Who could have foreseen this… it’s beautiful and amazing (it’s even bigger than our website can handle!) and like every other thing Jimi did. Sorry for not posting for so long. It’s really really busy. I”ll be back soon with lots more on (amongst other things) my new piece showing at the Rotterdam Museum Night, Marcel Wiebenga’s super cool new weblog on music, love, life, politics and what have you. Bye bye!
The New Earth Group did it again! Coming 20th of February, they’ll be releasing their (often feared) second album called ‘Eurafricarabia’ (thru Excelsior Recordings instead of Willy Anderson this time) in Rotown Rotterdam. A second release party is to be at the Paradiso Upstairs, march 13. As is custom with T.N.E.G. ‘Eurafricarabia’ will be available on both CD and (double) vinyl!
Suus and me have taken care of the cover design(s) again (we also ‘did’ their before mentioned debut album) and I guess especially for those of you living in The Netherlands the design —based very much upon the title— kind of speaks for itself. See if you can spot our self colored Cleisthenes(!) and find out all about that Voyager Golden Record (somewhere in the Zeeland / Noord Brabant area) on wikipedia, it’s ace!. Nice extra is that the boys at Excelsior have some Terry Gilliam-esque animations made from our cut-outs. Those can be seen right here.
These are five records I designed the album covers of this year. They are Choca Alazaba’s ‘Reverse Bad Energy’ / The New Earth Group Prouctions, Benjamin Herman’s ‘Blue Sky Blonde / DOX Records (which became the best selling jazz record of the year thank you very much), Sir Ian’s ‘Apathology’ / Dying Giraffe Recordings, Rosa Ensemble’s ‘No Ark Dead Eel’ / Dying Giraffe Recordings and Hidde van Schie’s musical alias The 21st Century’s ‘Nocturnal Tellurian’. The last three are to be offically released in 2010 but they’re already done and sent out to be reviewed, so here’s a sneak peak anyway.
I’d like to say they’re my Album Top 5 of the Year, but that would be too much of a coincidence. They are, however, great records all five of ’em! So be on the lookout! Suus and I also did the design for the new The New Earth Group album ‘Eurafricarabia’ this year, which is to be released february 20 in Rotown (Rotterdam) and will be released through Excelsior Recordings.
I suppose this is my last post for the year, so I leave you all with the almost genuine dutch fireworks slogan: ‘You are a cunt, if you with fireworks stunt!’ and hopefully see you all in 2010!
Quite some time ago I posted something about an amazing song and music video I had seen when I had stayed in with the flu and instead of working had been watching tv for one or two days. The song was Arctic Monkeys’ I bet you look good on the dancefloor and I remember my friend —and quite the music buff— Niels Post commenting ‘I don’t get it, it’s just four blokes on a stage’ to that post. But it was exactly that, or the way they pulled that combined with a greedy look of ambition in their singers eyes, what I had liked so much about them. (plus they reminded me somewhat of The Feelies, which is always a good thing).
Couple of years later, a couple of days ago, photographer and friend Pim Top showed me this new A.M. video to their new song ‘Cornerstone’. Now I had not really been following the career of the monkeys, occasionally I had heard some of their albums because Joep Jacobs played those albums like there was no tomorrow, here in the old studio, but I had only found their sound ‘way too ADD’ for me.
This new song Cornerstone however, got me as psyched as the time I first saw ‘I bet you look…’. And the video’s just beautiful. Lots of lo-budget stuff is just lame, art school, fashionist thrash, this thing now really underlines the notion of ‘less is more’ as gestures and motions become truly meaningful, in a vivid manner inclusive to the most vulnerable irony or sleaziest, foulest romantic lyricism.
Avant La Lettre is my favourite dutch band of the moment. They’re light (yet not light hearted), they’re fresh (like Mountain Dew or Sprite or actually like Cherry Coke) they have a myspace up with lots of great songs and some videos, and some albums that have obviously influenced them / their sound / lives / thoughts / whatever. And they have an ace blog on (mostly) pop culture. Check ’em out! When it’s all over I’ll let you know.
The new Benjamin Herman album reeks of cannabis. Herefore I (yes, I!) made the album artwork about altered states, paralel universae, hallucination and other realms of sensitivity. The music’s mostly soundtracky, afrocuban and funky and features guest appearances by (amongst many others) C-mon & Kypski, Git Hyper and Paul Weller. Yet another side of Herman’s musical genius brought to light. Buy and preview/prehear here. Thank you Cathelijne Beijn for backing me up and Tymen Cieraad for chaos management!
