As many of you know I recently took up a new project site simply titled light.twistedsun.net which is a photoblog for images that may not fit in as desktops or other such uses. Images that I may have never done anything with had I not made a little site to share them with the world. Well I would like to introduce another photoblog which is poking its head out into the web called 'point of view point'. The web address is simple and could be memorized easily should you be so inclined and reads as follows: www.pointofviewpoint.net.

Here you will find new photos posted by my next of kin, James. Surely you could find out more simply by heading over and checking out what he has going on, the about page is a good place to start as far as information about his artists statement behind the new site and should you be interested in learning more about any particular image you can follow the comments link which will take you to a description of the shown photograph.

So if you don't get enough of a photo fix staring at twistedsun desktops all day then by all means click on over to pointofviewpoint.net

It's been a while I know! So what has been rolling around on my music players as of late? Turns out in the nearly two months (!) since I have last written one of these I have found all sorts of amazing music. Because there is so much I will hi-light my favorite recent albums as well as list a few others that have made their way into my head as of late. (You could always check out my twitter feed which I use to post songs that I may be listening to that catch me at that given moment as being a standout.)


Gonzalez - Solo Piano

Who would have known that a hip-hop producer could release such a compelling album of classical piano pieces? I actually heard this music before his other releases and I am happy that I did because I did not really like other things I have heard from him. From what I understand there is a close tie between him, Feist, and Peaches. Something about how they used to be room mates or something of the sort. This album is really pretty amazing through and through and although most of the pieces are fairly short running they still manage to pull you in. I hope that he continues to explore this side of his music in the future. (itunes link)
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Mice Parade - Self Titled

In the past I have never really enjoyed Music by Mice Parade all that much. I have tried and tried but nothing ever really clicked in my mind. With this release I have found an album full of songs that I keep coming back to and it has quickly become my go to album over the past couple of weeks. There is a typical indie rock feel to the album as a whole but just enough diversity with the guest appearances to keep it interesting. (artist link)
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Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger

I fell for Ryan adams first album, heartbreaker, a couple years ago and since then have been searching for music from him that hit me in the same way but have yet to find that spark in his more recent albums. From time to time I have found newer songs by him that pulled me in but nothing ever really stuck with me the way his first album did. From what I read around the web, a lot of people feel the same way. My favorite releases from him since Heartbreaker would have to be when he got together with The Cardinals for a couple of albums and while they were not as intimate as his solo work I did find that the collaboration produced some great music. So on comes his newest solo effort, Easy Tiger. When I first put on this I listened to it all the way through and was somewhat disappointed. It felt over produced like a little to much effort had gone into its creation. It was not until giving it a second chance that I had realized that many of the songs felt immediately familiar and it slowly began to grow on me somehow. At any rate, worth checking out if you enjoy a bit of americana here and there. (itunes link)
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Susumu Yokota and Rothko - Waters Edge

Discovering this album helped fill my need for something calm and ambient these past few weeks. Four tracks of wonderful melodic ambience. I will defiantly be looking for this on vinyl sometime soon. Thats about all I can say about this at the moment, just really beautiful stuff and you should definitely check it out. (artist link)
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White Stripes - Icky Thump

I have had a back and forth thing going on with the White Stripes for as long as I can remember. Their first album drew me in when I first heard it back shortly after its release. I can't even remember how I discovered it in the first place but I do remember getting sucked in by the catchy hooks and rawness of the recording. I tried getting into their other albums but they never really hit me in the same way as their first until I heard the song Icky thump. I was at first skeptical that I actually liked what I was hearing but quickly found that I was really enjoying the whole album. It was really unexpected and throughout the release you will find it taking all sorts of twists and turns through sound and ideas. Really great stuff... (itunes link)
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The Tuss - Confederation Trough / Rushup Edge

And the last thing I will write about in detail here is this amazing pair of EP's by the mystery group The Tuss. From what I have read they could very well be yet another secret release by none other than Richard D. James aka. Aphex Twin which would make sense because of the obvious similarities between the style of the music and recent RDJ releases. I really dont know what to think about all the speculation, all I know is that I really love these EPS. Amazing and solid all the way through. If your a fan of aphex dont pass this one up! (not so informative artist link)

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There are other releases that I have been listening to as well as of late, and for the sake of saving some time I am going to list what else I have been listening to below, the links will either take you to iTunes or to the artists website...

Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls \ indie rock girl band, great album that grew on me with time

Emilie Simon - Self Titled (french site) / great french artist with a rough electronic edge to somewhat calmer songwriting

Julie Doiron - Désormais / beautiful somber album

M. Ward - Duet for Guitars #2 / m.wards first album was re released recently and although it is not as developed as his later material it has quite a few gems hiding inside

Matthew Herbert - Score / al sorts of varying ideas and styles here, classical to electronic

Mr. Oizo - Analog Worms Attack / brilliant head nodding beats

Puzzleweasel - Exo-Grid / my idm fix as of late, almost like the child of autechre and richard devine...

