News on the Tweaking Horizon!

Don't know what's going on wherever you are, but the weather in Ann Arbor has gotten soo nice recently.....I think we can say it's spring?

So HOOORAYY FOR SPRING!


Lots of sweet news on the Tweaking front....


1.  Mellows @ UMMA!

Mellows will be performing @ UMMA (Univ. of Michigan Museum of Art) in the commons this Thursday at 8:00pm alongside local folk hero Nathan K.  The commons is the glassed in area facing the diag (not the glassed in area with the rotating art exhibit).  It's usually filled with tables and chairs, but those will be cleared out for the show.  The show is part of UMMA's monthly Third Thursday performance series.

RSVP on the facebook Event HERE!

2.  Subvader single to be released on Trenchant next month!

We've just gotten word from Trenchant Dubs that their compilation EP feat. Subvader's "Y'all Can't Handle Me" will be released sometime next month (April)...so mark your calendars.  Pete (subvader) has also been working diligently on finishing up the rest of the tracks for his Arctica EP, which is due to drop sometime this summer.

Y'all Can't Handle Me by Subvader


3.  Kohwi remixes Seams + more...

Introducing Tweaking's most recent addition to the crew:  I bring you Kohwi.

Seams - Nightcycles (Kohwi Remix)  by  Kohwi


Unfortunately, the final product wasn't finished in time for it to go on Seams' Nightcycles + RMXS 12" release (set for April 26th on Tough Love Records), but if you subscribe to Seams' email list, you do get the Kohwi remix as a bonus free download.

Aside from the Nightcycles Remix, there are a couple other great tracks worth checking out if you head over to Kohwi's new and revamped myspace-home.  Future plans for Kohwi include a couple free singles TBA in the near future, and a stellar mixtape that should be hitting the tweaking site within the next two weeks.

4.  WCBN Fundraiser!

That's right.  We all here at tweaking sure as hell love WCBN, and from last Friday through next Sunday marks WCBN's official annual Fundraiser.  So remember, if you're a local, to proudly show your support  for your favorite 100% Volunteer Operated FREEFORM MAYHEM radio station.

On a personal note, I've got a special Fundraiser edition of DjDr Cornmuffin's Magical Mystery Hour lined up for Tomorrow/Tonight.  That's this Tuesday from 11pm-1am.  Should be a really great show, so be sure to tune in 88.3fm or stream it online!

Generative Art + Robot Koch + FUR + Mount Kimbie

Some great generative art photographs via But Does It Float.  Yet another art form that I wish I could find the time to dabble in, but all I end up doing is scrounging the web finding pictures and wishing I could do it myself.  'But Does It Float" is a visual art blog that I have really been digging recently. They often put up posts of incredible photos from a certain theme/medium along with strangely intriguing captions such as "Now we are aiming our technologies inward where they will start to merge with our minds, our memories, our metabolisms, our personalities, our progeny, and perhaps our souls", which is the title for this post.

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I've had the the album Death Star Droid by Robot Koch for a good month or so now, and it's got a really unique blend of electronic, trip-hop, and even some dubstep elements in a few of their songs.  Think Ratatat meets Nosaj Thing for this track.

FUR is solo project of Bryce Isbell, whose debut full length, Witches, was just released on Waaga Records sometime last week.  Instrumental chill-wave with a smooth, retro synth textures, and an ethereal psychadelic beat that feels so on.  Lackadaisical is one of my favorite tracks on the album.

I can't remember what blog it was that I found Mount Kimbie on but that was another recent find of mine that really caught me by surprise.  Their track Maybes, off the 4-track EP by the same title, begins with a beautiful droney/ambient 3-chord guitar loop that fully kicks in after about a minute with a solid percussion / vocal sample based beat.





I'm actually working another track of Mount Kimbie's into my upcoming debut Mixtape which hopefully will be wrapping up sometime within the next week or two. --So stay tuned for more on that.  As of now most of my time is being spent working with the Mellows crew on recording their full length, which let me say...is already sounding pretty awesome.

and if you want do DL the playlist below, use this divshare link.

enjoi-

DjDr

Smoke Art

Sensitive Light (where the above photos came from) has a great article about the process behind all of this smoke art.  Definitely something I'm interested in trying at some point.  But for a blog post with more pictures on the makings behind the magic check out this post by Bill Van Loo of Chromedecay.

Here are some more photos of smoke art that I found a few months back from Imaginary Foundation:

A full gallery of these lovelies can be found at Mehmet Ozgur's website (the artist/scientist behind these creations).  Ozgur holds a doctorate in electrical engineering and specializes in RF and microwave applications in nanotechnology, but somehow finds the time to create his own unique brand of smoke art, combining thousands of photographs of smoke into montages in a dark room.

As for the makings behind his magic.....you're on your own.

