This fantastic short explores the unique world of a sound artist who cannot hear. Todd Selby’s film takes us into Christine Sun Kim’s exploration of sound through her own physical translation.

From Nowness.com: Deaf from birth, Kim turned to using sound as a medium during an artist residency in Berlin in 2008, and has since developed a practice of lo-fi experimentation that aims to re-appropriate sound by translating it into movement and vision. “It’s a lot more interesting to explore a medium that I don’t have direct access to and yet has the most direct connection to society at large,” says the artist. “Social norms surrounding sound are so deeply ingrained that, in a sense, our identities cannot be complete without it.” Selby filmed an exclusive performance from Kim in a Brooklyn studio as the artist played with field recordings of the street sounds of her Chinatown neighborhood, feedback and helium balloons, and made “seismic calligraphy” drawings from ink- and powder-drenched quills, nails and cogs dancing across paper to the vibrations of subwoofers beneath.

Check out an interview with Christine Sun Kim on Nowness’s Facebook page.

Thanks to Create Digital Music for the post leading me to this great short film.

Eric & Magill, creators of the previously loved “You Make It So Good”, have released their equally lush Two Travelers EP. Stream it below and download it for free from their bandcamp. Look for their full length Night Singers coming in late June of this year.

Take a look at the video’s direct influence: Yoko Ono’s 1965 performance entitled Cut Piece:

Please ignore the music on the youtube video, I’m fairly certain it’s not authentic. As part of Ono’s involvement in the 60′s performance art group Fluxus, she held this audience involvement piece in both Tokyo and then London. Those in attendance were given scissors and instructed to cut away her clothing until naked. The staging and concept are directly translated into the video for “Coming Down”.

Echoes of this performance can be seen in Marina Abramović’s 1974 performance piece Rhythm 0, which gave the audience a much wider range of tools and a more intimidating leeway to do whatever they pleased.

Regardless of influence, it’s always great to see the threads of video & performance art bubbling up in contemporary music videos.

The lovely video from Tennis is a Lynch-ian, color soaked performance piece. I never know if I’m a full-on fan of Tennis, but this video is charming as hell, in a perfectly weird way.

Bonus link: a live version of “My Better Self” shot at The Earth House Collective for the possibly defunct Laundro Matinee. The live version comes off less polished and the lack of reverb makes it sound a little less like Beach House.

I was ready to jump on the hype train about Chance The Rapper for his recently released mixtape Acid Rap, but this clip of him working on a track with Nosaj Thing is even better. I’ve always wanted to hear Nosaj produc for an MC and Chance seems like a solid pairing. You’ll be able to download the full track May 7th from yourstru.ly

Check out Acid Rap below:

Hamihadarigeri is a bizarre blend of chopped Moondog samples, sing song half Japanese/half made up lyrics and an equally odd cloud of visual accompaniment. Probably one of the strangest things I’ve come across recently and a good way to clear the fog on a Monday morning.

As a tangential follow-up to the last post about a music video staring Ray Wise, here’s my favorite recent discovery: Twin Peaks. They are a bunch of young guys making hazy rock like a humid blast of summer…something perfect for the dwindling days of winter. There are touches of Supergrass, Wavves and lot of noisy Chicago classics. “Stand In The Sand” definitely gives reason to keep an eye on these guys for more releases.

Hell, they’ve already got an appearance under their belt on Chicago’s venerable public access, indie kids dance party Chic-a-go-go. That’s a high mark to me.

As well, check out a six song set they recorded for Epitonic and this live clip from FeelTrip Studios.

They’re playing The Hideout’s Annual SXSW sendoff party Saturday March 9th before heading down to Austin. Also playing: Judson Claiborne, The Congregation, Scott Lucas & The Married Men, The Waco Brothers, Frontier, Summer Girlfriends, Mahogany, Outer Minds, The Hood Internet. Starts at 3:30, tickets are $10.

