performance film mixed with pre-recorded footage. Always good to see Grandaddy emerge with something.

a well spent 17 minutes

not gonna lie, this is clever enough to back.

relevant to my interests

company Ekioh is trying to re-invent the browser. Very interesting read but it's a massive hill to climb.

Many thanks to the Nashville Cream for premiering this brand new video for "Mixed Signals" by Jack Silverman. I already loved the track but the video really recontextualized it for me - adding a layer of narrative that I would have never come to myself.

The G. Seth West / Ben Marcantel direction for it has an almost Dr. Katz feel with the simple illustrations and squiggly movement but there's Easter Eggs nestled throughout the whole piece. The "11:34" clock being the most obvious and pervasive.

Watch it and enjoy.

another absolute stunner

I have discovered a new intriguing Bandcamp genre

I just recently learned about Roman Opalka and his lifelong art project painting to infinity.

In 1965, he decided to "to paint numbers that would progress sequentially from one canvas to the next for the duration of his life. " Starting on a black canvas he started painting these sequential Details for years. Around 1968, he starts to add 1% white to the canvas with the ultimate goal that the paintings would eventually have a fully white background with white numbers on top.

I'm usually not a big fan of these sorts of "invisible" works but there is something admirably meditative about the act of painting from 1965 to 2011 to the point where its not even visible.

this came through as a submission and I gotta admit, I really like the animation style.

i found myself on Tumblr the other day and revisited this photoblog. Unbelievably good.

I recently came across the work of Demond Melancon, an artist from New Orleans "with extensive roots in the Black Masking Culture." If you're not aware of the Black Masking Culture, it's an homage to Native Americans and the African diaspora told through incredible elaborate costuming, always involving extremely intricate beading work. Here's a 2 minute documentary on that to catch you up.

Melancon takes the traditions of these Mardi Gras Indians and applies them to his fine art portraits. Most of the images from his site do not give the sense intricacy or scale involved with these pieces but they are often huge and always incredibly detailed.

I find the work to be fascinating from all angles - the method of execution in making it, the actual illustration style itself and the story each pieces tells.

You can find Melancon on Instagram, naturally.

don't sleep on cuttlefish; dudes is SMART

Soundcloud recently announced Fan Powered Royalties - a different approach to paying out artists than what any of the other streaming services use. I've been fascinated with this approach ever since I read about Deezer's User Centric Payment System. This article does a good job of explaining "pro-rata" payouts vs "user-centric" payouts but the gist of it - instead of paying artists with the most repeated plays on a given platform, payouts are based on direct plays from subscribers.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying it or misunderstanding the approach but, as far as I can tell, they're going to try and pay out artists based on actual plays; not an algorithm of who should be paid. This is closing in on 1:1 plays to payments.

The Soundcloud promo site sells it pretty well but there's a lot of documents to sort through to figure out how to be eligible for it. To start, if you're on Soundcloud and don't have ISRC codes on your tracks, you should go ahead and do that ASAP.

However it shakes out, it's a very worthwhile experiment and I'm happy to see a big company like Soundcloud trying this out.

The debut release from No Stress came out yesterday. Prelude No. 1 is a quick listen but it covers a lot of ground incorporating hip-hop, jazz, gospel and a bit of glitch all into one tidy package. It's a yk Records release and it's probably one of the most different things I've had a hand in putting out into the world. And I say that positively. It's hard to pinpoint a favorite track because of the variety of styles. "Freedomlove" is a good jumping off point but there's something hypnotic about "We Sure This Is A Dream? and something entirely soothing about Trust Falls with My Enemies." All told, you really can't go wrong.

Pick it up on Bandcamp or stream it anywhere.

In promotion of their latest LP, In The City, Tower Defense has released the video for the lead track "Manifest Destiny." It's a highly stylized DIY affair that features bassist Sarah Shepherd hurdling through Nashville before ending in a rather precarious situation.

It's certainly not a big budget video but I have an intense fondness for bands that figure out a way to do something engaging without spending a lot. They put together an affordable green screen setup and figured out a way to make it work. I love the results.

It's also a great song worth repeating at least a few times. I know that's my bias talking but I really love how full force the band sounds here. Pick up the LP or digital over on Bandcamp or stream the record anywhere. And, of course, watch the video.

went on an 80s video binge. on the fence about the song but enjoying the video.

recent discovery. v into it.

the album is 20 years old. The band put out a playlist of songs that helped inspire it

if anyone has an HD version of this, please direct me towards it