Really interesting style of painting...
Tall Painting from Dave Kaufman on Vimeo.
...The creation of the artwork itself becomes art. It's fascinating how the colours stay separated and also how they manage to make it so symmetrical!
The musical accompaniment (a piece called Mishima composed by minimalist maestro Philip Glass and performed by the Kronos Quartet) is also beautiful.
Thursday, 19 July 2012
Spineless Classics
This is an absolutely crazy and yet beautiful idea. Typing out entire books on posters to hang up around the house. My personal favourite is the Complete Works of William Shakespeare one:
Might save up and get one. Go check out their website: www.spinelessclassics.com
Might save up and get one. Go check out their website: www.spinelessclassics.com
Saturday, 14 July 2012
Review: Sleepin' Giantz' self-titled album
Just thought I'd post this satirical music review I wrote for the magazine I volunteer at back in Cardiff.
It is a common misconception that all hip-hop and underground music must contain violent imagery, references to weaponry and some form of misogyny. It therefore comes as a surprise that these apparently narcoleptic 'ladz' have included all of the above just on the back of the CD casing.
Anyhow, let's not judge an album by its cover. Opening track 'Sleepin' Giantz Theme Feat. Fox' sets the tone: we've got a conglomeration of loud crashing drums, some kind of sinister brass instrument and 8-bit Game Boy noises. And if that's not enticing enough, I'm pretty certain the word 'haggis' is used at least five times. Not much need be said regarding track 3, 'Badungdeng'. In fact, if you say say the track name out-loud a few times you've got the basic premise for the song. 'And The Ting Went…', appears to be a collaborative effort with somebody named Btch Pls. Cue more disturbing 8-bit noises. 'Nough said.
All of the tracks so far seem to bear haunting similarity to that insane track Jeremy off Peep Show did:
'Draw For Tha Zee': enter synths, wob-wobs and wow-wows, followed by more meaningless lyrics regarding murders, raves and being a VIP. Rhyming words simply because they rhyme. I was beginning to worry about the significant lack of autotune in this album, but alas, the next song, 'Life', has a lovely vocoder-smothered backing singer incessantly repeating the word 'life'. Phew! And finally the album goes out with a bang. The closing track, aptly named 'Final Curtain' (thank goodness) reinforces that discordance between the vocal tracks and the tunes underneath, as if they were made completely separately and then just bunged together; an intrinsic detail that was sustained so beautifully throughout the entire album.
In the immortal words of Jane Austen, "it is a truth universally acknowledged that adding a 'z' to the end of a word automatically makes it hip." Sleepin' Giantz, however, are a disappointing exception. Long story short: nothing particularly special here, unless you're listening to it on some hardcore hallucinogenics. But seeing as we don't endorse that here on theSprout, here is my advice to said Giantz: get back to your roots - A Tribe Called Quest, Jurassic 5, N.W.A., The Sugarhill Gang…
And lastly, a message not just to Sleepin' Giantz, but a plea to all those in the UK Charts who disgrace the name of this once beautiful genre: your songs aren't signalling the progression of hip-hop, they're just promoting the kind of stereotype that rappers and hip-hoppers in the '80s and '90s worked so hard to eradicate. If you want real progress, take a leaf out of the books of more recent groundbreakers like Eminem and Immortal Technique (or even Dizzee Rascal for goodness' sake!), then come back and we'll re-evaluate.
It is a common misconception that all hip-hop and underground music must contain violent imagery, references to weaponry and some form of misogyny. It therefore comes as a surprise that these apparently narcoleptic 'ladz' have included all of the above just on the back of the CD casing.
Anyhow, let's not judge an album by its cover. Opening track 'Sleepin' Giantz Theme Feat. Fox' sets the tone: we've got a conglomeration of loud crashing drums, some kind of sinister brass instrument and 8-bit Game Boy noises. And if that's not enticing enough, I'm pretty certain the word 'haggis' is used at least five times. Not much need be said regarding track 3, 'Badungdeng'. In fact, if you say say the track name out-loud a few times you've got the basic premise for the song. 'And The Ting Went…', appears to be a collaborative effort with somebody named Btch Pls. Cue more disturbing 8-bit noises. 'Nough said.
All of the tracks so far seem to bear haunting similarity to that insane track Jeremy off Peep Show did:
'Draw For Tha Zee': enter synths, wob-wobs and wow-wows, followed by more meaningless lyrics regarding murders, raves and being a VIP. Rhyming words simply because they rhyme. I was beginning to worry about the significant lack of autotune in this album, but alas, the next song, 'Life', has a lovely vocoder-smothered backing singer incessantly repeating the word 'life'. Phew! And finally the album goes out with a bang. The closing track, aptly named 'Final Curtain' (thank goodness) reinforces that discordance between the vocal tracks and the tunes underneath, as if they were made completely separately and then just bunged together; an intrinsic detail that was sustained so beautifully throughout the entire album.
In the immortal words of Jane Austen, "it is a truth universally acknowledged that adding a 'z' to the end of a word automatically makes it hip." Sleepin' Giantz, however, are a disappointing exception. Long story short: nothing particularly special here, unless you're listening to it on some hardcore hallucinogenics. But seeing as we don't endorse that here on theSprout, here is my advice to said Giantz: get back to your roots - A Tribe Called Quest, Jurassic 5, N.W.A., The Sugarhill Gang…
And lastly, a message not just to Sleepin' Giantz, but a plea to all those in the UK Charts who disgrace the name of this once beautiful genre: your songs aren't signalling the progression of hip-hop, they're just promoting the kind of stereotype that rappers and hip-hoppers in the '80s and '90s worked so hard to eradicate. If you want real progress, take a leaf out of the books of more recent groundbreakers like Eminem and Immortal Technique (or even Dizzee Rascal for goodness' sake!), then come back and we'll re-evaluate.
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Lilac Wine - The Cinematic Orchestra
Seriously chilled, seriously heady, seriously beautiful video and song. Check it...
And if you don't already know the Jeff Buckley version, go listen immediately.
And if you don't already know the Jeff Buckley version, go listen immediately.
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