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Great piece on Dazed Digital about Diagrams artwork maestro Chrissie Abbott.
Chrissie has put together all of the Diagrams artwork to date, and even added her own inimitable style to all the Diagrams press shots. Head down to the exhibition if you get a chance…
Friends of FTH and longtime Diagrams collaborators Mathy & Fran have put their short film Elsewhere online for the world to view. Here’s a little spiel…
Two ‘lovers on the run’ head into the middle of nowhere, armed only with strange trinkets and a silver boombox.
A short film by Mathy & Fran, starring Aneurin Barnard and Jessica Raine. Featuring music by Kurt Vile, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, High Places and Lucky Dragons.
Supported by Film London, UK Film Council and the British Council.
As is the tradition, we’re rounding off the year with our Top 10 records of 2011. Have a look below for what has had the heaviest rotation on the office stereo. Please note: we don’t include our own releases in our lists.
Nigel
1. Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
2. Kate Bush – 50 Words For Snow
3. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
4. Antlers – Burst Apart
5. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – S/T
6. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
7. Feist – Metals
8. Death Cab For Cutie – Codes And Keys
9. Tom Waits – Bad As Me
10. The Field – Looping State Of Mind
Hayley
1. Smother – Wild Beasts (Domino)
2. Looping State Of Mind – The Field (Kompakt)
3. Feel It Break – Austra (Domino)
4. Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi (Domino)
5. Let England Shake – PJ Harvey (Island)
6. The English Riviera – Metronomy (Because)
7. Burst Apart – The Antlers (Transgressive)
8. We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves – John Maus (Upset The Rhythm)
9. Tomboy – Panda Bear (Paw Tracks)
10. SBTRKT – SBTRKT (Young Turks)
Gigs:
1. Sufjan Stevens @ Royal Festival Hall
2. Sufjan Stevens @ Primavera Sound
3. Portishead @ ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror
4. Joanna Newsom @ End of the Road
5. Pulp @ Wireless
Hayley’s Highlights Spotify Playlist
Lauren
1. Tune-Yards – Who Kill
2. A$AP Rocky – LIVELOVEA$AP
3. Atlas Sound Parallax
4. Blouse – Blouse
5. Clams Casino - Instrumentals
6. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
7. Rustie – Glass Swords
8. Three Trapped Tigers – Route One Or Die
9. Wild Flag – Wild Flag
10. Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
Gigs:
1. Sufjan Stevens – Primavera Festival
2. Beyonce – Glastonbury Festival
3. Big Boi – Glastonbury Festival
4. Bon Iver -Hammersmith Apollo
5. Wild Flag – The Lexington
Our friends over at Telegramme Studio have relaunched their website. Go check it out, for they are fine people.
Great food programme special on wild food here
finally got round to reading Waterlog by Roger Deakin:
having read Notes From Walnut Tree Farm and Wildwood I worked my way backwards to the one that kicked it all off. Really inspiring, can’t wait for the summer now..
I’m a breadhead. Not in the sixties sense of the term you understand. If I was truly one of those I’m in the wrong line of work right now, I’d be developing apps, creating complex financial products or running a sweet shop, or whatever.
No, in the true sense I’m a breadhead and spending my saturday trapping wild yeasts and making them yield to my bakerly ways. It’s relaxing, but most of all it’s a superb A&R tool. The time it takes to go along with the convoluted ways of the sourdough make it perfect for fixing long periods listening to albums in the kitchen, playing, re-playing and playing again of demos, mixes and final album masters while the wild yeast accepts it’s been house trained.
I’m sure there are various music styles more suited to the many ways of the dough, at present I’m making a spelt sourdough while listening to new material by SVIIB and Craig Finn. I’d imagine a bagel would work well with new material from Malcolm Middleton and Pinkunoizu would be a treat with something I’ve yet to try, something tricky and complex but ultimately satisfying and long lasting like a dark rye loaf.
sourdough at the demo stage
The world of bread has it’s John Peels, too. Check for instance Richard Bertinent and the work he does with books like Dough or Crust, an obsessive bread enthusiast he thinks nothing of exhorting his followers to start a process that can take a couple of weeks before you can get your choppers around a slice. Or the myriad blogs dedicated to baking, like http://www.thefreshloaf.com/ which is a bit of a favourite.
I read somewhere of an indie label head comparing the music they released to a three course meal with likes of X Factor and the pop world having the transient satisfaction of McDonalds. Similarly in the world of bread, taming the wild yeast and spending the time and effort to produce a loaf with taste, texture and smell makes the toil worthwhile and stays with you. Or, you can nip off for a cheeky white sliced bacon butty as your guilty pleasure.
So today, we’ve come down to Hastings in Sussex to do a spot of filming with Sam from Diagrams, along with our good friends & film makers Mathy & Fran.
Footage from today’s shoot should crop up online in the coming weeks, but today’s setting should provide an amazing backdrop for what we all have planned.
Click here to see a photo of where we’re filming next to the old pier.
Sufjan Stevens, Royal Festival Hall, Friday 13th May 2011
Marking his transition from lush orchestral folk to squelchy electro-pop, Stevens was flanked by twin drummers, banks of synths, backing singers, multi-instrumentalist and a small brass section, all decked out in outfits made from UV gaffer tape. Half the show was played with the band behind a translucent screen, made visible just by their lit up outfits, with an array of visuals projected in time with the music. The music itself was inspired by the outsider artist Royal Robertson, whom we got a 10 minute lecture/slideshow on, concerning itself with the Book of Revelations and images of the apocalypse, intertwined with confessional songs of love and doubt. During the 25 minute finale, Impossible Soul, Sufjan donned a home made giant mirror ball and inspired an impromptu rush to the stage as everyone in the stalls got out of their seats to dance along as ticker tape and balloons rained down from the sky.
It was as close to 70s prog rock and musical theatre as you‚Äôre likely to get from such a critically lauded artist, whilst retaining the heart and soul of folk music… With the two and a half hour running time zooming past without once dragging. Shame he only tours about every 5 years…
James Harrison
Bearded Magazine is our favourite new music rag. It’s beautifully printed, well-written, features only the best of independent music, and more importantly it smells amazing. A few issues have dropped already, but then the Bearded folk took a wee hiatus. However, they are now back and bigger than before. The latest issue comes off the printers this week (and features the likes of Animal Collective, Andrew Bird and Asobi Seksu) and to celebrate they’re having a launch party at The Macbeth over in the East End of London this Thursday (Jan 29th). For more info on this and the mag, check out their site here. Support the cause…we need magazines like this.
