Events / 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.


Also by GERRY MAK
Israeli computer scientists recently created a computer program that changes photographs of people’s faces into more attractive images based on an algorithm that determines ideal distances between lips and chins, foreheads and eyes, and distances between eyes.
Kristin Baker’s paintings strike the eye like massive Hollywood blockbusters, but have the elegance of delicate watercolors. Reminiscent of Kazimir Malevich and the Italian futurists, Baker’s two-dimensional pieces abstract images of crashing cars, explosions, and other apocalyptic images to create unnerving and dynamic works that resonate with the uncertainty of our times. Read more
Strip away the cookie monster vocals and downtuned, distorted guitars, it’s hard to imagine death metal still reading as death metal, but 8-bit duo Dr. Zilog manage to do just that. The Floridian sound-card tweakers make some pretty amazing original, NES tunes that are strangely compelling, catchy, and actually quite metal.
YOU'RE SAYING (2)
david lowe said | 13 August, 2008
dude those midi portraits suck. it looks like an avedon wanna be white background but no emotion whatsoever
HAVE YOUR SAY
The AirPiano is an innovative musical interface which allows the playing and controlling of software instruments simply by moving your hands in the air. Above the AirPiano is a virtual matrix of keys and faders, each assigned with MIDI messages ready to be triggered. The length of a triggered note is equivalent to the time a hand is placed on the corresponding virtual key, which is also confirmed by LED feedback.
Metronomy are a cool little London-based group headed by producer and remix extraordinaire, Joseph Mount. The sound sits somewhere between Autechre and Vitalic: clanging keyboards and body-gurning beats laced with an undercurrent of ominous electronica. It’s not as inaccessible as much of the more twisted electro-based stuff out there at the moment, although it retains an edge perhaps unpalatable for some ears. Yet there’s a catchiness to it that is clearly roping in the crowds: their live shows are a spectacle, complete with synchronised dancing and flashing costumes. If that floats your boat, they’re playing for free at the Tate Britain, London, on 27 September.
Australian group Pivot have recently signed with the mighty Warp label and — even better (well, for us anyway) — have written a fun Secret Playlist for us. You can see where the many disparate influences have seeped into their latest recording, the beautiful and colourful, O Soundtrack My Heart.
We have a bunch of new playlists up on our sister site, My Secret Playlist, a music discovery website and weekly email publication in which we invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. Over the past few weeks, acts such as The B52s, Team Genius, Pivot, Jukebox the Ghost, Moby, Katy Perry, and the Dandy Warhols, among many others, have written about the music that inspires them. To sign-up to receive the weekly My Secret Playlist publication, just enter your email address into the website’s subscription box.
Laura Veirs is one of my favorite songwriters. I can’t think of a single song of her’s that I haven’t loved instantly, and continue to wear out on my inner-ear iPod. I interviewed her recently, a few nights after I saw her awesome set at New York’s Gramercy Theatre. Read more
A project that has been a pioneer of the revitalization of downtown Kansas City, this building’s goal was to promote the Central Library as well as represent the city itself. Read more
Diva Pittala is the designer of edgy and glamorous fashion label, Pleasure Principle. Silk tied in knots on the back of baggy dresses might be their trademark, but this spring’s collection goes much further. Read more
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Kristin Baker’s paintings strike the eye like massive Hollywood blockbusters, but have the elegance of delicate watercolors. Reminiscent of Kazimir Malevich and the Italian futurists, Baker’s two-dimensional pieces abstract images of crashing cars, explosions, and other apocalyptic images to create unnerving and dynamic works that resonate with the uncertainty of our times. Read more
When it comes to making an entrance, nothing says rock star quite like a pair of leather pants. Read more
Seriously, nothing beats good old 35mm film. To me photography isn’t about capturing every pore in someone’s face, or even making slick, magazine-ready images. The imperfections in film put just enough distance between the viewer and the moment that allows room for an emotional and nostalgic response. Digital photos are generally so vivid that it eliminates all the mystery of an image. Check out Jeff Luker’s photostream to see what I mean. Read more
Like a packet of perfectly seasoned pistachio nuts, I can’t put this album down until it’s well and truly finished: until every last morsel of taut, snappy percussion and hypnotic vocals have been digested. They’re like Animal Collective at the wind-down hour - slightly more stabilised and with the psychotic fits tempered into a soothing, trance-inducing pace. Somehow it’s also immediately catchy, laced with subtle hooks and soaring backing vocals. It’s the sort of sound that sucks you into their warm world, likely to cause you to miss your bus stop if your mind sinks too far into the rich chasm of tracks like Red and Purple [below] or The Ball. Listen closely, because this might well be one of the releases of the year.
Some friends and I serendipitously stumbled across the work the artist Hiro Kurata the other night and we have been jointly obsessing over it since. Kurata’s work is torrid, moody and fragmented like a restless dream. Bursting with texture and patterns, it’s simply brilliant. As my friend Andrew Degraff accurately put it, ‘It’s like Savador Dali thrown through a plate glass window’. Indeed. Read more
The Mission is part of a series of maps and images of Lauratopia, a fictional world that Brooklyn-based illustrator Laura Carmelita Bellmont has made up as a home for her imagination. The prints are archival, sized 8″ x 7″, and available for US$60. Read more
Happy, happy, joy, joy! We have a TV On The Radio poster designed by Tunde, as well as Dear Science on vinyl, to give away to a randomly selected Lost At E Minor subscriber who leaves a comment under this post telling us why they simply must have it.
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
TAGS: acoustic music animals animation Australian bands Australian fashion black and white illustrations black and white photography blogs Brooklyn Brooklyn artists cartoons China collaboration colour colourful illustrations comics electronic music flash games folk music Hip Hop Japan jewellery London Los Angeles magazines Melbourne New York New York artists New York bands New York illustrators New York photographers pop music portrait portraits prints rock music San Francisco soul music street art street fashion surrealism Sydney t-shirts technology UK bands
POPULAR:
- Marc Collin: My Secret Playlist!' - loved 60 times
- Brittanie Pendleton - loved 48 times
- Elaine Biss's feminine charms - loved 25 times
- Ed Harcourt: 'My Secret Playlist' - loved 22 times
- Prefab House - loved 19 times
- Andreco's brilliant visions - loved 18 times
- I Give Up On T-Shirts - loved 16 times
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it’s not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Or if you’d just like to talk amongst yourselves, that’s cool too. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.










Pat said | 6 August, 2008
Pity the midi was cancelled/delayed this year. Not sure if it will go ahead this year or when. Last years’s was great.