DJ Plaidapus / Dné / Explode Into Color / Dosh

Thought I'd give a shot at embedding playlists up on the blog. If you click the share button and select copy link, it should take you to a download link for the playlist as well. Comment below with your thoughts.




DJ Plaidapus - This track was sent to me by a friend recently, a really cool mashup of Animal Collective's Daily Routine with a J-Live track that I don't really recognize. A really great song in its own right (one of my favorites off MPP), remashing it to a 4/4 (the original is 5/4 most of the time but jumps all over throughout) beat just gives it much more accessible groove. DJ Plaidapus is a CT native like myself. The other half of his turntablism duo, Sonic Friction, actually DJ'ed a show my band played in December at a small house party.







Dné - With the past few days having some serious snow here, this is one my
favorite winter songs from last year. I can't tell you how many walks
in the freezing cold snow and wind were turned into something really
beautifully sublime and almost spiritual by songs like this. He's a
folktronic artist, if you will. A simple acoustic guitar riff with some
really beautiful undertones and spliced sample-based percussion that
falls together in and out of place. Somehow it works incredibly well.





Explode Into Colors - As pacman mentioned before, last Sunday he and I went to see this band along with Tyvek at the Yellow Barn across from the YMCA on W Huron. Signed to Ann Arbor's own M'Lady's Records this all girls trio has a sweet catchy sound weaving tribal (i use that word hesitantly, but i think its accurate....) dancey beats in and around delayed vocal goodness. Seems like they toned down the delayed vox a little bit for the recording, but there's still a very unique feel this.





Dosh - A recent find at WCBN from my show last Tuesday. Very cool electroacoustic music. Slightly reminiscent of Four Tet in certain parts but with an overall more breakbeat feel to it.

ODDSAC

Baboom!  Danny Perez & Animal Collective's "visual album", ODDSAC has a trailer.  Screenings in NY and Chicago, with apparently more to be announced.  Check out more info on the new ODDSAC website.

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World Premiere: Sundance Film Festival.

Tuesday, January 26, 8:30pm
Prospector Square Theatre, Park City

Thursday, January 28, 10:30pm
Holiday Village Cinema I, Park City

Friday, January 29, 9:30pm
Holiday Village Cinema II, Park City

Saturday, January 30, 6:00pm
Broadway Centre Cinemas VI, SLC


Screenings:

March 2New York City NY, USA
Visual Arts Theatre
With special guests director Danny Perez and members of Animal Collective.
Get tickets: 6:30pm, 8:30pm SOLD OUT.

March 17Chicago IL, USA
Music Box Theatre
With special guests director Danny Perez and members of Animal Collective.
Get tickets: 7pm, 9pm. 

The Apple iPad / Toro Y Moi / New Apples in Stereo

"It's true that when something exceeds your ability to understand how it works, it sort of becomes magical. and that's exactly what the iPad is"

Wait....so knowing absolutely nothing about how it works is supposed to be a selling item?

I'm really torn here.  Create Digital Music had a really interesting post on Apple's new iPad today.  Combining it's closed software app-ness, with the fact that it's not even a real computer OS (The new iPad is essentially a glorified BIGGER iPod Touch).  CDM has a mindset that I tend to really agree with: that a lot of great things in the way of creativity come out of open source ideals.  Personally I'm a strong supporter of creative commons licensing, and all that stuff, so I can really see where CDM is coming from here.  Apple has a unique opportunity to create an incredibly universal touch screen computer with seemingly endless possibilities in music and art, but instead the ONLY jack on this new iPad is the iPod dock, and ALL software has to go through apple's iTunes store and their approval process.

I'm sure some incredible things will come out of this, like new spin offs of rjdj, beatmaker, etc. for a giant touch screen: making MPC style drum pads a much more realistic possibility for live performances for one thing.  However, it really hurts to think about how fucking awesome it would be to see Ableton or maxMSP patches on a multi-touch screen computer.

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On another note, Toro Y Moi just came out with a video for Blessa last week.  The song of theirs that initially got me hooked on this guy's sound towards the end of '09.

also....NEW APPLES IN STEREO ALBUM:

"I wanted to make a futuristic pop record, to reach out to the kids of the future. It is what I imagine their more highly-evolved pop might sound like: shiny soul music with robots and humans singing together, yet informed by the music of our time. So we are sending a pop music message through time, hoping they will decode it and be into it,"

Words form Robert Schneider on the new album, Travellers in Time and Space, due on April 20th of this year....yeahh I know what you're thinking.

I've been a big fan of Elephant 6 for a long long time, and am really excited for this one...

Apples In Stereo: Travellers In Time and Space Track List

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01 The Code
02 Dream About the Future
03 Hey Elevator
04 Strange Solar System
05 Dance Floor
06 CPU
07 No One in the World
08 Dignified Dignitary
09 No Vacation
10 Told You Once
11 It's All Right
12 Next Year at About the Same Time
13 Floating in Space
14 Nobody But You
15 Wings Away
16 Time Pilot