Unurth

Hello everyone. Today, rather than examine a single artist, we are going to look at a site that I have recently gotten into in a big way. Unurth is a site run by Sebastian, and a sort of database of street art from around the world. The volume of art is pretty impressive on its own but what really adds to it is that the artists of each work are identified, (by their pseudonyms of course) which seems pretty daunting considering how often street art is unsigned.
This is from a set featuring Escif and Hyuro. Something that is pretty common on the site is collaborations between artists. I can't think of much more to say about the site as a whole but I just think it is a commendable effort to document some genuinely remarkable art.
Please enjoy,
Daniel

DUCKTAILS/JEANS WILDER

Ducktails is Scrooge McDuck Matt Mondanile, who just so happens to be the guitarist in one of my fave bands, Real Estate. I've been listening pretty heavily to Ducktails since early in the summer and I'm actually suprised I haven't posted about him yet, I was pretty sure I had. Better late than never though, right?

Ducktails makes me think of driving back home from the beach one summer night, when it was pretty hot in the day, although not humid, but has now cooled down to that perfect, just right temperature, in a car filled to the brim with my friends. We're driving just a little too fast maybe, and it's probably not really the safest option or anything, but it is due to two things: 1. We've just finished one of the best days in a while and we're feeling pretty confident. and 2. It's been a long day and we're all tired in the sort of way you get after having the sun beat down on you all day and we're a little delirious and sleep-deprived. We are happy.

It's beach-y, phased-out, filled-to-the-brim-with-soothing-wah-y-guitar-lines, nicenice keyboards, simple-but groove-y drums, and often-hidden vocals, all mixed together and repetitive in the best, relaxing way.









He has so many more good tracks than the few I've linked you to. CHECK HIM OUT (PLEASE)




Jeans Wilder (Andrew Caddick) makes music in a semi-similar vein to Ducktails. I've more often heard him being compared to Wavves and Best Coast (before King of the Beach and Crazy for You) and I think that's a more decent comparison. His stuff is lo-fi for sure, and there's a sort of beach-y influence that seems to be really popular and common these days, but the vast majority of his songs are sort of drone-y, gloomy, and more somber. Jeans Wilder is a very druggy, stoned-out guy, and that's really apparent through his music. The downside of this is that I think it causes some of his tracks to drag on a bit sometimes, but he is still a good listen (even if you are not smoking DSG) so give him a try.

Kiss You from Hazed Nostalgia on Vimeo.

hope ya enjoy - Alec

Scott C.

Pardon the spacing, but I wanted this picture to be the first thing you saw. It's the work of Scott C., and like almost all of his work, it draws heavily upon pop culture. Exhibit B: his tumblr- Great Showdowns. Great indeed. The site is a series of illustrations of adversaries from movies, more or less. Some are really nutty:

“Have you ever wondered if there was more to life, other than being really, really, ridiculously good looking?”

Others are a little more serious:

“Well, there were eleven votes for guilty. It’s not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.”

Something all of the showdowns share is a remarkable style that seems to shine optimism upon the often dark movies they illustrate. Man, looking back through the older ones, I just want to post all of them here because they are making me remember movies as being much better than they really were. I am also a big fan of watercolors, so Scott is like my man. You can see a lot more of his work on his blog, and his flickr, and there is absolutely no reason for you not to click at least one of the links I've posted.

-Daniel

Cop-out

No, not Cop-out like the hit movie starring Tracy Morgan and his sidekick Bruce Willis. Unfortunately, this post is the kind of cop-out where I just post some of my recent art. I promise to have a real post in a day or two, but things are getting crazy.Sorrys, thanks,

-Daniel

Things I Like/Midly Enjoy

THINGS I LIKE

Memoryhouse.


Despite their terrible name (they are named after the Richter piece, but still, it's pretty bad and way too similar to Beach House) these guys are amazing. They are a duo, composer/ambient musician Evan Abeele and Denise Nouvion, and make beautiful, shimmery, sleep dream-pop. The background music is great by itself, but it is Nouvion's vocals that really make it great. They were lumped in with chillwave for some reason, but I think they're gonna make something of themselves. Check out the videos below as well as their tumblr, where they post cool vids as well as songs and older pieces by Abeele.

Memoryhouse - Bonfire from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.

Lately (Troisieme) - Memoryhouse Music Video from Malcolm Klock on Vimeo.

In My Room: Memoryhouse "When You Sleep" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

THINGS I MIDLY ENJOY

The new Avey Tare (Down There). Avey's my fave of Animal Collective and I never really listened to Panda Bear's solo stuff until pretty recently (although I'm really liking it), and I really liked his older solo stuff (like "Abyss Song") and the album he did with ex-wife Kria Brekkan, so I had super high hopes for this. I've listened to it several times but I can't really make up my mind about it. None of the songs really stand out or are particularly great, but it really does flow well as an album. You should give it a listen, but don't expect to be blown away. I feel like a lot of people like it just because it's by Avey.

