Diplo remixes Santogold

Au Revoir Simone

Casio Keyboard Brooklyn trio Au Revoir Simone are about to release a collection of remixes and covers their musical friends have recorded of songs found on their second album, The Bird Of Music. Titled Reverse Migration, the record features re-workings by Best Fwends, Teenagers, Darkel, and more. We caught up with them recently. Why and when did you decide to release a remix album? Annie: ‘Our friends were making so many wonderful versions of our songs we wanted to share them with the world’. How did you select the artists? Annie: ‘Mostly they were friends who told us they wanted to do remixes! Very fun and easy’. Reverse Migration is out November 11 through the band’s own label, Our Secret Record Company. Listen to Ruff & Jam by Au Revoir Simone.

KAWS creme de corps

Random collaborations always come as a pleasant surprise. This time New York-based graffiti artist KAWS (aka Brian Donnelly) has joined forces with lavish beauty product manufacturer, Kiehl’s, in a bid to raise money for non-profit art initiative RxArt. KAWS’ design adorns an exclusive line of Kiehl’s skin moisturizers, with all proceeds benefiting RxArt’s mission to install art pieces in US hospitals.

El Cosmonauta: the first participatory film in Spain

Cosmonaut is a feature film project by Riot Cinema Collective and the first participatory film in Spanish cinema to date. The project uses the Internet collaboratively under free Creative Commons licences and, with the help of viewers, aims to create alternative finance, creation and distribution platforms for independent films. By inviting viewers to be a part of the production process of the film and give them access to all content created, Cosmonaut intends to engage the audience and jointly develop a closer and more transparent relationship.

Ummm, Beyonce’s Single Ladies anyone?

It’s not surprising that the fifteen-year-old boy I tutor introduced me to this video. Spatial geometry and the causes of the Vietnam War gathered dust, as he made me view it numerous times, pointing out which girl was his favourite and why: the one on the left, because she’s hot; the one on the right because she is ‘hittin’ her moves’; and Beyoncé, because, well she’s Beyoncé. To be honest, after the first ten seconds of our first viewing, I became a very willing participant in the whole discussion. We talked about why Beyoncé’s pseudo-feminist lyrics sometimes annoy me (Jay-Z did ‘put a [HUGE] ring on it’) and which moves were our favourites (mine occurs at the 52 second mark, he likes the one at 1:32). Truthfully, I barely like this song, but this video is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I wonder if we could cut the sound and get Sir David Attenborough to narrate it.

Children Collide interview

It’s hard to find a misstep on the full-length debut from Melbourne band, Children Collide. The Long Now doesn’t sound like a first album: its mature, yet completely varied sound and lyrical concept makes it feel like something you’d expect from a band on their third or fourth album (you know, after the ‘cursed’ second album). Children Collide are most definitely in control, something that could have been lost while working with big-name producer, Dave Sardy. It’s rare that you pick up a CD and feel like the band has decided on everything, right down to the artwork that encases their killer album. We threw guitarist-singer Johnny Mackay a few questions about how they managed to wrap everything up in such a … errr … tight little package. Read more

The John Steel Singers’ Rainbow Kraut video

I can say with an unwavering amount of conviction that kaleidoscopes are the greatest things ever invented. Well, one of them at least. Brisbane band, The John Steel Singers, take that statement and turn it into a super cool video for their song, Rainbow Kraut. I think Oliver Sacks would agree: phantom hands should always play keyboards.