Hi everyone! Looks like summer is coming to an end. Friends were made, friends were lost but we all shun like stars in these hot hot summer days. Thanks for all the feedback, keep it coming! I’m actually looking for some great music from the Balkans if anyone has suggestions. Here’s to all the good times… (more…)
We have a great mix for you today. A lot of new music from up and coming artists such as New York’s psychedelic new comers: Here We Go Magic. The Super band The Dead Weather. And a new single from Dance Punk era survivors: !!! (Chk Chk Chk). We also have a few acts from New York’s annual Latin Alternative Music Conference: El Guincho and Hello Seahorse!
Track listing:
1. Circa Survive – Compendium
2. Restless People – Days Of Our Lives
3. Ceo – Come With Me
4. Here We Go Magic – Collector
5. Wolf Parade – Cloud Shadow on the Mountain
6. The Dodos – Longform
7. Cults – Go Outside
8. El Guincho – Cuando Maravilla Fui
9. Hello Seahorse! – Bestia (Julieta Venegas Remix)
10. Ratatat – Grape Juice City
11. Caribou – Jamelia
12. !!! (Chk Chk Chk) – AM/FM
13. The Dead Weather – The Difference Between Us
14. Girls – Laura
15. Fang Island – Welcome Wagon
It’s June and time for another Mp3 Mixtape! This one coming a bit later in the month but here nonetheless. I have hand picked a great selection of new songs released in the past few months from artists such as The National, Flying Lotus, Broken Social Scene, The Black Keys plus many more. Stop reading right now and download the mix!
June 2010
Maybe Sometime
Mp3 Mixtape
by Headphonist
Maybe Sometime MP3 Mixtape by headphonist
Track listing:
1. The Black Keys – Howlin’ For You
2. Yeasayer – O.N.E.
3. Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
4. Spoon – I Saw The Light
5. Sleigh Bells – Tell ‘Em
6. Broken Social Scene – Chase Scene
7. Rain Machine – Give Blood
8. Jónsi – Go Do
9. The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio
10. Flying Lotus – …And The World Laughs With You
11. Minus The Bear – My Time
12. Broken Bells – The Ghost Inside
13. Tame Impala – Solitude Is Bliss
14. Silver Columns – Brow Beaten
I’m really loving the June 2010 J. Crew catalogue shot in Guatemala. Looks like it was shot throughout several locations of Antigua and Tikal, both beautiful places. Check it out:
See the full catalogue here: http://bit.ly/aYCmyj
So I’ve been hard at work gathering everything to launch my new website. It will contain all the work I do, photography, web design, retouching and video lighting as opposed to just photography. When it comes to web design I love simplicity, I always try to adhere to the Less is more ideology. I decided to go with a monochromatic color scheme as it is the easiest on the eyes when viewing images and video. The navigation can’t get any simpler, it is all laid out for you on the main page, no need to go digging through drop down menus. Even the contact information is in plain sight without the use of the dreaded dedicated and almost certainly empty contact page. This menu approach will also guarantee that iPad and iPhone users are able to navigate the site since touch interfaces are not compatible with hover over menus.
The titles and main descriptions will have that fresh letter press look, very commonly used in today’s blogs and sites using CSS3. Video will be encoded on H.264 making sure again that iPad and iPhone users will be able to watch it. Over all it’s a very drastic change from my current flash based portfolio (www.raulcotobatres.com).
I will be updating again soon as this is just the initial layout so stay posted.
It’s very strange when you see a connection with the media around you, a cohesive theme or pattern that seems to be underlying in the world around you. This is the case with two videos I’ve watched recently with one theme in particular, “Why?”. Realizing this pattern has made me change the way I see the world and how to put it to practice be it at work or in relationships. In essence the word Why is not just a question but an answer to the many things that drive us as people. Innovation would not have happened without the reason to why. Why do we do things we do? Why did we do it a certain way? Why is it important to us? Great leaders have inspired us not by telling us What they want or How they want it but Why they want it. The first piece of the puzzle that made me aware to the power of why was the talk on TED by Simon Sinek. He brings to the table the many ideologies of great leaders and successful companies and how they have used Why as their reason for selling us ideas and products.
People don’t buy What you do but Why you do it. The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs What you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe. – Simon Sinek
Watch Simon Sinek on How Great Leaders Inspire Action via TED:
Just two days later I watched the documentary Art & Copy about the giants of advertising and how they are shaping our world. Advertising as a whole is looked down upon for being trashy but there’s much more that you can do. The people behind these campaigns are incredibly creative and innovative. They could sell you a simple pen in just minutes. I admire their creativity and their ability to think outside the box.
Advertising should be statements of the hell you think life should be about. – George Lois
But the hardest part for them is not coming up with ideas but selling them to the clients. The clients cannot understand these abstract concepts and ideas. So it’s a constant battle between what the client thinks they want and what the advertising creatives know the client needs.
These creatives know to the core that they are shaping our world and lives and it’s these emotions and enthusiasm that enables them to sell their ideas to the client. Just like inspirational speeches have made us feel it is us that’s making a change and not the speaker behind the podium. Which brings us back to the power of Why; this is why they do it, this is why they believe in it and this is why they make it happen. Why is the cause, the drive, the urge, that ignites creativity and shapes our lives and world.
I urge you to watch the documentary to better understand how Why has enabled them to do the things they do and realize how it can help you.
If you are in the creative or design fields you have most likely heard of or used Pantone colors. Pantone colors are a standardized color scheme that allows graphic designers, printers and others involved in a production to match specific colors, guaranteeing quality throughout the project. Think of it as your hex codes for HTML colors online. This system has been widely adopted by graphic designers and reproduction and printing houses for a number of years now.
