  Genuinely haunting music - full of undercurrents and swirling undertows, noisy goodness, flowing ambient soundscapes - and a fitting finale to the excellent album "How Pure Would Your Utopia Be?"

http://www.last.fm/music/Esa/_/You+Do+Not+Belong+Here

I actually have a rather creative set of job roles in running my own business.  I do a lot of creative things and I count myself as very fortunate to be able to say that the hard work I do to pay bills and afford myself a reasonable standard of living is, on the whole, creative.  However, I don't make anything.  Or at least, I don't make anything that's real.  And most of my creative efforts are for other people's benefit - my clients - and very rarely for myself, my own enjoyment or endeavours. I'm like the builder who has a half-built conservatory at their own home and for whom the idea of spending the weekend making a barbecue set out of bricks would be anathema.  Except my backside is not as visible and as saggy, I don't read the tabloids over a mug of tea, and I don't have a white van with "clean me" on it.  And if I did, they wouldn't be real.  They'd be defined in HTML tags or something like that.

Anyway, I've had a bit of fun recently making things. Making non-virtual things.

First, a Christmas card for a "Secret Santa" exercise, where the criteria was that the card had to be hand-made.  I really got into this and enjoyed the process of devising something, planning it, and then actually sitting down to do it.  You'll see from the photos below that I brought out the heavy artillery for this: cutting board, craft knife, scissors, metal ruler and pritt stick.  Serious stuff, but thoroughly satisfying.  I had forgotten how nice it is to actually make stuff.  You know, actually make something out of nothing.  Perhaps it's not much of a news flash to many of my readers - particularly those who have younger children - but it was to me. For the last ten years or more almost everything I have created has been virtual... the vast majority of it web pages, designs and logos.  Nothing really tangible.  And so my Christmas card was a bit of a revelation:

Nothing too complicated or fancy but rather effective.  It's a bit of pop-up, a dash of montage and a little smidgeon of improvisation with the "baubles" (they are actually transparent adhesive rubber "feet" that I simply felt-tipped).  Not bad for someone who doesn't really do "that kind of thing".

Second, the other fun I have had with things relates to a project that has been gestating for a long time in the bowels of Jon HQ.  Again, there is end product to it (although partly virtual) and it is also something I am doing solely for its own merits and solely for me.  It's actually quite unusual for me to do anything for me, so it has been enjoyable plotting and planning this project and now seeing it come together over the past few weeks.

I'll have more to share on the project soon...suffice to say that the title of this post has something to do with it ;)

It's definitely Monday and what follows is definitely music, which means it must be Monday Music.

The artist is Ab Ovo - which those of you with a predisposition to Latin will know means "from the beginning" or literally "from the egg" - a duo of French sonic wizards producing some brilliant dark ambient music in recent years on the Ant-Zen label.

And this, in homage to their name, is the first track "Hemisphere" from their excellent album "Mouvements"...

http://www.last.fm/music/Ab+Ovo/_/H%C3%A9misph%C3%A8re?autostart

...like so many enjoyable things, this track unwinds and develops very slowly before enveloping you whole in gloriousness. And it lasts a little bit longer than many enjoyable things as well.  Or so I am told.

Play loud for the full effect - ideally your internal organs should be syncopating with the groove on this particular track.
Enjoy, and have a great week ahead!

A bit late with my Monday music this week for which I most humbly apologise.  Circumstances conspired against me a la Gunpowder Plot, but instead of attempting to blow up a seat of Government they put a significant derailment on my week.  Actually, my train never left the buffers.  I won't go into details, but I have a note from my Mum if anyone has any doubts as to the veracity of my claims.  Or you can look up "spontaneous pneumothorax" on Google if you wish.  But, please don't do so if you are one of those people who are rather cleverly referred to as "cyberchondriacs" - you might just feel rather ill as a result.  So, don't.  Please.  Anyway.

This week's Monday Music is a track by the rather splendid Hol Baumann.  The track is "Human" from the album "[Breathe]" which is on Ultimae Records.  I hope you'll agree that it's an excellent mix of traditional and electronic music forms:

http://www.last.fm/music/Hol+Baumann/_/Human?autostart

Also worth a listen is the title track from the same album which you'll find on last.fm not very far from the page you'll be on if you click the link above.  How far I don't know, I guess it depends on the size of the stone, the power in your throwing arm, and any prevailing winds - and perhaps also the speed of your connection.

Enjoy!  (I hope)

During his "Circle" performance Eddie Izzard does a funny little skit about the word "awesome" and its transformation from the original sense of being struck dumb or paralysed by something to a more mundane and diluted descriptor of anything that is remotely good or even just a little bit different.  In his case it's hot dogs (warning: clip contains swear words and sequins).

