Products / Cesar Lopez’s Escopetarra
Colombian peace activist, Cesar Lopez, may well be the trophy-holder when it comes to ‘making good of a bad situation’. For the past several years, he has been working with a collective of artists and musicians in Colombia called the Battalion of Immediate Artistic Reaction. One of their projects, spearheaded by Lopez, is the transformation of decommissioned guns from the Colombian war — including AK47’s — into guitars, called escopetarras (a combination of escopeta and guitarra, Spanish for rifle and guitar). Perhaps the most potent symbol of raw power and abuse in Colombia, the presence of guns and weaponry permeates many aspects of Colombian life. According to Lopez, he was playing guitar in front of a Bogota country club destroyed by a car bomb when he realised the soldier patrolling the area was carrying his rifle the same way he carries his guitar. ‘I saw that our body movements were the same. He had his gun, I had my guitar. And BOF! It hit me’. So far only a dozen have been produced, and presented to artists such as Shakira, Santana, and even the Dalai Lama.
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If you ever happen to find yourself riding across the mid-west on horseback with an iPod jangling about in your holster, be sure to let these guys soundtrack the experience. Similarly, sticking a bit of Calexico on at any hour on any journey wouldn’t seem out of place. They’re cleverly fusing a range of genres, mixing some good old country with US indie, a bit of jazz and even, in 2003’s Feast of Wire, some smatterings of electronica. The end result isn’t a messy product in the slightest but very tight and soothing. Lead singer Joey Burns gives a healthy amount of cowboy twang and the soaring orchestral background and sweet country guitar licks add a real atmosphere to the music, while the pace and chord sequences are catchy beyond belief.
Listen to the Calexico song, Convict Pool.
It beggars belief how such a good sound can go unnoticed for so long. British three-piece The Shortwave Set have been dilligently crafting some very fine songs since 2005, yet are only gradually making a name for themselves. Read more
Bill Callahan Woke on a Whaleheart
Bill Callahan’s Woke on a Whaleheart is a little trip I take myself on every now and then when I’m looking to really sink myself into a piece of music. Read more
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We checked in recently with New York based Argentinean illustrator, Fernanda Cohen. How’s the illustration scene in New York at the moment? ‘Over crowded, sometimes repetitive and predictable, but there are always jewels here and there. I believe most of the emerging stars in the illustration field in the past few years came out of New York, mostly SVA graduates’. Read more
Japanese artist Toshiya Tsunoda’s field recordings will blow your mind without blowing your eardrums. By placing sensitive microphones inside empty objects, such as bottles and hollow logs, he captures vibrations inaudible to the human ear. Layers of these sounds are artfully cut and composed to produce brute, mesmerising work that challenges our perception of music. Read more
Bunnylicious transcends cuteness and takes bunny worship to a another level. Squirrels are so passe. Read more
The website of Jason Allsebrook is saturated with bright and colourful illustrations. It’s a childlike haven for dreams and restless spirits as his characters drift through clouds and bounce off the elongated limbs of wide eyed monsters.
Anchored in Paris and Helsinki, the design and illustration duo of Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg is conquering mediums across fashion, advertising and print. Small team. Big ideas. We like.
I remember the first time I saw a Mark Rothko piece at the Art Institute in Chicago. I’d only seen reproductions until that point, and I never understood why people considered the late painter so important. Read more
With literally almost half its population immigrants, Queens is the best borough for food in NYC. Between Thai food in Woodside and any ethnic food you’ve ever imagined in Jackson Heights, all foodies worth their salt make regular pilgrimages on the 7 train. If you find yourself at the end of the line in Flushing, check out Little Pepper on Roosevelt. Read more
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It beggars belief how such a good sound can go unnoticed for so long. British three-piece The Shortwave Set have been dilligently crafting some very fine songs since 2005, yet are only gradually making a name for themselves. Read more
Brooklyn Illustrator Sam Friedman has the most graceful line quality. In whatever form it takes, from abstract line to bold cursive, it’s this beautiful line quality that is clearly the embodiment of his work. In Friedman’s work, this line is often built up in dense, colorful layers to create the most intense abstract fields, guaranteed make your eyes spin. Punctuated with bold shapes and imagery, with a distinct graffiti influence, Freidman makes it pretty clear that the boundaries for his technique are endless. Read more
Doug Kanter at Beijing’s Midi Music Festival
The Midi Music Festival is sorta like the SXSW of Beijing, where bands from all over the country gather each year to rock out. Beijing-based photojournalist Doug Kanter did a series of portraits of concert-goers at Midi last year that is pretty fun. Read more
Neal Murren likes hanging out in forests — deep, dark forests — from which dark artworks featuring clowns, frogs, marionettes, skeletons, Courtney Love fairies, and the requisite giant toadstools weave together in penciled delight. It’s the kind of work you’d pore over, nose-to-page, in a crack of sunlight. Read more
Hendrik Kerstens’ portrait photography
Dutch photographer Hendrik Kersten channels Vermeer, Rembrandt, and a host of his other forbears in his unsettling portraits of his daughter, Paula. Read more
To commemorate the release of the The Lost Ones, a graphic novel written by Steve Niles, we have a special edition 80gb Zune player to give away with the graphic novel to a Lost At E Minor subscriber. So if you’re not one already, sign up and leave a comment under this post! Read more
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Huna said | 31 January, 2008
I saw this when I went to the UN. Its so damn awesome.