Aphex Twin, a musical visionary capable of twisting your head in knots, blew the audience away with his performance on Saturday at L.E.D. Festival. He was greeted with uncertainty as to what he would deliver, but his mixture of hectic beats, dreamy melody and the occasional dubstep vibe kept the crowd on their toes.
What took the show to even mesmerising heights however was the visual extravaganza, which at first appeared lo-fi, but progressed to a full assault on the eyes. A live facial recognition system was used to map faces in the audience and overlay the image of his own, trademark distorted face.
The juxtaposition of the MC’s in bunny outfits was also brilliant.
Shepard Fairey's Joaquin Phoenix beard image spotted in Central Square - Boston.com
In late 2008 Joaquin Phoenix announced his retirement from a successful acting career, to concentrate on his music. Understandably people were surprised, by the premature decision from a talented actor in his early thirties. What was even more shocking was how less than 6 months later, sightings were reported of him fully bearded and carrying a large gut. At about this time he decided to appear on Letterman for an interview in which he barely spoke, let alone answered questions.
It wasn’t until it became apparent that Joaquin’s journey was being documented by his brother-in-law Casey Afleck, that the pieces began to fall into place. Could this all just be a mockumentary? Either that or Casey had struck gold.
More than one year on and we’re finally close to finding out the truth, as the documentary, I’m Still here is released. If the trailers anything to go by, it’s going to be brilliant and cringeworthy insight into the mans spiral.
What’s also interesting about this movie is that with all of the speculation and internet talk, it should survive without a lick of marketing and still be a massive hit. Especially with a bit of guerilla marketing, courtesy of Shepard Fairey.
In conclusion, Joaquin Phoenix has absolutely lost it, or he’ll turn out to be one of the best actors of all time. Either way Casey Afleck will probably end up with one of the best documentaries ever.
For me 2009 has been a great year for music, thanks to the likes of Passion Pit, The XX, Discovery and all of the record labels able to bring them to market. 2010 is also hotting up to be a great year. Here is a selection of the bands that I’m most exicited about.
This is the quite possibly one of the most exciting albums of the last decade (for me)!
The Blakroc project brings together the brilliant Black Keys and the music mogul Damond Dash, who enlist the likes of Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch and Q-Tip to create blues / hip-hop crossover album.
I have recently been reading about the life of Hadian and whilst fascinating, I have often wondered what the man himself would think if he were to read the literature about him 2000 years after his death. Would he be impressed with the closeness to fact, or be in hysterics over the inaccuracies pieced together from various scrolls?
Awesome new video for Massive Attack by the talented digital artists at UVA. The video was designed using custom 3D software developed by UVA (presumably with OpenFrameworks), which allowed the creation of spontaneous, organic forms, simply by “sketching” the outlines.
I would love to see the production process in action.
It’s also the first Massive Attack tune that I’ve liked in quite a while.
Jack Beats have been releasing some absolute banging remixes throughout 2009. Neil; one half of the duo dropped in on the Kiss Sell Out show – which is one of the best radio shows out there – to play a superb mix. It features a down-and-dirty remix of Passion Pits, Little Secrets.