Skeletons and The Kings of all Cities - Lucas / wild experimenting indie pop like album that takes you places you may not have been while listening to music, really solid album

Tibetan Buddhist - Tibetan And Bhutanese Instrumental And Folk Music / strangely hypnotic and great for relaxing to something not so polished and modern

Tigerbeat 6 - Lets Lazertag Sometime / party mix album from tigerbeat

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Isis EP / im not a huge fan of the band but this ep has gotten my attention

Xela - Tangled Wool / wonderful peaceful electronic with acoustic guitar. everything on type records is so good...

Three new desktops have been posted and a Hi-Fi post should be coming later today for those of you who enjoy those.

This past weekend was a crazy one that had me driving all over Virginia working shows, all country acts that I have never heard of. Thats one genera that I dont really get, modern country. Its really strange! The audio engineer with one of the bands wanted a TON of low end so i brought out some extra subs and he did not really seem to know what he was doing and still could not get what he wanted out of the mix so it was kind of a mess for a while. One of those engineers obsessed with compressors and gates and making live mixing WAY more complicated than it should be. I have become a firm believer in a more simplistic approach to setting up and mixing bands. I wont get into it here because im sure there are not to many people reading the blog here that would care or know what I am talking about and me rambling on to much about it would probably bore 90 percent of you to tears. Well, maybe not to tears, at least I would hope not. Eeeesh... now I'm imagining visitors to my site sobbing uncontrollably as they read what I write here... moving along...



On saturday, however, I skipped out of a show which was just south of DC and drove up there to perform at a show in the city with my friend matt as A Drop In Silence, the electronic music group I am involved in. The event was called simply X. Not simply X but just X. Not just X but X. Get it? Right. Well the show was all about art really and there were three graphic designers (as you can see in the bottom blurry part of the photo above) which were sitting there designing a poster for the event and all of their work was being projected onto the wall to the right there so anyone could watch the thought process behind their designing. Then there were photographers damn near EVERYWHERE running about taking photos of everything you could imagine. I also saw a few videographers milling about with video cameras, one of which was broadcasting the video live to his blog or something like that. And if that was not enough art interaction for you there was a live painter and a BELLY DANCER that was on stage for parts of the night. Oh, and then there was the music. In my mind it was a strange show to perform in some ways because the music was clearly not the focus. I felt that the musicians performing were up there and just kind of faded into the circus of media which in retrospect was pretty fun in a way to be part of this machine that was supposed to be fueled by all of the other creative things happening around the room. But looking back I find that most of the artists were totally in their own world during this event. Not a bad thing but can illustrate even when crammed in a room to create for people live artists can end up being a bit inward moving if that makes any sense.


(this was during our set)

But dont get me wrong, we had a great time performing, it was a really amazing event all in all and I am really happy that we were asked to play. I cant remember performing an event that was documented so well. During our long long long TWO HOUR set we had a constant stream of photographers and video cameras right there behind us nearly the whole time which I did my best to ignore and just do what I do when performing. We ended up playing mostly improvised music for the bulk of the night which was a lot of fun and something we have not done very often live and although the curators encouraged us to keep the music low key we did end up cranking up the volume and getting pretty crazy for a couple songs which they were clearly a little aggravated by but its something that we do and we were performing a show after all and want to represent who we are as artists just the same as everyone else so getting a little crazy here and there is something that is bound to happen.



So later in the night after we performed we drove a few blocks down the street to catch a couple of friends of ours perform down the street at another club. It really was just a huge coincidence that we were performing the same city the same night which was pretty cool I thought. It was great to see them perform as always and a nice way to end the evening with some glitch beat madness from Doofgoblin which performed one of the best sets I have ever heard him perform actually, and MachineDrums non stop dance party set that never disappoints.



After a couple of hours sleep we made the 6 hour drive back home so I could work another show on sunday which nearly killed me after all the other work and performing and driving and whew.... quite a weekend. I have at least two desktops I am getting ready to add but I just don't have time to add them just yet. Soon! Hopefully later today in fact. So stay tuned for more soon and thanks for being patient in these busy months.

It's been a busy month in my life and the site is feeling it. I have plans on posting some info on my new lens and the iphone if I can ever get my act together and sit down to make a write up and take some photos for it. Its just so hard to find free moments for these simple things. C'est la vie.

Anyways, should I make this image into a desktop? What do you think? I also have been posting images pretty regularly over on my new photoblog light.twistedsun.net which has kind of a busted rss feed at the moment but I hope to remedy that as soon as I get a chance to have a chat with my personal coding geek helper over in the Netherlands. (ahem... dave, are you listening?)

Speaking of code, Id like to get this little twitter updater script to NOT add those stupid looking tabbed over dots and just get it more list like. Any suggestions?

Hope to get back to regular posting one of these days, thanks for being patient!

New desktops, ripe for the picking over on the desktop page. Get em while they're hot.