This site is best viewed with
I stumbled across Paavoharju the other day at Gorilla vs. Bear just before finding another band from Finland equally divergent from my usual listening fare. Here are some samples of their work:
Links:
Paavoharju
Paavoharju (MySpace)
Paavoharju (Gorilla vs. Bear)
Paavoharju (LastFM)
Paavoharju (Internet Archive)
This video was a little confection in an otherwise bitter day. EDIT: Lorcan has removed the video from his Vimeo page. Here's the YouTube version:
Mark Leckey is the third introduction to the four nominees for this year's Turner Prize. I have to say it's refreshing to see an established artist with a MySpace page. In addition to being a fan of Doctor Who, Madame Bovary, and Little Richard, Leckey provides this to the point introduction:I am a British artist. I show with the Cabinet in London, Gavin Brown's in New York and Buchholz Galerie in Cologne. I teach at the Stadelschule in Frankfurt and have a band called Jack too Jack....
In regard to his work, it is varied, often hybrid, and intrinsically modern. He is nominated for his solo exhibitions which incorporate sculpture, film, sound and performance.
Borborygmus in the Kunstvereins basement
Having just released her sophomore album Nukku, I just discovered the Finnish band Lau Nau over at Antville. Their music is wistful, spare, psychedelic folk; perfect listening while sitting on the lunar-like landscape at bottom of the ocean.
From Locust Music:
Lau Nau is the nom de plume of free spirited Finnish artist Laura Naukkarinen. Since the release of her celebrated debut full length Kuutarha on Chicago’s Locust Music in 2005, Lau Nau has enjoyed considerable recognition for her intimate & playful blend of ethnic tinged folk songs with curious & intuitive sounds conjured from familiar and exotic sound sources.Here is a selection of Lau Nau's videos:
Lau Nau will be performing at the Clandestino festival, Göteborg, Sweden on June 14, 2008 at Koloni Klub.
Japanese musician Soichi Terada is the founder and creative engine for Far East Recording. Omodaka is described as "...the name of [a] project developed through a trial and error process of mutational fusion of music and motion graphics. It will knock over your existing image toward a music video by a beautiful trajectory."
It's well outside my usual listening, but I really enjoy it. The videos are interesting as well. Here are some examples:
Links:
Far East Recording
FER/Omodaka profile (ZB's AtoZ of J-Music)
Far East Recording (YouTube)
From Toronto-based Crush, this video for the R.E.M. song "Hollow Man" is a refreshingly low-fi typographic and pictorial collage. See below in low quality Flash video or alternatively in Quicktime HERE.
Having been an integral part of The Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, Scottish singer/songwriter Elizabeth Fraser has worked with a variety of artists including Jeff Buckley, Orbital, Peter Gabriel, Massive Attack and Yann Tiersen.
Her unique vocals seem natural and fleeting while keeping a strength through their sincere and relaxed delivery. Enjoy.
Riceboy Sleeps is an art collaboration between Jónsi Birgisson and Alex Somers comprised of still images, music, video, and storytelling. Releasing a picture book in Iceland in 2006(1000 hand numbered editions), they held their first exhibition at Gallery Turpentine in Reykjavik.
In 2007, a second unnumbered edition of the book was released as well as two singles, All the big trees and Daniel in the Sea. Further exhibitions outside Iceland followed in the US and Australia. They currently have an exhibition at the Agency Gallery in London(10 April-17 May, 2008).
Jónsi Birgisson is also a member and lead singer for Sigur Rós and Alex Somers who has worked on artwork for Sigur Rós is a member of the band Parachutes. As Jónsi and Alex were setting up their exhibition in London as the interview was conducted, each was interviewed separately though the answers are presented here in a compiled format.
Sioux: How did the Moss Stories and Riceboy Sleeps project develop and what were your motivations?
Alex: The project began four years ago and there was never any motivation, we didn't realise that we were starting a real project. It was just the two of us making music and making artwork for fun really.
Jonsi: It just started with me and Alex and we wanted to do something together. Alex is just in the same headspace.
Sioux: Did that start from the videos you've done?
