This album has captured my full attention. tUnE-YarDs is a one piece from Montreal (I think) who is about to release one of those records that makes you say, “God damn, this is SO GOOD.” and when listening one can tell that there’s plenty more where that came from. The record is lo-fi at its finest. Crunk beats made from pots and pans, ukulele hooks and brilliant vocal melodies and harmonies. It comes off as a compilation of goof-around tracks made in her basement but there is clearly a lot of thought behind these tunes. Hints of reggaeton, barbershop and mainstream pop shine through on these recordings. This band is putting out a whopper of a first one and it seems promising that anything in the future will be golden. You can download the entire record on a donation basis from www.tuneyards.com until March 10th, when it’ll be released on vinyl through Marriage Records. Look for “News” on Tender Loving Empire’s compilation Friends and Friends of Friends Vol.2 (which is coming along quite nicely I might add).

tUne-yARds – NEWS

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tUne-yARds – HATARI

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Here is one of the most innovative and creative works of music I’ve heard in a long long time; ‘The Happiness Project’ by Charles Spearin (Do Make Say Think/Broken Social Scene). Mr. Spearin has taken recordings of his neighbors speaking on the subject of personal happiness and composed music to coincide with the speech. The compositions are designed to accent and pull out the often times unheard melodic tonalities that occur in everyday speech. He takes these melodies and extracts them from the dialogue and creates amazing, ingenious songs out of them. His experiment, if you ask me, was very successful. I’ve put two tracks below for you to sample. The first, Mrs. Morris, sets the stage for what he is trying to accomplish. It is a minimal piece with just the dialogue and a saxophone to match the tones. The second, Vittoria, is a much larger song which takes the stumbling cadence of a child and turns it into a big band romp. This album is definitely worth purchasing.

The Happiness Project – Mrs. Morris

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The Happiness Project – Vittoria

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On Monday I shot the raw footage for the new video for Starfucker’s ‘Medicine’. We shot at a photography studio near my house in SE Portland called NewSpace. It was perfect because they had a green screen we could use and hot lights available for lighting. They also gave us some excellent student rates based on my 7 year old student I.D. with no expiration date. They were concerned because they couldn’t provide us with a sound proof stage to shoot on but, it didn’t matter seeing as we weren’t recording sound. We had four dancers; two guys two girls. Everyone did and outstanding job with their improvised dance performances with the assistance of Mr.Bourbon and Ms.Beercan. We got some really nice footage. Below are some pics my on-sight photographer, Sarah Fields, took.

Will moves in front of the terrifying camera.

Amy warming up to get down.

Me, looking like a director.

Caitlin, shakin in the harsh light.

Amy dancing and me attempting a hand-held shot.