I was reminded of this particular skit because I was thinking the other day about how the modern world seems to actually make it increasingly difficult to inspire awe in people, particularly the young. Or to put it more precisely it seems more difficult to actually inspire a sense of surprise or incredulity in them.  Perhaps it is because technology is as advanced and as dominating in our lives as it is, or because the mass media seems to offer amazing and astounding stimuli at every turn, or because the truly fantastic (in its original sense) is only a mouse-click or a joypad controller away in most kids' lives?

They have the opportunity to view things that are incredible.  To participate in things that are fantastic. But I wonder if they suffer a dulling of the senses as a result of these stimuli.  Perhaps when you've somersaulted, leapt and explored a virtual world that is beyond your own imagination, by comparison an impressive architectural landscape or natural phenomenon doesn't hold as much interest?  Perhaps when you've seen cars turn into robots and then back to cars again in an advert, you're not all that impressed by a feat of engineering which sees brick spanned over a valley to create a viaduct or which lifts a road over a river via slender suspension cables?  Perhaps when you've played the game described in glowing pixels, the real thing comes a poor and inconvenient second?  Perhaps places you have never visited but have seen framed in your television screen become as familiar to you as your own home - so much so that they seem pale and inferior when seen in their actuality...?

I don't know the answers to any of those questions and I don't even know if they are correct postulations to make.  But, it does seem to be a learned behaviour or at least an attitude which is engendered as a child develops (at least in more developed consumer-led societies).  Anyone with a younger child will note that the most basic things - the simplest of experiences - can be a source of utter fascination and incredulity, of curiosity and inspiration. A feather.  A leaf.  Something flying.  A soap bubble.  At some point, it seems to me, this sense of wonder is squashed or constrained or simply steamrollered by simulcra of the real thing, by frame-by-frame familiarity breeding contempt or at least ambivalence, by everyday renditions of the fantastic on portable liquid crystal displays.  It's said that the youth of today are impressionable, but my fear actually is that they are not. That they are increasingly difficult to impress, that they have built up a resistance to the impressive around them.

All of the above, of course, is inconclusive and perhaps inconsequential musing out loud, but I can say with some certainty that the most interesting and enjoyable people that I have met or had in my life, have been the ones who seem to grasp this sense of child-like wonder at things or who have a sense of or appreciation for the incredible in the real world.  And I hope I manage to hold on to my own wonder at the world rather than give in to cynicism or desensitivity when faced with sights, sounds and experiences that not too long ago would have taken my breath away.

Another post in lieu of another post. 

This time it's a screenshot from the BBC Sport website, whereupon a piece on the forthcoming Argentina vs Scotland football friendly featured the following video player - and its rather bemusing caption. 
 

Scots_pair_feel_the_buzz

In lieu of a longer post which I'm planning, here rather appositely is a regular Monday music post. 
It's on or about monday, it's about music and it's about to be posted.  So, that's all boxes present, correct and duly ticked.

Stendeck is one of those one-man electronic music projects that really capture the imagination and provide a big sloppy raspberry into the face of those who think that electronic music cannot be emotion-laden or is simply music-by-numbers made by and for those who don't really appreciate the art. 

This particular track, from the album "Faces", has all the ingredients required - some glitchy white noise percussive rhythms, floating ethereal pads and gentle undulating synth lines.  And underneath it all some brooding  and slightly threatening undercurrents...

http://www.last.fm/music/Stendeck/_/Like+Falling+Crystals

Perfect for a cold winter's day, I think.
You can almost feel the ice crunching underneath your feet and ice cold water dripping from overhanging icicles.

But enough of what I think - have a listen for yourself.  And do your own thinking, thank you.

Have a good week!

Not my words, no.  The words of SanDisk, the purveyors of non-volatile memory storage devices worldwide since 1988.

Apparently Extreme FFS means Extreme Flash File System.  And apparently before then it was simply FFS which I guess was a less extreme FFS.  A tamer, milder version.  A barely-uttered-FFS-under-the-breath version.

I wonder if they even debated changing the name... or perhaps might do so now?

Sometimes you stumble across an artist or a label and it instantly resonates so deeply with you that you wonder how it was you hadn't become aware of them sooner.  In today's Monday Music that's not the case because the label itself is so very new, having only been established since September 2007.  Nonetheless, Tympanik Audio has quickly proved itself as a significant and boundary-pushing player in the electronic music scene, not only in terms of their already impressive roster of artists and prolific set of releases, but also in the manner in which they engage with artists and customers.

Totakeke has released two albums (to date, there's a third on the way!) on Tympanik Audio.  Today's track which is entitled "Strangle" comes from the highly recommended album "eLekatota - The Other Side Of The Tracks".

This particular track is full of both atmospheric complexity and glitchy goodness whilst also packing an effective beat... a combination which certainly ticks all the right boxes for me and I hope it does for you too, whatever your mood or preferences:

http://www.last.fm/music/Totakeke/_/Strangle?autostart

I hope that it helps your week start off with a bit of a bang...

If you like it, then there's an album of 12 Totakeke tracks entitled "Past:Present:Future" to download for free from the Tympanik Audio web site.  And, of course, albums are available to buy direct from there too.