Secret Still

Sometimes an idea comes along, maybe you’ve seen permutations of it in the past, but this time someone did it better, made it greater than anything you’ve seen before. That’s definitely the case with Kutiman’s project ThruYou. The concept is fairly simple: cut YouTube videos together to make music, but the result is almost amazing beyond description. He’s created 7 tracks of visual and audio mastery through the sharing of information provided by a venue like YouTube. Of course this kind of video mashing has been done before, and DJ’s were doing it with sound since long before I was even an idea in my dad’s testes, but Kutiman has surpassed his forebears by creating an audiovisual experience that literally made me exclaim, “holy shit,” loud enough that I got some looks. My advice? Watch every, single video immediately. Thanks for the link, Matt.

Kutiman: ThruYou

Artist Stephen Tompkins (previously interviewed) tipped me this morning to a project that he’s been working on for a while that has come to fruition. He’s been hanging out with Daniel Johnston at Johnston’s home in Texas, making video and audio recordings of the musician/artist. Those of you who love, or even just like, Johnston’s music will get a thrill out of these recordings, and probably a little lo-fi inspiration of your own.

In other news, Stephen also mentioned that my interview with him is linked from his Wikipedia article. I’m all sorts of famous now. Top of the world, Ma!

Daniel Johnston: At Home Live

I love The Flaming Lips, always have and always will. My fandom is so devout that no matter how many times the release date was pushed back on their feature film Christmas on Mars, I always believed them. I never doubted their word. After each successive letdown I refused to give up hope. Tuesday, after seven years of shooting and re-shooting, the film has finally been released. Just in time for me to fold it into my ritual of watching A Christmas Story and A Charlie Brown Christmas once the December holidays have started. I’m not gonna tell you anything about the plot. The title pretty much says it all, and if you know The Flaming Lips, then it makes sense. If you don’t know The Flaming Lips then you should believe me when I say that your life is incomplete. Buying Christmas on Mars might be a good place to start getting your shit together.

Christmas on Mars

I’m sorry to cross-post with It’s Nice That, but they turned me on to Fleet Foxes this morning and I’ve been listening to the five songs on their MySpace page ever since. The songs are like backwoods baptismal hymns, similar to the bluegrassy style of Akron Family, but with a little less frenetic psychedelia. Fleet Foxes make me think that I’m laying on a dock, feet dangling into the clear, cool waters of a Summer lake, and a couple of small, fluffy clouds overhead are raining down a song onto my sun-pierced eyelids. This is music to listen to while napping in a birchbark canoe. It’s made for praying on a carpet of dead leaves in a cathedral of pine boughs. My imagery is weird but apt. APT.

Fleet Foxes found via It’s Nice That

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted about any new music, but this morning, thanks to a Fecal Face video I came across Santogold. The group is made up of singer Santi White and producer John Hill, and can best be described as “What MIA should sound like”. I never really caught on to the MIA sound, but then Santogold came along and changed all that. Her voice is better, less shrill, and the songs are a little more laidback. I don’t feel like someone is trying to give me a cocaine epidural by the middle of a track. My luck being what it is, Santogold is New York-based, meaning it will be a while before I get to see them in person, especially since I won’t shell out the cash to bake in the desert at Coachella. It’s just as well, I’d hate to have to break out my dance moves again. It’s impolite to arouse that many women at one time, and some of them probably have boyfriends. Damn my amazing hips to hell!

Santogold

One of my skate/music heroes, Tommy Guerrero, has a quick, but interesting interview over on SFGate. He covers a lot of ground in ten questions. If you get a chance you should check out his new album Return of the Bastard; there’s an online stream of some of the new tracks over here, or if you’re in the Bay Area you can drop by the release party at 12 Galaxies next Friday. I’m probably going to try and squeeze that one in. First Fridays are always busy.

Oakland Producer/DJ Amplive has created a remixes album of Radiohead’s In Rainbows. Initially he was contacted by Radiohead’s reps asking him to cease and decist, but he met with them and now everything’s kosher. Good thing, too, because this album is too good to pass up. It’s available as a free download on Amplive’s site.

Amplive

Portishead has finally announced that they’ll be releasing a new album on April 14th. I’ve had to wait ten years for this. Ten Years! Don’t you ever do this to me again Portishead; it’s bad enough waiting for DJ Shadow albums. The band’s newest album is simply titled Third. You can read about it here. I’d like to add a further wagging finger for one U.S. tour date. C’mon Portishead, Coachella only? Harsh.

In the last couple of years there’s been a revival of that good, old fashioned, soul and funk. I was pretty happy with the nu-soul movement a few years ago, especially with D’Angelo and some others, but I’m fucking stoked about the funk/soul revival going on now. Everyone at this point has heard Amy Winehouse, and most of you should be familiar with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. There are plenty of others out there getting on the revival bandwagon, and you can now add UK band The Heavy to your growing roster. They are getting into some seriously choice funk/soul that had my feet and ass tapping and shaking respectively. Get a sweet taste of that old gold on their myspace page.

The Heavy

You clever bastards. I miss my records.

Vinyl Sleeve Heads