“If you take all of the iron from the hemoglobin of the people in the tri-state area of New York City, you can recover that much iron out of their blood and realize that the iron from that meteorite and the iron from your blood has common origin in the core of a star…as Carl Sagan has said, ‘We are star-stuff’ but there’s a more poetic – and I think more accurate – way to say it; it’s quite literally true that we are stardust. In the highest exalted way one can use that phrase.” –Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Whoa. Deep, bro.
[ Neil DeGrasse Tyson - Greatest Sermon Ever ]
posted by respondcreate on Mar. 10, 2012 in Videos | tags: astronomy, inspirational, neil degrasse tyson, space, spiritual, spirituality
“Take a sweet, gut-it-stuff-it then we puff it…”
Joey Garfield, one of the many talented directors at Ghost Robot, tapped Elliot Lim, Jason Esser, Aaron Kemnitzer and Nate Costa to create these über-dope visuals for some super-chill tunes by The Cool Kids.
It’s good times all the way around so sit back, relax and enjoy the colors.
[ Cool Kids "Rush Hour Traffic" ]
posted by respondcreate on Mar. 07, 2012 in Videos | tags: animation, chill, colorful, elliot lim, ghost robot, good times, hd, hip-hop, joey garfield, music video, the cool kids, trippy
Lights down, full-screen and the volume way up. Strap in and enjoy the latest (seventh) installment in the excellent BRDG series from +MUS.
Choons by Yaporigami; visuals by Daihei Shibata + Hiroshi Sato.
[ [BRDG007] PLMS_IV_D (SyncBody) ]
posted by respondcreate on Mar. 01, 2012 in Videos | tags: brdg, daihei shibata, dance, electronic music, future, hiroshi sato, music video, plusmus, robots, science fiction, technology, trippy, yaporigami
“Seventeen seconds and I’m over it, ready for the disconnect;
Putting on a brave face, trying not to listen to the voices in the back of my head.”
Have you guys seen Midnight in Paris yet? I highly recommend you check it out. Anyways, there’s this one scene where Ernest Hemingway is asked to read a book by another writer and he preemptively responds that he hates it, even though he hasn’t read it yet. When asked why he says, “If it’s bad, I’ll hate it. If it’s good, then I’ll be envious and hate it even more. You don’t want the opinion of another writer.”
There’s this weird thing with creative people. We’re inspired to make stuff because we admire stuff other people have made and then, when we finally start to make stuff of our own, some weird deeply-buried insecurities start to rise up and the stuff that used to inspire us now breeds resentment instead.
But that’s just a tendency, not necessarily a rule; every once in a while an artist comes around whose work oozes pure creativity that temporarily severs us from our baser competitive nature, freeing us to relax and truly enjoy what they’ve made. You know, someone like Gotye. Every song he writes sounds completely unique; it’s almost as if he takes a few months off in-between each one to explore a different aisle in some eclectic, well-curated record store.
For example: compare the brooding and contemplative Bronte (which we posted back in December) with the intriguing, subdued, angsty and catchy-as-hell Somebody That I Used to Know (which we’ve been meaning to post) with the Odelay-era Beck dirty-funk-rock of Easy Way Out (conveniently attached to the top of the post).
See what I mean? Anywho, all of the aforementioned tunes are off of the infinitely excellent Making Mirrors which you can buy on iTunes and just about everywhere else. The excellent, perfectly timed stop-motion visuals in the video were directed by Darcy Prendergast and executed by lots of other talented folks at Oh Yeah Wow who, you might recall, also created the super-mellow Rippled so be sure to check that out if you haven’t seen it already. Enjoy!
[ Gotye - Easy Way Out - official film clip ]
posted by respondcreate on Feb. 29, 2012 in Videos | tags: animation, darcy prendergast, gotye, hd, music video, oh yeah wow, stop motion, trippy
NSFW Disclaimer: There’s some animated nudity towards the end so don’t watch this at work, OK?
We’re diggin’ this bizarre, monochromatic music video for The Dead Pirates created by Matthieu Bessudo and Simon Landrein. In addition to being a member of the band Matthieu is also known as Mcbess, a London-based illustrator whose work successfully combines a grab bag of influences from the early 20th century – like Elzie Crisler Segar‘s Popeye and Max Fleischer‘s Betty Boop – with a tight, sterile (but in a good way) and modern rock-a-billy aesthetic.
The attached is one of two videos produced at The Mill for The Dead Pirates. The other one, CH / CH, is quite a bit shorter but definitely worth a watch. Enjoy!
A big thanks is due to Drew for sending this one our way. Cheers!
[ Wood ]
posted by respondcreate on Feb. 24, 2012 in Videos | tags: animation, bizarre, hd, matthieu bessudo, mcbess, monochromatic, music video, nsfw, simon landrein, the dead pirates, the mill
Serving instructions: best seen in full-screen HD late at night in a pitch-dark room. Enjoy! (Well done, Jacob Sutton!)
[ Glowing Man HD ]
posted by respondcreate on Feb. 19, 2012 in Videos | tags: eerie, hd, jacob sutton, light, monochromatic, night, snow, snowboarding, winter
“Other companies may offer you paint, clothes, makeup, or any other range of objects to give you the experience of a color. A red convertible, blue wallpaper, yellow flowers, There are endless products to choose from. But at the end of the day, these are just objects, mere things. Trichrome can give you more…”
From the looks of it, Lois van Baarle intended this to be the first in a series of three films. There hasn’t been any new activity on the project in about two and a half years so I’m assuming she’s moved on. Bummer. The attached is a short, moody and ethereal sci-fi exploration into what types of products and services could soon be available in a future where technology continues to rapidly progress. Enjoy!