Alex: Actually, we started making music a long time ago and we made lots of songs and we were recording and stuff and then at some point since we both did videos on our own, we decided it would be fun to make videos for some of our songs and that's how it began and then Jonsi and I moved in together so we began drawing and painting a lot together.
Sioux: What would you say are the key differences in your musical work with Riceboy Sleeps as opposed to your creations with Sigur Ros and Parachutes?
Alex: It's quite similar. We use the same instruments, same microphones. I think the process is quite similar except Parachutes is Scott and I, and Riceboy is Jonsi and I. I think working with Jonsi, everything is much more brave and spontaneous and I think with Parachutes we're not as brave as Jonsi, he's so brave in trying and going for things. And sometimes I forget that if I'm not working with him . They're quite similar.
Jonsi: Yeah, just different. Me and Alex work differently. Riceboy is more like playing with sounds.
Alex: It's more of a feeling and atmosphere we're trying to create than a specific message. We're never really aware of trying to tell people something, we're more interested in having people feel something so it's just a really good feeling and something we've both been really attracted to before we even met eachother. It's comfortable, it feels like things have soul. Before we met, we were both collecting old photographs and old books and didn't really know why, we just both really like them. Then when we started making artwork, it just got incorporated into our work."...when I met Jonsi, I was really, really poor and I was just living off of rice mostly..."
For those of you following the WIRE, you'll know that I am a great admirer of the TED(Technology. Entertainment. Design) series of lectures. Each year a TED prize is issued from a broad range of disciplines and in 2006, the winner was filmmaker Jehane Noujaim who was granted $100,000. Her aspiration was to create a day which would bring the world together through film and thus Pangea Day was born.
Here is the English trailer(Click HERE for additional languages):
In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that -- to help people see themselves in others -- through the power of film.Jehane Noujaim is also the director of the highly recommended film Control Room, a documentary on Al Jazeera putting forward an alternative vantage point on the Iraq War and media in general.
On May 10, 2008 -- Pangea Day -- sites in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music. The program will be broadcast live to the world through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.
Pangea is the name of the original super-continent which contained all the world's land mass before the continents started splitting apart 250 million years ago. We're launching Pangea Day with the vision that the people of the world can begin to overcome their divisions, and that the power of film can help make it possible.
Movies can't change the world. But the people who watch them can.
In line with the ethos that SiouxWIRE advocates, Michel Lemieux's creations merge media and span class. Founding Lemieux.Pilon 4D Art in 1983, directors Michel Lemiux and Victor Pilon combine performing arts with new media to create a hybrid show merging performance, scenography, cinema, video, dance, poetry, visual arts, lighting design, music and sound. The results are striking and coherent.
Here is an example from their latest performance. Note that this clip has no post production. The visuals were filmed as they were on stage.
Michel very kindly agreed to be interviewed in Fall 2007, but due to some technical difficulties it has taken some time to release this interview. Enjoy.
And how did your collaboration with Victor Pilon begin? And how do you feel the two of you compliment each other?
Another tasty lozenge for Friday. This is the video for Leonard Cohen's My Secret Life produced by Revolver Films and directed by Floria Sigismondi. The flash version is available below or alternatively right click on THIS LINK and save it to your hard drive for the higher quality Quicktime version.
The song is typically great Leonard Cohen and though the video is interesting, it doesn't entirely mesh with the music. That said, both elements stand quite well on their own even if they don't entirely compliment eachother. By definition, I suppose that makes the video a failure yet I'm still drawn towards its imagery; interesting nonetheless.
I just discovered this video for Clare Diterzi's Tableau de Chasse directed by Patrick Volve. The video has an interesting aesthetic and the song sounds vaguely reminiscent of Kate Bush. Just a sweet lozenge for a Friday afternoon.
It is with regret that this interview with the members of Mother Vulpine comes at a turbulent time time for the band and there is some question as to whether this interview is for premonition or posterity.
Based in Leeds(UK), the band have created a guitar-driven gothic fable which has been supported by their artistic talents, not least Matthew Bigland's direction of their video for "Keep Your Wits Sharp".
Stumble it!
Stumble it!
