Wild Beasts – Present Tense
Ihre Kunst der kleinen Schritte haben die Wild Beasts über nunmehr vier Alben ausgebreitet, gerade so, dass es richtig spannend bleibt. Eine der wichtigsten Bands der Gegenwart.
Beck – Morning Phase
Hey, es bleibt, wie es ist: Abhängen mit Beck. Regenerative Tiefenentspannung.
Abandoned Olympic Venues
What happens to Olympic facilities after the games are over? Some are turned into training facilities, theaters, concert halls, museums and so on. But many of them are abandoned. Check out this great series of 30 haunting images from past Summer and Winter Olympics which now lie abandoned and overgrown.
Athens 2004 Summer Olympics
Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics
Helsinki 1952 Summer Olympics
Stainless, Alexanderplatz
Filmed in Tokyo, New York and Berlin, filmmaker Adam Magyar positioned himself on trains as they pulled into subway stops, filming the waiting crowds at 50 frames per second using a high speed camera. The shot is steady and smooth, no shaking or swerving. His videos are 56 times longer than reality. The sound is the train’s sound, slowed down by the same scale. Visit his vimeo site for more videos.
High speed video recording in Berlin at U2 Alexanderplatz station (2011).
Absence of Water
»The absence of water« series by Gigi Cifali: »Having been built in the late Victorian period, public lidos and baths were at the peak of their popularity in the 1930s. Gradually, living conditions and tastes have changed, resulting in a drop of attendances, leaving the public pools uneconomical to run. Many fell into decay and many were emolished. Symbols of civic and architectural pride in Victorian times, today only a handful of them remain as a representation of bygone era.
Top Music Videos 2013 – No. 5-1
5. Is Tropical – »Dancing Anymore« directed by Megaforce (riffraff films). The future of teenager fantasy films may based on this clip. This is the story of a poolboy on the verge of puberty. His daily work slows down due to an unexpected thought with curious details. The dramatic climax reaches into a great scene: the boy gets a blowjob off a corpse in the middle of a warzone. Banned from YouTube just 25 minutes after airing. Definitely the freak out of the year.
4. Bonobo – »Cirrus« directed by Cyriak. The music video by New York-based producer Bonobo is animated in a most fantastic way, all of it layered into a kaleidoscope of pretty colors and vintage footage, with source material from the public domain video treasure trove, The Prelinger Archive. What starts out as a few simple repeating elements soon becomes a chaotic collage of video snippets that take on a life of their own.
3. Gesaffelstein – »Pursuit« directed by Fleur & Manu. This video is incredible, a rectangular array of symbols and arrangements, evil, and violently sexy. The camera is constantly backing away from a series of strange surroundings. A masterpiece of a music video. The concept behind the video in the director’s own words: »It is a trip through the quest for power, showing the bad aspects of it. Power, money, success should never be the goal otherwise you lose your soul.«
2. Jon Hopkins – »Open Eye Signal« directed by Aoife McArdle. The colors, the light, the depth of field and above all, the setting. Absolut fantastic. And additionally one of the best tracks of 2013. Directer McArdle describes it this way: »The track is really special. I saw it as a singular, hypnotic journey that’s almost endless. You get lost in it. I liked the idea of a city kid taking us on that journey… just one day suddenly deciding to escape his life and see more of the world in the only way he understands… via skateboard.«
1. Jon Rafman + Oneohtrix Point Never – »Still Life (Betamale)« directed by Jon Rafman. Filthy keyboards, digital pack rat interiors, fetish anime art and 8-bit video game graphics embedded in a loopy realness – the digital lifestyle of Jon Rafman’s »Still Life (Betamale)« collage is breathtaking, or as Brandon Soderberg said: »This collage of a clip invokes awe, empathy, sadness, and horror all at once, or one after another or who even knows, could receive, right?«. The world is a strange place. Even the digital world. A worthy winner in a tight contest!