In addition to her animation chops Lois is also a fantastic illustrator whose work is definitely worth checking out.
[ Trichrome Blue ]
posted by respondcreate on Feb. 17, 2012 in Videos | tags: animation, colorful, ethereal, hand drawn, lois van baarle, ocean, science fiction, trippy, whale
A line in Resident Advisor‘s recent review of Mux Mool’s Planet High School (on Ghostly) instantly resonated me. Andrew Ryce described the album as, “an anomaly in an overcrowded field of beat music, preferring actual songs over sketches and loops, progression over attention deficit” and, in that one sentence, helped shed some light into my (sometimes) ridiculous tendency to instinctually categorize electronic music as either genius or shit. This type of knee-jerk hyperbole is, on the whole, unhelpful and (embarrassingly) dramatic but it also belies my childlike, underlying passion for the art form and its potential power. Beat-making is getting easier and easier these days but the core challenge remains the same: can you tease warmth and depth from a handful of overlapping loops? More often than not – with legions of producers tripping over each other to mimic Skrillex’s latest ‘drop’ – the answer is a terse and adamant ‘no’. But when it’s ‘yes’? Absolute fucking magic.
One of my favorite producers ever is Bonobo, a one man operation who has an uncanny ability to craft transportive electronic music. I could make my case with some flowery prose but it’d be far more economical to just have you listen to Recurring for the necessary evidence. This, a music video for a remix by Machinedrum of his tune Eyesdown, channels the fluid complexity of the original while ratcheting the mechanical syncopation to eleven.
Enter director/animator extraordinaire Anthony Francisco Schepperd (of The Music Scene, Wail to God and Two Against One fame) who leverages the organic-and-wispy-yet-bass-heavy-robotic intrigue in the tune as an agar plate on which to grow his infectious, signature visual approach. Oh and he crafted it all for Ninja Tune in just under a month. Pro.
The bass on this one is especially nice so get your headphones out. A big thanks is due to Sam Lillard who sent this one our way last night. Cheers!
We’ve posted loads of other fantastic Ninja Tune music videos, click here to see the complete list.
[ Bonobo - EyesDown (Machinedrum Remix 5" Edit) ]
posted by respondcreate on Feb. 13, 2012 in Videos | tags: animation, anthony francisco schepperd, bonobo, colorful, electronic music, hd, machinedrum, music video, ninja tune, trippy
“I’ve grown a handsome tall tree, mother,
And I want to bear a fruit for you.
And I have carried your fears and your hopes, father;
They’re so heavy on my back, oh you should know.”
The process of becoming a person is a strange one; it is messy, inexact and crude. Anyone who tries to convince you that their maturation was as smooth, confident and intentional as an expertly executed golf stroke is lying. We are all tumbling through space, constantly trying on new masks and costumes hoping one eventually feels right. Someone once told me that you don’t know who you are until your late-twenties and, in my case at least, that’s more-or-less true.
Up until then we try desperately to make sense of the instincts, fears and desires that were imprinted into our fragile minds at birth or injected sometime after as the result of some inexplicably electric first-hand experience. We want to make our parents happy and then we relish their disapproval. We reject the social caste system but secretly hope we’re cool, forever longing for the approval of our peers. We love and we hate; we brood and we let go; we’re anything but still.
It’s a hard thing to fully encapsulate in few paragraphs of internet but that’s why we have music videos, right? If you haven’t noticed already, there’s another stunner from Sub Pop attached to the top of this post. It’s for a tune by Niki & The Dove, a two-piece pop outfit from Sweden whose sound is described by their aforementioned label as, “full of magic and light but with an unsettling darkness hidden beneath the surface.”
Yup. Sounds about right.
The visuals are from Sub Pop’s neighbors at WINTR who, I think you’d agree, knocked it out of the park. The out-there/colorful/abstract/geometric elements soar when tethered to the sweeping, baroque landscapes. The net effect is thrilling, like watching a kite pulled taut by the wind. Full-screen HD, y’all. Grab your headphones, crank the volume and enjoy!
Click here for more Sub Pop goodness on The Tripatorium™.
[ Niki & The Dove - The Fox [OFFICIAL VIDEO] ]
posted by respondcreate on Feb. 08, 2012 in Videos | tags: 3d, abstract, animation, bizarre, colorful, growing up, hd, music video, nature, niki & the dove, sub pop, wintr
“As darkness is covering the multiverse, far away in the galaxy of the wild stallion, a spark of hope is born. Guided by the light of Mother Mustang, the Space Stallions must defeat the Demon of darkness, Destructo.”
File under: LOLWAT
Some fresh, silly, colorful, bizarre, wonderful and well-executed work by seven students – Thorvaldur S. Gunnarsson, Jonatan Brüsch, Ágúst Kristinsson, Arna Snæbjørnsdottir, Esben J. Jespersen, Touraj Khosravi and Polina Bokhan – from The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark. Special mentions are due to both Friðfinnur Oculus Sigurðsson and Thomas Christensen who composed the music and sound design, respectively. How rad would it be if Space Stallions got picked up by Adult Swim?
Click here to see more films created by students from The Animation Workshop on The Tripatorium™.
[ Space Stallions ]
posted by respondcreate on Feb. 07, 2012 in Videos | tags: ágúst kristinsson, animation, arna snæbjørnsdottir, bizarre, colorful, esben j. jespersen, hd, jonatan brüsch, lolwat, polina bokhan, the animation workshop, thorvaldur s. gunnarsson, touraj khosravi