Rob Brandon.

I am writing this post because my friend Rob is about to move to Austria for 6 months to work with Red Bull. He is a music-video-maker, a short-film-creater and an extremely talented person (with good dancing skills thrown in). You HAVE to look at his website -- you can see his brilliant videos here and read his blog. I wish all music videos could look like his - so intricate and creative and thoughtful and clever!

He blogged about this video below yesterday. It's some "unofficial visuals i whipped up for the track 'Hot chick' by Uffie on Ed Banger." I LOVE IT. The way he's used shapes, pulsing, colour, text and the placement of all of these elements on the screen is so completely brilliant. I have a big interest on how you can merge your senses - similar to when I posted about Non Fortmat doing a visual representation of a Nas rap -- this is the same. He's captured what he's heard and turned it into the most vibrant and compelling aesthetic version.

Good luck in Austria, Rob!!! Have a brilliant time and let me know when I'm visiting xxx.

Uffie- Hot Chick (Glitch Remix) from Rob Brandon on Vimeo.

IDST @ Scarborough Jazz Festival.

I know a lot of people who are dubious of the Scarborough Jazz Festival, simply due to the fact that it's held in Scarborough. However, it's actually a fantastic event, showcasing some great jazz musicians. In fact, it was at this festival a few years ago that I first got to see Jamie Cullum perform in a really small gig, which was out of this world.

This year I only managed to see one band perform - IDST (If Destroyed Still True). I'd love to ask them where their name came from. This band is from Leeds and consists of piano, drums, guitar, sax, trumpet/fugal and double bass. I LOVE the double bass. One of the things I've always enjoyed about watching jazz is the facial expressions of musicians whilst they are doing solos. I absolutely love it. This band were full of good faces, especially the guitarist who was sticking his tongue out in concentration, and the bass player who was obviously REALLY getting into it.

IDST are a really innovative band. I'm used to playing a lot of traditional funk and swing stuff, so when things get experimental, I usually don't enjoy it. At first I have to say I wasn't sure I was going to like their set - but by 'at first' I literally mean the first 15 seconds. They were passionate, inventive, united and they played some really captivating music. I could have watched them all afternoon. I absolutely loved their attention paid to solos - when someone did a solo they would all watch intently, I thought this was so wonderful to see.

I am now going to tell you some of the songs I like - and why. I decided to make some notes on my blackberry at the time, like the geek that I am.

Bingo Wings - This song was deep and rich with really atmospheric elements coming from the rumbling cymbols and united sax and trumpet duet.
This One You - Again - greatly atmospheric -lovely piano circling sequence against air filled sax notes, really nice to see a bow taken to the double bass. Lovely layering of instrumentals, the melody has unexpexted chord progressions which creates excitement - building up tempo then dropping back.
Irish Chutney - Lovely piano intro. Guitar joins in with the rhythmmic piano and bass and drums layer over. This song contains a soprano sax and fugal duet - very nice melodic sequence. Excellent guitar solo. I've written 'I always know when I like something, as I try to sing the melody' - really enjoyed this song.
Seven Dials - This song has a more 'current' feel about it - crafty drum work, gorgeous piano with tinkling guitar sequence - reminds me of sensual r&b - more use of layering that then drops back to guitar solo and plucking on piano strings -- loving the swing section.


I have loads more notes - but I feel it would be more explanatory to just describe their sound. A fantasitc use of instrumental layering with equal amounts of unified melodic sequences, which created the perfect balance. There are so many facets and sections to each song, ensuring that you are constantly engaged. I loved their use of instruments and the way they combined them to give a really exciting and enjoyable set. They have convinved me that experimental jazz is worth listening to.

Jessie J.

Jessie J is absolutely A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. You will have heard her song 'sexy silk' on the Nivea advert. She has supported the likes of Jools Holland and Macy Gray and now she is signed to Universal. Shes outstanding, I can't stress this enough. Her voice is one of my top - if not my top. She makes it look effortless and there is such a depth and variety to it. She's inventive with the way she sings and her consuming passion is evident. Her songs are fantastic and what I love most is that she brings something totally different to the table. Her soulful influences come through to give her such a powerful vibe - she could be jazz, she could be soul, she could be r&b - to be fair she could be anything she wanted with the talent she has. She's worked so hard at getting to where she is - which is commendable but also a little frustrating to see when there's so many people with zero talent waltzing through and getting signed. Jessie J has enough star quality to light up London - keep an eye out for her.