-Alec

Happy Holidays!

Alec is off visiting a college in far away Portland. That's okay, though; we can celebrate the rape of North America without him. Happy Colombus day!

-Daniel

Monsters!

I thought briefly about saving this artist for Halloween, but I figure I'll come across another gem between now and then. Anyway, Alec showed me this fella's work and he definitely ranks among my favorite artists that I've written about. His name is John Kenn, and he posts his drawings on his blog, confusingly named "Don Kenn Gallery". His posts are all wordless and untitled; they are just drawings of monsters, and I think his blog is an ideal example of properly executed simplicity. According to the only words he has written on his blog, John writes and directs television shows for kids, and with twins of his own, is free time is lean, but he devotes some of it to drawing "monsterdrawings on post-it notes." It's as simple as that.
Though I know nearly nothing about him, I feel like I can relate to John in a way. Many of my doodles use a lot of patterns, and while this might not be the case for him, I find it very relaxing and, ultimately, rewarding to be able to remove myself from thought and just put lines on paper for a while and to eventually come up with something that I like to look at. Additionally, I appreciate the apparent intimacy that I feel in his drawings. By this I mean it seems like he draws for himself, and is simply sharing some of his personal drawings with us, because they lack the pretense of an artist who creates with and audience in mind.
I also enjoy drawing all sorts of creatures, so his little post-it illustrations are right up my alley, and I sure hope they're up yours, too.
-Daniel

AP 2D Design

Hello you,

I may have two posts up before the day is out, but i'd like to share with you two illustrations that I've done for AP 2D Design. They're not necessarily done, but they're the done-est things I have at this point.


Feedback welcome.

Thanks for reading,
-Daniel

Album Art

So you wander into some record store (and if you're me, it's probably either Smash! or Crooked Beat (partially because that's really all there is in DC, and partially because the two are both pretty awesome and right next door to each other) and you're just lookin around. Probably browsin' through the vast quantities of used records, "organised" alphabetically (questionably), and tryin' to find something good. You're flippin' through them pretty quickly, because there are just so many, so how do you know if you see something good? The album art. And that's what this post is about.

Mainly though, it's just some of my favorite album covers with maybe a lil' blurb about them (it's not as if I could analyse them or anything).

First up is Beirut's debut album Gulag Orkestar
This is just such a great photo, and probably one of my fave covers. It really fits the sound of the music, and, at least according to the liner notes, Zach Condon found them ripped out of a book in a library in Leipzig.
Then we have Beat Happening's Beat Happening. Twee as fuck. That's really all you need
Hi, How Are You? by Daniel Johnston. iconic and amazing. When he used to work at McDonald's he would just randomly put tapes into people's bags. lucky folks, most probably hated them unfortunately.
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven - Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Like the album, it's simply amazing. I am super psyched to finally be able to see them live. They have a history of pretty sweet album art. Their album Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada has a really interesting cover too, all it has on it are the hebrew characters for "chaos". It doesn't even mention the band, or anything else, anywhere on it.


Joy Division's Unkown Pleasures. A graphic of successive pulses from the first pulsar discovered.
(a blurb should not be necessary here)
Loveless - My Bloody Valentine. It just captures the feeling and the sound of the album perfectly.Sonic Youth's first album after "selling out". Sweet cover by Raymond Pettibon

That's it (for now at least) but my stopping is really just a matter of space. There are soso many great ones out there.

-Alec

Comix

So how about an update, hey? Alec, our friend Emily, and I went to a OneNation, a rally in DC, on Saturday. It was a ton of fun; we met a lot of socialists and were handed a pretty hefty amount of literature. While we were in the city, we also hit up the National Gallery of Art and poked around about. Alec and Emily were interested in seeing the Mark Rothko exhibition, and I'm really glad they were. From hearing them talk about it briefly a few days ago, I was not really excited to see it, but ended up absolutely loving his work. The main room of the small exhibition featured five of his immense black on black paintings. They are tricky to explain, and pictures of the paintings really miss the point, so I can only encourage you to check them out for yourself, and give them a chance before writing them off as typical, cynical modern art.

Also, if you haven't noticed, we've added a little box for comics that both Alec and I draw. I just put up one about Benjamin Franklin or skateboard culture. I just got my Bamboo Fun (pen tablet) set up after receiving it last Christmas(Thanks bro!) So, I have been playing with it a lot tonight and felt like drawing a comic idea that Alec and I came up with. Enjoy those comics and thanks for reading!

Daniel