Animation, Art, and Other Shiny Things
No, it’s not a digression. (but it is a great tune)
2CELLOS is a pair of Croatian cellists Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser who have some serious classical training under their belts. Their collaborations are primarily rock song covers, but they certainly won’t be abandoning classical music. (at least I’m fairly sure that’s what the article says. the google translation is suspect but exceedingly entertaining nevertheless)
They recently played Smooth Criminal on the Ellen DeGeneres show (which put them squarely on the US radar) and are currently on tour with Sir Elton in Europe. Their debut album is due out towards the end of July. Welcome to the Jungle will be on it as well as covers of Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, U2, and more.
…with the vocal stylings of Joni Mitchell singing The Big Yellow Taxi. (From the documentary Crumb.)
This is actually 12 panels Mr Crumb drew in 1979 (colorized and collected into a poster in 1981).
Later he added a 3 panel epilogue to try and cover bases on the question asked in the 12th panel; “What Next?”.
(oddly enough, this is not a digression. call it more, uh, a warning shot across the bow)
I picked up the Justice album “Cross” a few years ago after hearing a snippet of the track Genesis on, of all places, NPR. Filler between stories on Morning Edition or some such. (I found Zero 7 and The Battles that way too)
Think of them as an exuberant Daft Punk (both are French duos) with emphasis on the ‘punk’ part.
When I went to put this little excursory post together it became clear right away that it just wasn’t going to be quite that easy. Generally it never is when it comes to my writing, but this just kept getting worse.
So to solve it, and embrace my inner divericator, here is a triple digression…
D.A.N.C.E. is the most known cut off the album and won Justice some awards, including best video, and it’s easy to see why. This is some of the most innovative animation I’ve seen in a long time. Watch this video with the sound off first time through.
DVNO is an excellent track and has animation that is strongly reminiscent of 1980’s animated typography.
Genesis is still, by far, my favorite track off the album; heavy techno with an edgy funk. It’s unfortunate that its the blandest of the videos I can find…
Computer animation, “traditional” animation techniques, a killer soundtrack, and some remarkable puppetry, to put it mildly. The fluidity of the tyger is truly impressive, as is the overall flow of the video as a whole.
Tyger by Guilherme Marcondes of Brazil, based on a William Blake poem
Quality animation and electronica!
Caffeine by Brandt Brauer Frick
As readers of this blog know I’ve eschewed cable tv in favor of online content. One of my main suppliers is Hulu.com and last week I came across a documentary called Reformat the Planet about the popularity and culture of “Chiptunes“. It’s a thoroughly entertaining look into the music and worth the watch.
Remember those songs and sound effects your Nintendo made? Use those sounds, and even the console itself, and make music. That pretty much kicked off the genre in the late 70’s.
While it won’t land on my regular playlist (often), it is well done stuff and is a pretty deep genre. For a quick listen:
Being an old computer geek most of my computer music has been the sound of the hardware. Who hasn’t drummed a beat along with the impact printer? Early scanners and floppy drives had great rhythm too. Someone got creative old school in this next video:
There is yet to be a version of Windows released that I truly liked (w2k wasn’t too bad, I guess…) but if nothing else, the sound files can be useful:
You don’t think I’d pass up even the flimsiest of excuses to drop a Daft Punk video in, do you?
…and merely an honorary digression.
A rock tossed into the pond to break up the lack of posts for a few days. With apologies. Well, ok, not really.
In any event, I was hoping to finish a post tonite but it decided to get all idea-ful or something and it wants another page or so. Sucks for me too…
In the mean time, a video from a new fave band of mine – Ra
Click Me For a Random Post
The Ruffled Crow 