Frankmusik @ G-A-Y 8th August

I was extremely excited to go and hear Frankmusik play at G-A-Y a few Saturdays ago. Everybody loved him, and he had great stage presence. It's always nice when you hear an artist live and it's hard to decipher differences between their live and recorded performance. It seems quite a rarity that singers can actually sing. His vocal range is out of this world and he has a real energy when performing that infects everyone watching him. I remember watching a t4 music show last year with Frankmusik and La Roux, and the presenter awarded La Roux the accolade of 'one to watch' - and although I love what La Roux does, I was very much attracted to Frankmusik. I think his songs are the perfect combination of past present and future. There's obvious synth influences and he gets inspiration from past bands (take, for example, the melodic resemblance to The Stranglers' Golden Brown on his track When You're Around -- my favourite track of the album). With this overt 80s inspiration, Frankmusik catapults his sound to the cutting edge, he's a truly innovative and exciting artist.

I'm very passionate about the talent and potential of this artist - which is why I have to say these next four words: Tim Chester you're vile.

I am all for everyone having their own opinion - but this little sub-human idiot is just unnecessary. Even if you despised a record, there is no way that enough venom could be sparked up in you to create a review of such hatred, so I have to come to the conclusion that this person has a large chip on his shoulder and a tiny penis. I'm not entirely sure why nme allowed this review to be published, but all I can say is that it takes great talent to acknowledge the greatness of retrospective melodies and turn it into something completely original and current. Unfortunately that review was nothing more than the outbreak of an extremely inadequate failed musician.

In conclusion - Frankmusik - keep doing what you're doing - everybody loved you that night and I hope to see you again in the future. ALSO - the album illustration for Frankmusiks' stuff is out of this world - I shall do a blog on the person who did it.

Writing.

Hola. Do you like the pic? It's ME - I seem to have been borderline ginger as a child.. you'd never believe it now! Since finishing my MA I have been doing as much writing as I can - reviewing for Vexed and starting to write some articles that I am enjoying so very much at Canvas - my first published was one on a company specialising in obscure ice cream flavours - hence my picture. ALSO - prim. Magazine is officially available to purchase in print from about 50 stores in London - so I got a copy obviously. It is a major buzz seeing my first article in print!!

Also - I started a poetry blog but shut it down because I find the showcasing of my poetry too shameful to withstand - AND THEN I started a music blog (I'm blogging about music because I can't review unreleased material on Vexed... or at least I don't think I can) - but what I've decided to do is combine the two - so this blog will now cover more than illustration and typography - it will be more of a plethora of pop culture.

Could Be Me.

Could Be Me is a project including many many artists --- "exploring possibility of one artist occupying another's space. It is a visual adventure and an interpretation of the same sentence by different artists worldwide."

How interesting is this - looking at different artists styles on the same statement - it's hard to compare artists, because they are often inspired by different things and basing their work on different topics and obviously using different mediums and techniques. Here, all of these artists are given the same concept and that's it - and the range is unbelieveable. It's interesting to get into their minds - their use of colour and form is especially interesting. Many have used a picture of a person to illustrate it could be me but it's actually paul paper - but what I find most interesting are the people who haven't done that - like the bottom image by Josh Murfitt - a note on a sofa. Very clinical, no trace of humanity, the note isn't even hand written. It's wonderful to try and think about what his reasoning behind this is.

Images in order of appearance: Alexander Binder, Andrea Shear, Cesar Brun and Josh Murfitt.

Hideki Inaba

I came across the work of Hideki Inaba when looking at this DOTMOV 2009 film festival logo. Inaba lives and works in Tokyo as a designer and graphic artist. I really like this stuff - the use of colour is really bold, and there are some fluid works which are really cool as it's a great mix of that boldness, with softer textures. Nice illustrative compositions seen in the second image.

I like the DOTMOV logo because it's simple but really stimulating and abstracted. There are so many crap brand/service/event identities out there that are so dated and boring - so I get very excited when I see things like this.