Man, I miss The Hideout. What a near-perfect Chicago venue…behind The Empty Bottle, of course. Enough Chicago nostsalgia, you can find a list of Twin Peaks’s SXSW gigs here.

Beach House’s video for “Wishes” is my new favorite music video. Evidently all it takes to entertain me is Ray Wise, Eric Wareheim, slow motion & horsemasks.

Bonus points for the Breaking Bad sampling intro, otherwise a great pulsing mass of Space Trap, featuring Flosstradamus, Rustie, TNGHT and a bunch of other folks I don’t know.

If this were possible, I would say this could qualify as 4:35 seconds of an Off The Air episode on video games. A million unlicensed clips, so it’d be terrible for broadcast…but the video still blew my brains apart. Lots of datamoshing, iconic video game imagery & aggressive wildlife all add up to a charmingly delusional video. The clip has my attention and, though I’ve never heard of High Contrast or Hospitality Records before, the clip serves as an internet friendly talking point. ‘Spectrum Analyzer’ is an ok track; definitely in line with 8/16 bit soundtracks of the visuals, but nothing that has changed my worldview.

I will say that the b-side, “Some Things Never Change” is a far better tune, but I have a soft spot for time tested, uncomplicated drum and bass. It all takes me back to high school and my mind wanders to a box with a number of 90′s era cassettes featuring bedroom mixes by long ago friends.

Related, though not as hypnotic: CRIMEKILLZ – BORNALONEDIEALONE video composed of video game death scenes

Music History In GIFS gives little bite sized loops of information about the last 30 odd years of pop events. Told in the style of Commodore-era games, the single serving tumblr offers a concise and retro-modern way to learn about recent music history.

Been waiting a long time for this…never has over 2 years felt so long. The new track carries a heavy vibe of The National & Grizzly Bear, while still sounding like an organic Local Natives track. Their sophomore album Hummingbird out January 28th on Infectious and January 29th on Frenchkiss.

In honor of the upcoming release of After Dark II, label head Johnny Jewel has offered up the incredible After Dark compilation up for free download. From the lead Chromatic himself:

Over 5 years ago we released a slow-burning label sampler at midnight on my birthday. The original pressing was a demo CDR that Ida No colored with markers & glued cutouts of my hand spraypainting our names on the world. It was supposed to be a limited edition of 237 copies meant for the merch tables of Texas & California. It exploded overnight. 77 minutes of analog electronic music mutating through Italo Disco, Krautrock, Electro, Giallo Cinema, & Pop. By now, After Dark seems like it’s in its thousandth pressing…(we lost track a long time ago). And as we prepare for the release of After Dark 2, we wanted to share with you where it all began. The last 5 years seem like a beautiful blurry dream. Since the October 15th release date was announced back in July, everyone has grown increasingly anxious for the hard copy. At that time, we didn’t know Karl Lagerfeld was going to commission Chromatics to choreograph 27 minutes of music for the Chanel runway. We also couldn’t have known that Symmetry was going to be asked to score a top-secret motion picture for 2013. There is so much music we can’t wait for you to hear. For the diehard fans, we’re going to start leaking tracks next week. After slowly chiseling away at it since the spring of 2008, After Dark 2 is finally right around the corner. Thanks to everyone for being so enthusiastic & patient. I promise it’s worth the wait. In the meantime, download the fully remastered version of the first After Dark from my soundcloud. I blended it together at 5 am this morning. Enjoy!

xo
Johnny Jewel

What doesn’t kill you makes you dumber.

A great cut from a critically loved, but generally under-appreciated album, given life by the masterful Daniel Garcia. He previously was responsible for an old favorite gem of mine: the surrealist video accompaniment to J Dilla’s ‘Nothing Like This.’ Killer Mike’s hyper-aware, political wandering through the cultural fallout of Reagan is a fine alternative to the dog and pony of tonight’s presidential debates. Both R.A.P Music and co-conspirator EL-P’s Cancer For Cure easily stand tall together as easily the best this year has provided.