sleep whale: little brite.

I’ve been following Western Vinyl’s acts for a little while now. It started with Balmorhea, and then I found Here We Go Magic, and then Dirty Projectors, and now my latest obsession from their seemingly endless roster of awesomeness is Sleep Whale.

I know don’t know what’s in the water at Western Vinyl, but I’m not complaining.

Sleep Whale’s first EP, “Little Brite”, is out now and this memory-flash nostalgia-imbued vid came with its Japanese release. Radness.

bearfight: contraction.

When you die, I’m pretty sure heaven is a continuous screening of anything from F5 RE:PLAY. Seriously. And, the screenings are on the side of Angel Falls or something. And the sky rains Skittles. And the lakes are made of Grey Goose. But I digress…

The latest little bit of wonder to be borne from that kick ass short film festival is “Contraction”, a breath-taking (literally) vid from Christopher Hewitt & James Cambourne from The Ebeling Group’s film and animation studio Bearfight.

Via Motionographer

wild beasts + ruth render: hooting & howling.

I’m into this. I like the whole minor-key funeral elegy vibe at the beginning, and, I’ll admit it, I’m a big sucker for anything that’s nicely shot underwater. I think it’s from the approximately 5000 times I watched “Splash” when I was a little kid.

I’m a big kid now, but I still get that same elemental, transformative water-feelings from the vid for Wild Beasts’ “Hooting & Howling”, directed by Ruth Render.

mtv + takagi masakatsu: come march.

Digging around in the work of Takagi Masakatsu after my last post, I found this exquisite and joyous little ident for MTV Latin America, created by Sägas and set to Masakatsu’s laughter-filled song “Come March.”

takagi masakatsu: rehome.

Takagi Masakatsu is a true multi-media artist: designer, film maker, and musician. His work is emotional, elegant, and refined; it lights up with a clean purity and just a lovely, human essence.

In “Rehome”, with both music and video created by Masakatsu, his talents are displayed beautifully:

oscar santamaria rojo: materia.

Mega ethereal vid, created in Processing, by Oscar Santamaria Rojo.

dirty projectors + matthew lessner: stillness is the move.

Beside being a kickass track, the video for Dirty Projector’s “Stillness Is The Move”, directed by Matthew Lessner, has a very odd, colonial, “Handmaid’s Tale” sort of vibe that I really dig.

mtv international + universal everything.

Universal Everything is my favourite motion design studio in the world. Yesterday MTV International rolled out a brand new identity – to umbrella across all of it’s 64 channels around the world – created in collaboration with Universal Everything. So basically I just shit my pants…

Lots of people like to chirp that MTV is becoming increasingly irrelevant since it basically stopped playing music videos.  Depite MTV’s undeniable shift to creating reality programming rather than promoting videos, you can’t exactly say that reality TV has been a big pop-bust. It’s culturally less worthwhile, arguably, but MTV has a history of innovative identity and design. If MTV exposes a lot of mainstream, Hills-watching folks to a level of design they wouldn’t normally see, then I consider that relevant. You never know when some kid is going to be zoned out in front of MTV, see a new ident from Universal Everything, and be inspired to learn more about art.

I’m so pumped to see this new work from Universal Everything. It is absolutely stunning. Working similarly to their epic series of sound sculptures “Advanced Beauty” (which is my favourite project of all time, just sayin’…), Universal Everything founder Matt Pyke again collaborated with a series of filmmakers to create each ident. Sound design, also just like “Advanced Beauty”, is by Pyke’s genius brother Simon (a.k.a. Freeform).

This stuff is all epic:

Via Creative Review

oscar sheikh: tancho.

“Tancho” is a wonderfully murk and organic short, using ideas of evolution and nature to parallel Freud’s theories of the three levels of the human psyche – id, ego, and super ego – brought to life by film maker Oscar Sheikh.

jemapur + kosai sekine: beneath the water surface.

Ok, so digging around on Kosai Sekine’s site after the last post I discovered another video he’d directed for Jempaur. Happy times.

Again, Sekine’s work, this time for “Beneath The Water Surface” is ridiculously awesome.

adidas originals + kosai sekine: split up service.

I first started following Japanese director Kosai Sekine after I saw his stellar vid for Jemapur’s “Maledict Car.” He does that whole light-filled-Tokyo-nothing-is-ever-as-it-seems-here vibe so well. His work has a sheeny, clean vibe and always feels like it moving down a very, very fast highway.

I don’t even know where to start on Adidas anymore. It’s my favourite brand in the world. I’ve spent a lot of time raving about how much I love Adidas (here, here, here, here… here, and here, too. oh, and here. and here and here… and one more here).

So yeah. Will someone at Adidas please hire me already?

When Adidas Originals UK and Kosai Sekine teamed up to make “Split Up Service” I knew it was guaranteed win. And so it is:

simian mobile disco + kate moross + jo apps: audacity of huge.

I loves me some Simian Mobile Disco. I dig the deep, saturated colours and general retro-randomness created by Kate Moross and Jo Apps from ISO Films for “Audacity of Huge.” The Damien Hirst telephone kills me.

björk: voltaic.

Björk delivers a live show that, just like her entire career, is fearless, insane, unbelievable, transformative, undeniably unique, and completely fucking unreal. I was lucky enough to see her Volta tour at Virgin Festival Toronto and it was easily one of the best nights of my life. Beyond the headresses, towers of flames, and tunnels of lasers tracing patterns into the surrounding trees, what I remember most about it is her unflinching, uncompromising, otherworldly voice soaring out above it all.

A few days ago, Björk released the “Voltaic” box set (in 5 different versions, combining DVD, CD, LP, and Mp3), documenting her incredible 2-year long Volta tour. The trailer took me back instantly to the night I saw it and gives me chills. It’s like the best non-acid acid flashback ever.

Plus, as always, the artwork for the set is beautifully designed:

pride week: sigur rós: viðrar vel til loftárása.

Sigur Rós makes music so beautiful it can convey pain. So exquisitely fine that it can carry the darkest feelings we know and make it understandable to everyone.

I really started obsessing about Sigur Rós about five years ago, and I’ve always loved this song, “viðrar vel til loftárása” (which translates into “Good Weather For Airstrikes”) from their second album, “Ágætis byrjun.” And even though the vid dropped in 2002, now that it’s Pride Week in Toronto it feels like the perfect time to take a second look at it.

There’s a certain kind of dehumanization that goes with homophobia. It makes you feel an incredibly specific sort of loss that’s impossible to describe to anyone that hasn’t felt it. Intellectually it can be understood. Morally it can be related to. Human compassion and decency knows that pain is pain and no human should ever intentionally make another human feel it. But it can only be known by those who have lived it.

I think it’s because the most beautiful human emotion – love – is accosted by the most evil human emotion – hatred. Many people are discriminated against for many reasons, but to have your sense of love attacked so caustically by people that don’t know you is a particular kind of poison. It’s like the purest form of our existence being attacked by our darkest. Being told that not only you, but also your universally common desire to share yourself with someone you love is wrong.

I don’t think anyone who hasn’t personally experienced it can truly know how it feels. But this video, in combination with the soul-stirring music of Sigur Rós, comes as close as I’ve ever seen. During the week when more than a million people will come to Toronto to celebrate everything that joins and unites us, this vid can give everyone insight into, and hopefully motivation to keep fighting against, the fear, bigotry, and ignorance that some people use to try to separate us and destroy the human right to love.

dead soul brothers + eoin heaney: over time.

If you’ve got epilepsy, seriously don’t watch this. A flashy, atomic, electric video for Dead Soul Brothers’ “Over Time”, directed by Eoin Heaney.