Kunzite – VISUALS
»Ride on the rays of the farthest sun«
About a decade ago I came across the electronic rock from Ratatat for the first time because of their features on one of my favourite albums, Kid Cudi’s masterpiece ‘Man on the Moon: The End of Day’. The recognizable sound the Brooklyn-based duo was contributing to the tracks ‘Alive’ and ‘Pursuit of Happiness‘ –probably one of my favourite songs of all time– lead me to listen to their music quite extensively back then, first and foremost to the extremly catchy tunes of their earlier released album ‘Classics’.
Just recently –six years after the last vital signs of Ratatat– said album (which nowadays is available on YouTube in its entirety) popped into my head again while listening to ‘VISUALS’, the just-released second longplayer by a band called Kunzite. Only after doing my habitual research on the music project unkown to me hitherto, I discovered my association is not by chance;
The 2018 formed duo is a collaboration between the musicians Agustin White and Mike Stroud, the latter being the guitarist of –you guessed it– Ratatat, for which he plays a variety of instruments. I guess a lot of the infectious groove on ‘VISUALS’ caused by synthesizers, pipe organs and lap steel guitars is to a great extent attributed to him, at least it undoubtedly sounds a hell lot like his other music project.
In fact the whole record sounds like Ratatat got inspired by the island vibes of Hawaii –where White and Stroud recorded large parts of the longplayer, decided to dial back the weirdness just a tiny bit and, most notably, add hypnotic pop vocals to their repertoire.
The result is a psychedelic joyride and probably one of my favourite albums of 2021 so far. I can’t wait for ‘VISUALS’ to drop on vinyl later this year (November), until then I have to be careful not to listen to it repeatedly ad nauseam in its digital form —especially since it oozes summer fun and therefore matches the current late summer sun way better than the dark winter months ahead.
There’s rumored to be an exclusive track with the grande Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry on the physical record, though, so I’m going to put it on as soon as I get my hands on it, no matter how often I’ll have played it already till then.
© KUNZITE (via YouTube)
© KUNZITE (via YouTube)
The weekly series ‘Kurzschluss‘ (short circuit) by Franco-German TV network ‘ARTE’ offers short films a unusual platform for the medium in the main program of linear television. Yesterday’s episode paid tribute to its broadcasting date, focusing on shorts influenced by “9/ 11 and its aftermath” as well as the Charlie Hebdo shooting of 2015 in France.
One of the three selected stories was the incredibly tense and absolutely superbly produced un état d’urgence | state of emergency. The short kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish and still echoes through my mind a day later.
A movie about a society in fear. It is the story of two soldiers in the everyday life of Paris guarding an official building. […] The lines between normality and real danger disappear.
© RJ Bruni / Inmist Media House (via Vimeo)
A story about a ceramic artist, Cathy Terepocki, and her journey to find purpose within her work. When most artists are seeking to further put themselves at the forefront of their work Cathy made a conscious decision to actually remove her personal touch.
I always enjoy watching craftsmanship, especially if it’s captured with such a pleasing –and extremly well-suited– granular and tactile aesthetic like in this beautiful short called Shared Earth.
Es fehlt ein Verb für die Tätigkeit, die im Halb-Zustand zwischen Programmierung und Gestaltung stattfindet. Es ist beständiges Tasten auf der Suche nach einem angemessenen Gefühl für ein bestimmtes Interface, nach der korrekten Balance aus Physik und Assoziation. Teils ist es Konstruieren, teils räumliches Entwerfen, teils händisches Formen des Materials. In dieser Tätigkeit geht es langsam voran, aber Konstruktion, Gestaltung und inhaltlicher Ausdruck entwickeln sich zugleich, die falsche Trennung der Disziplinen außer acht lassend.
Nature Track is a podcast that opens a window on the beautiful sounds of the Australian wilderness. […] Each unique track is carefully recorded on location in a different part of Australia by the ABC’s nature specialist Ann Jones.
The beautiful podcast Nature Track by ABC Radio collects different sounds from Australian nature (so no music or humans), which reminds me a lot of ‘Sanctuaries of Silence’ and the amazing work of Gordon Hempton I’ve mentioned before.
The radio station furthermore has another podcast –among many others– called ‘Off Track’, which combines equally soothing sounds of nature with fascinating stories of environmental science recorded in the outdoors.
Both series are great alternatives for the very handy background noise app noisli, that I’ve been using occasionally for some time now.
© Sam H. Buchanan (via Vimeo)
By far and away the silliest thing I’ve ever made, felt appropriate to make something silly this year [the short was filmed in 2020].
Loving this absurd short: Every Sport a Bowling Ball.
At times of change, the learners are the ones who will inherit the world, while the knowers will be beautifully prepared for a world which no longer exists.
Fast learns, slow remembers. Fast proposes, slow disposes. Fast is discontinuous, slow is continuous. Fast and small instructs slow and big by accrued innovation and by occasional revolution. Slow and big controls small and fast by constraint and constancy. Fast gets all our attention, slow has all the power.
Interesting essay by Stewart Brand for the Journal of Design and Science, outlining the strengths of a construct called “Pace Layering”.
Even though he focuses on human society and a six-layered structure (Fashion/art, Commerce, Infrastructure, Governance, Culture, Nature) as the basis of a healthy civilization for the most part of Pace Layering: How Complex Systems Learn and Keep Learning, Brand proposes all dynamic systems to be based on a structure made of multiple layers of different pace and size in order to be robust and durable.
In design –no matter the specific field, but especially in software and systems design, of course, we come across and/or form a lot of dynamic systems with the need to be adaptable, so pace layering might provide a valuable concept to build upon.
Analogue self-portrait taken with my Impossible I-1 on Polaroid Black Frame Edition, triple-exposure embroided with red yarn
© Jason Bruges Studio / Sam King (via Vimeo)
An interesting installation by London based Jason Bruges Studio for the past Olympic and the upcoming Paralympic Games in Tokyo:
The Constant Gardeners will create a new visual language to communicate and celebrate the motion of the professional athletes and their feats of physical prowess. The installation will produce dynamic, representative patterns, which ‘the gardeners’, a team of four industrial robot arms mounted on linear rails, will precisely rake into a large-scale gravel canvas, consisting of fourteen tonnes of crushed black basalt, surrounded by a further four tonnes of silver-grey granite. In a series of daily performances, ‘the gardeners’ will work together to create around one-hundred-and-fifty unique illustrations throughout the duration of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
© Go Project Films (via YouTube)
Silence isn’t the absence of something, but the presence of everything.
Acoustic ecologist –who’d knew, that such a profession exists– Gordon Hempton in Sanctuaries of Silence, a beautiful short film by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Adam Loften. The 360°-/Virtual Reality-film takes the viewer to the Hoh Rain Forest, a protected area in a National Park in the State of Washington, North America where Hempton has been documenting the sounds of nature for more than thirty-five years.
The website accompanying the short film, in addition, offers a nice little five-step exercise to practice listening and be present, open, and curious in a world increasingly polluted by noise.
Analogue self-portrait taken with my Impossible I-1 on Polaroid Black Frame Edition, wrapped in bubble wrap