This has been under wraps for a while but I can finally reveal…
Three 45 minute sets (due to limited spaces in the Planetarium) of a specially reconstructed version of the album including exclusive material. I’m currently working with the astronomers at the Observatory, building a bespoke show for their 360 degree hemispherical screen. Tickets are very limited, only 82 for each show, so be quick if you want to see this http://ninjatune.net/shop/tickets
This has been under wraps for a while but I can finally reveal…
Three 45 minute sets (due to limited spaces in the Planetarium) of a specially reconstructed version of the album including exclusive material. I’m currently working with the astronomers at the Observatory, building a bespoke show for their 360 degree hemispherical screen. Tickets are very limited, only 82 for each show, so be quick if you want to see this http://ninjatune.net/shop/tickets
Last night I saw Kid Koala‘s new show ‘Space Cadet’ and it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen with a DJ at the helm before. Part gig, part story, part stand up comedy and a lot of audience participation, it was not your usual gig. I took my family and there was a moment when we thought the kids wouldn’t get in even though we went to the 7pm show but it was fine. Everyone sat down and there was no PA – only headphones for everyone.
Eric sat down for most of the show and chatted as much as he played, featuring musical excerpts from his new book and CD – ‘Space Cadet’, the forthcoming blues album on Ninja Tune, his Yo Gabba Gabba routine (where he donned his Koala suit) and the always awesome ‘Moon River’ routine. Members of the audience were invited to play bells, music boxes and Asteroids (destroying pre-photographed faces of themselves),whirl tubes to the music and thumb wrestle!
As well as this there was a collection of original art and a table full of 3D plants featured in the book, games, space echo and turntable recorder to play with and cookies to decorate. Go and ‘experience’ it if you can, you’ll not see anything like it for a long time again.
The incredible Augustine Kofie returns to the White Walls gallery in San Francisco this weekend for a new show of 30 works called ‘Circulatory System’. This guy has to be one of my favourite artists full stop. Nice to see some of the big bag of Letraset I gave him on his visit to London earlier this year getting some use too. 
These pictures mostly taken from the excellent Graffuturism blog
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”360″]http://vimeo.com/24504225[/vimeo]
Just amazing. Melvin the Machine.com
The hunt continues, part 1 was on the Ninja Tune Soundcloud and part 2 was on the Clashmusic.com site. Part 3 is out there somewhere, you just need to find it…
With one week away until the release of my ‘Magpies, Maps & Moons‘ EP Ninja are giving you the chance to download 5 different segments of the track ‘Magpie Music’ that I did with 2econd Class Citizen. This is a suite of tracks we made and then stitched together to form an 11 minute piece on the new EP and album, various tracks have been extracted from it and cleaned up to form little standalone DJ tracks for you to enjoy.
The only catch is, you have to find them, Magpie-like, and steal them from wherever they are hiding on the web using your computer’s search engine (incidentally, the new album’s title). The first one is up now, four more go online each day this week and the EP is released on Monday 7th November. Lots of exciting things happening on the lead up to this release at the moment, I’ll give all the info as each thing is confirmed but January is going to be packed at this rate.
Ninja Tune, Henry and myself are very pleased to be partnering with the Pure Evil Gallery in Shoreditch and Scraffer.com early next year to present artwork from my album and Henry’s forthcoming book ‘Broadcast’.
Ninja Tune, Henry and myself are very pleased to be partnering with the Pure Evil Gallery in Shoreditch and Scraffer.com early next year to present artwork from my album and Henry’s forthcoming book ‘Broadcast’.
The amazing Augustine Kofie returns to the White Walls gallery in San Francisco next month for a new solo exhibition called ‘Circulatory System’.
I was lucky enough to see his previous exhibition there last year and he has posted two pieces from the forthcoming show here.
Also Kofie makes music as 4×4 Tracktor and he posted a soundtrack to the show
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As mentioned before on this blog, Pepe Deluxé‘s next album – ‘Queen of the Wave’ – is an incredible journey in both audio and fantasy. Details of exactly how much of a journey it has been (and why the record hasn’t appeared yet) are just beginning to emerge with the release date scheduled for early 2012. There’s digging and then there is journeying underground to find sample sources for your record, Pepe went the latter route for one track, ‘In The Cave’.
