What do you think of this darker design theme? better or worse than the lighter one?

I thought since the new desktops I posted have a much different approach than my usual straight photography I would post a few companion images for those of you who may be curious to see how the image came to be so below you will find the three images used in the collages as well as a snippet of the detail in one of them.


shot from a car window...


quick snapshot taken while walking down a staircase...


another car window shot...


i love pinstripes...

Apple's new(ish) 'Pro' site features some really amazing artist's. I was pretty impressed seeing as apple is a big faceless (well, aside from mr. jobs that is) corporation. Recently I have been pointed to a couple of the featured artists, one of which is Jamie Lidell which is a favorite of mine for some time now. Another artist that was pointed out to me was Japanese video artist Takagi Masakatsu which was described to me as a having a similar view of the world to mine.

You can find these and other artists over on their pro site here.

link

You simply must check out this cool looking new musical interface designed by the same mind that brought us Electroplankton. I can only hope this will become readily available in the us market because it looks like a lot of fun.

link

It looks like one of my old favorites, The IconFactory is getting a new site design. If you head over to the site you will see the beginning of a series of animations marking the creation of a new site design. The animations are worth the couple of minutes to check out because of there humorous approach to hyping the new site.

Heres a link

Well, after a looooooonnnnng weekend of hard work the BapLab is over and it was a huge success. Roughly 3000 people came out for the event which lasted from 4PM till 6AM. It was a crazy event through and through and well worth coming up. Hopefully I will be back again for the next one... I just wanted to hop on here and post few photos from the weekend for those of you who might be interested.


This projector screen was made from layers of cut fabric which gave it a 3d effect that was really cool.


A couple of performers brought out some live instrumentation. (btw, that cardinal mic there makes a great horn mic)


The raven makes for a great horn mic as well...


Calmer put on an amazing set with live drums and guitar.


MachineDrum played a brilliant set that really started the whole party off right.


The aftermath of the night can be summed up in this photo. The ceiling, as seen below, was rusty and with every huge 120db+ bass hit it rained down dust. This was annoying for djs because of skipping records but it kept the energy level in the crowd even higher knowing that the sound was so intense that the roof was literally being blown off.




more ceiling dust on the amps..


There was a ton of modern art down on the first floor of the space, one piece was this sharpie marker suspended on stings which were controlled by a motor and drew on the wall...

I will be heading back up to NYC for a show this weekend and I suggest anyone up in the area that likes electronic music even just a little bit come out for an amazing event called the Brunswick Art Project. The roster of artists performing is huge with over 40 musicians on three different stages. Just to hint at a few here... Calmer, Helios, MachineDrum, Lusine, Ryan Elliott, and plenty more. I am among the 'plenty more' category there. For those of you who don't know, I am a member of the electronic music duo, A Drop in Silence and we will be playing on stage B at 10pm if I have been told right.

Not only will I be performing, I am also bringing up three PA systems (speakers and whatnot) for the main stages. I can only hope that what I am bringing will be enough for these rooms and I am pretty sure I will have more than enough to fill the rooms but still, it's quite the responsibility and I am honored to be a part of the event.

If any readers do manage to come out I will floating about between rooms, baby-sitting the sound systems during the night. Wish me luck!

link

Is this theme working or it is just stinking up the place? Leave a comment with suggestions and whatnot. It will change in little ways as I settle in. I just had to get something fresh up here, that old theme was starting to get to me. Just wait till you see the theme I've been working on for Val's upcoming site, hot stuff I tell ya.

I never seem to talk about movies much here so I thought I would chime in here and point out a few movies I am looking forward to...

