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doug kanter

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.
doug kanter
doug kanter

Also by GERRY MAK

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Beautification software

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.

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Kristin Baker

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

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Dr. Zilog

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)

Pat Identicon Icon

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.

david lowe Identicon Icon

david lowe said | 13 August, 2008

dude those midi portraits suck. it looks like an avedon wanna be white background but no emotion whatsoever

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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

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WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST

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Kristin Baker

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

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Shadows and Dust

When it comes to making an entrance, nothing says rock star quite like a pair of leather pants. Read more

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Jeff Luker

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

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The Dodos’ Visiter

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.

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Hiro Kurata

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

dear science poster

WIN

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.

WHAT YOU'RE DOING

  • Petit Vulcan is listening to Stop Play Moon

  • Petros is listening to Off Radio

  • Sarah is reading the New York Times

  • Christian is listening to The Revisionists

  • Sally is listening to Nuuro

  • Jess is reading My Secret Playlist

  • Ana is playing a good mood

  • Chanoa is watching Tabatha’s Take Over

  • Sindhu is spotting patterns in the sky

  • Rajasee is reading Garfinkel

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