The main reason for the delay of the record was the duo’s desire to record on the largest instrument in the world, the Great Stalacpipe Organ in the underground caverns of Luray, Virginia, USA. The organ is situated underground in a 14,000 square meter cave where the stalactites have been tuned to concert pitch by oscillators and are then struck by rubber mallets in a complicated set up connected to the organ by over 5 miles of wiring. I’m not making this up, it was conceived in the mid 50’s by mathematician Leland W. Sprinkle after his son banged his head on a stalactite and it rung with a pleasant sound. When Pepe first discovered its existence in 2005 (via the 365 Days project) they found that it had fallen into disrepair and had to be renovated completely, this ended up taking several years but they got the green light in late 2010.
Paul Malmström from PD wrote an original composition for the the organ – the first ever written and recorded for it – and traveled from his home in New York to record it earlier this year. In front of a crowd on onlookers (it was a public holiday so the cavern was open) he managed to record several takes and complete the final piece in the jigsaw for the record, forthcoming on Catskills in January 2012. A single – ‘The Storm’ – is released on October 10th and many things are afoot on the Pepe website and new Facebook page. 2012 is going to be a mighty fine year for music…
(Paul and his giant organ – insert suitable double entendre in the comments please)
[youtube width=”640″ height=”385″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvB0glRsolw&feature=share[/youtube]
Whilst doing Pet Sounds post I found this – sold.
Anyone else up for this? See you there
Andy Votel and Doug Shipton’s Finders Keepers label was also affected in the PIAS fire earlier this week, they have responded by putting together a 10 CD series of compilation, curated by various friends like David Holmes, Jarvis Cocker, Gruff Rhys and Demdike Stare.
You can buy individual CDs or downloads or subscribe to the entire series upfront by visiting their website. Please support this excellent label and all its offshoots as they consistently amaze with their releases.
Very strange video to accompany Kid Acne‘s first solo show at the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield, now open until Oct 23rd
[youtube width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Yv_gzrgDk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
So excited to finally be able to see this, I’ve been privy to some of the workings of this for the past year now (my wife works for them) and it opens this week in London at the National Maritime Museum. Part of a major new exhibition, although this will be a permanent installation, content-heavy video mapping based around the moon’s relationship to the sea, this is just a tiny part of it.
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”360″]http://vimeo.com/26328656[/vimeo]
I’m currently enjoying People Like Us’ (aka Vicki Bennett) new album ‘Welcome Abroad’, it’s a frequently hilarious mixture of cut and pastry based around her time stuck abroad due to the recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland. You can listen to the whole album on her Soundcloud page or buy it here. She also has her first solo exhibition, ‘The Doors of Perspection’, opening at the end of July in London at the Vitrine Gallery, previewing new films she has made by extending panning shots from existing films into widescreen format (if i’ve understood the press release correctly).
Also a few months back I received a lovely box set from the Edinburgh Printmakers‘ ‘Prints of Darkness’ exhibition, which includes a gatefold sleeve housing a poster and 12″ picture disc by Vicki entitled ‘This Is Light Music’. This 10 track mini album heavily cross references some of the music on ‘Welcome Abroad’ too and can still be bought here although it is limited to 250 copies.
PS: I actually think this is even more wonderful than ‘Welcome Abroad’, I’ll never be able to hear certain well known classics the same way again.
I was very excited to learn that Remi and Augustine were going to be painting a wall together in London whilst Kofie was in the UK taking part in a couple of exhibitions. Little did I realise that they would be painting a local pub on the high street of the neighborhood where I (and Remi) live. Said pub is the Bishop on Lordship Lane in East Dulwich, South East London and they spent two days in very changeable weather transforming the side of the building much to the surprise of the locals who don’t have anything like this round here. The first three images are by Timid, via Remi’s blog.
Here’s a selection of pictures I took this afternoon and there should be a timelapse film at some point in the future. Kofie is off back to the US tomorrow and Remi has a new mini book out of Selected Paintings as well as an EP of new tracks, available here.