I am a huge fan of Christopher Nolan's films which had me hooked after Memento, Following, Insomnia and Batman Returns. His newest film is looks like one of those movies that remind you that there is plenty of original ideas left out there to make into a film. The Prestige

Michel Gondry has got to be one of my very favorite directors, his creativity in both writing and film making is unbelievable so I was xcited to hear of a new film of his... The Science of Sleep

I love Zach braff and the character he plays on the TV show Scrubs, after seeing this trailer I knew it was a movie I wanted to see but I'm not really sure why. Was it the cast? Writing? or maybe just the slick design of the page that the trailer is on... The Last Kiss

I am not really the biggest fan of martial arts films but this one has gotten my interest, it just looks like an amazing film... Jet Li’s Fearless

Ever since Steve Carells role in Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, and The TV series, The Office I just cant seem to get enough of the guy and his role in this movie looks like a strange match that I don't want to miss... Little Miss Sunshine

I love these movies, I know that the writing is not at all perfect but the acting, directing, and the world that was created for these movies really drew me in. Take a look at the sets feature on this link, its hard to believe what they went through in the filming of this movie... Pirates of the Caribbean 2

...an album that I recently acquired called Eingya by the musician Helios. the only other thing I have heard from him was his release on Merck records which was a subtle masterpiece on it's own and so I was excited to see that he had a new album out. With this release he has taken a step towards using a more solid groundwork in his songs. They all have beautiful dreamy ambient beds that put you in a state of mind perfect for working or anything that you need to relax a bit while doing you know? Many tracks break out to have some nice downtempo beats which adds some nice head nodding rhythm to the mix. I know there are some other electronic artists out there trying to use more traditional instruments in their sound but a lot of the time this feels forced. Helios does a great job tossing in some acoustic guitar and piano within some of the tracks and it really works for his style. I would recommend anyone in the mood for some fresh music to relax to check out this great release.

link for more info

Seems like I post a lot of these site news posts as of late, I really am simply settling into this new software and working on the back end of the site before I start posting regularly again. Today I come bearing new desktops! I know that is what most people come here to grab and I have not had to many new ones as of late so I figured I would alleviate that pressure in the back of your mind by releasing some new photos for you all.

Some of you may have noticed the LED desktop that I posted and didn't say much of anything about. I just didn't think it needed a description. Simple as that. So anyways, today I have a few desktops for you music lovers so head over and check them out.

Note: I have also decided to add a new cropping ratio for certain desktops, maybe all of them from here on depending on the response of the decision. You will see that they now have a resolution of 1920x1200. I decided that with all of the widescreen displays out there today that I could get away with releasing desktops with this ratio. In the end I prefer this to the boxy feeling 1600x1200.

I think I will just buy a tiny bit of land in the woods and one of these little myst-like pods to live in. They are called 'Free Spirit Spheres' and I cant help but be reminded of structures in the myst game series. I have seen these in books before but I had no idea that you could buy them! Looks like it would make for a great summer/vacation home. Here is a link to see more.

Im sure you can spare 10 minutes to see how big of a fish cats can sneak off into the woods!

What on earth does that mean anyway? Anyone know the history behind that statement? So to the point of this post, as twistedsun.net evoles so does the way I orginize it. Today I have merged the Music section in with this weblog. For one, I just have not has as much time to write reviews and the like as much as I did when I started that section of the site. I also figure I might as well just keep on simplifying things around here to reduce the amount of work it takes for me to keep the site updated for all of your prying eyes. As you can see, there is now a music category to the left here which is where you can single out review posts. Any new reviews or favorites will be posted here from now on.

So what else is new? Well, July turned out to be a really busy month for me. Lots of shows happening and so lots of work to do. In the past week I have worked shows (sound production) for Cat Power, Amy Mann, Dar Williams, and more. It's been pretty constant work and so here I am at 3am squeezing out a bit of a site update for everyone. I recently picked up my broken 50mm lense from the camera shop and thankfully the manual focus is working now but the auto focus has passed away so I will be paying a bit more attention to my focusing which is not always a bad thing. This also means that I have my favorite lense back and will be out and shooting more and so you guys can expect some new desktops soon.

So what else... hmmm, ah! The electronic duo I play in, A Drop In Silence has a couple of show lined up, one tomorrow night and one later on in the month up in NYC again! So that should be fun... well I think thats all for now. Im sure I will get right back on top of things here with the site soon so keep an eye out. I still have a great soundscape that I need to add to the podcast... all in due time readers, all in due time.

P.S - Somebody remind me to update my 'about' page sometime, thanks.