They have just released The Pantone Plus Series with a great short video giving us a behind the scenes look at their production process:
Via: Cool Hunting
I have great news! Starting May I will be producing monthly mp3 mixtapes available here in my blog. They will feature new music as well as up and coming artists across a wide range of genres. They are being released under my pseudonym ‘Headphonist’. Currently I am hosting them on SoundCloud to test their services but that might change in the future. I hope you download and enjoy these mixtapes as much I enjoy making them.
Here is the first mixtape for May 2010.
Spring Is 4 Music Mix by headphonist
Featured artists:
The controversial and explosive music video from artist M.I.A. and director Romain Gavras. Banned from YouTube in the US and the UK. Without getting into the political and moral aspects of the video, I have to say this is brilliant. A bold step musically and visually for M.I.A.
M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.
Last night riding my bike home from a party proved to be a fun and challenging task. I was accompanied by my friend Jordan R. as we traversed the dark and lonely roads from Harrison to Mamaroneck at 2:30 AM. As I took a sharp turn, the front wheel betrayed me and decided to turn on its own accord. Forcing me to be launched off the bike as all balance was lost. Instincts kicked in. Instincts long ago forgotten with my last bike, stolen almost 9 years ago. The graceful roll as you land on the harsh pavement. Minimize the damage. Control the uncontrollable. It was all over in a split second. As I realized what had happened, I quickly yelled out “YEAH!”, an ironic reaction to the event. But I was happy, I was excited, I was glad this happened. I have not had a spill on a bike in over 9 years and it felt good. Really good. I was not badly hurt, just a scrapped knee and elbow. A very low price to pay for this joy.
LCD Soundsystem
This Is Happening
This is the much anticipated follow up to the 2007 Sound Of Silver release and I have to say, it does not disappoint one bit. James Murphy has done it again. The album is full of danceable, 80′s nostalgia, analog synthy tracks with that flare of rock and punk. The second track in the album “Drunk Girls” is a fun throwback to original tracks such as “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”, with that sense of urgency that makes you just want to get up and go wild. This album is worthy of your next party. You can stream the whole album from their website: www.lcdsoundsystem.com
Listen: LCD Soundsystem – One Touch
Fang Island
Fang Island
Hailing from Providence, Rhode Island and now Brooklyn based, Fang Island is definitely a band to watch in 2010. With former members of the mathcore band, Daughters, Fang Island is progressive rock trying to disguise itself as indie pop. The band describes their sound as “everyone high-fiving everyone” and their goal, according to guitarist Jason Bartell, is to “make music for people who like music”. The self titled album is a very ornate and complex formula. Full of interesting guitar stylings and plenty of chanting that will leave you wanting for more.
Listen: Fang Island – Daisy
Caribou
Swim
Caribou’s Swim is one of those albums that will take you through a transcendental trip making you rediscover what true good music is. Dan Snaith’s almost whispered lyrics give the songs a sense secrecy and fragility backed against waves of beats and strange exotic synths. According to Snaith, he wants to make dance music which sounds more like water than metal, and the swirling and swishing effects on opener Odessa are perfect examples of this theory. Caribou is very smart music, not easily digestible by everyone, after all, Snaith does have a PhD in mathematics, which is a clear influence over his compositions.
Listen: Caribou – Odessa
Apple recently announced a change in their SDK agreement not allowing third party applications that use other technologies such as Adobe’s Flash to build their applications and transcribe them for the iPhone. It has generated a lot of rage from developers and designers who use Adobe as their building platform for iPhone/iPad applications and web services.
iPhones and iPads have not supported Flash from day one, limiting a designer’s ability to reach a broader audience and guarantee the same experience on all devices. Such a move by Apple seems like a deliberate stab against Adobe and their dislike for Flash as a web technology. Being an Apple and Adobe fan, it’s very hard to to come to terms on the subject. With the very recent release of Adobe’s CS5, many of their features were aimed towards streamlining Flash development towards mobile devices, making these upgrades obsolete due to Apple’s move.
As a designer I despise Apple’s decision by making us change the way we work just to meet their obsessive control tactics. There has been several recent projects that I’ve had to redo from the ground up just to comply with Apple’s lack of support for Flash. As stated before, Adobe made several strides to make iPhone app developing much easier through Flash. In today’s world small time designers such as myself have to adapt and learn to develop not just for the web but for mobile devices as well, I am not a developer and I don’t have the time and energy to learn new programing languages such as C++. The new tools from Adobe would have allowed me to do such a thing with little effort and relatively fast. But that is all in the past now.
Apple needs to open up the iPhone and iPad to support Flash. Whether they like it or not, Flash is a web technology that’s here to stay.
Terry Ranson said it well from the I’m with Adobe Facebook Fan Club:
Both Apple and Adobe are big companies and I don’t see either one yielding to each other. I just hope there’s a compromise soon or this debate will just keep dividing us.
Watch this logo saturated and impressive academy award winning animated short by French animation collective H5, François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy + Ludovic Houplain. It was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. It opened the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and won a 2010 academy award under the category of animated short. Worth watching several times just to take in the wonderfully detailed world of logos.
Logorama from Marc Altshuler – Human Music on Vimeo.
From the upcoming still untitled LCD Soundsystem album: ‘Drunk Girls’. Let’s make it official, I am calling “Drunk Girls” the new party anthem of 2010. MGMT’s new album was a total bust. I’m not even gonna go into that, so LCD inevitably takes the throne.
The track has a very nostalgic 90′s feel to it, sounding more like LCD’s first Self Titled album. A departure from the very electronic and “silvery” sounding ‘Sound of Silver’ album.
You can see behind the scenes footage of the recording process in their transplanted LA studio here: www.lcdsoundsystem.com or you can watch here:
