Das Racist

Check out some refreshing alternative hip-hop from Das Racist. I am completely down with these guys at the moment. Two personal faves:

More Rubber (Review)

Here's a video review of Rubber for those of you who hate to read. Nice to hear that the film is so awesome, especially from a guy who knew nothing about Quentin Dupieux prior.

Stay tuned

October mix coming soon

Computer Magic

My "albums in rotation" series has been pretty lackluster lately but this should hold you over. Let me introduce you to Computer Magic, a lo-fi, chill-core band out of New York. I don't know much about her (or them) but I like the music a lot. You can download 10 tracks for free on the site right now. My personal favorite at the moment is "About You". Another great track is "Electric Fence", check it out below.

Rubber

I am still waiting for the release of Quentin Dupieux's (Mr. Oizo) new film, Rubber. From the sounds of it, the reception has been very positive as it makes it's rounds on the film festival circuit. This tease from Mr. Oizo's twitter has me eagerly awaiting the soundtrack as well. If it's anything like the EP it will be fantastic:

Never Let Me Go

Formspring?

Anyone else heard of this site: http://www.formspring.me/

I stumbled on it a few times over the past week while killing boredom with stumbleupon.com. I had never heard of it prior but apparently it's a big deal for some people. It's kind of like a modified Twitter in the sense that it has the social networking qualities but instead of tweets it focuses on questions and answers. A few of the random profiles I stumbled on were pretty entertaining to read through. The way it works is this; you make a page (although not required) and randoms (or friends who follow you) ask you questions about anything from personal inquiries about the yourself to requesting input and opinions regarding everyday things. I figured I would just wing it and give it a try. It's free and very easy and straightforward so what the heck. I always like answering questions and having to think and now I can cure boredom at the same time! I'm sure I will give up on this site in about a week but I'm curious to see what the appeal is. If there is anyone reading this who knows, feel free to share opinions. Oh... and don't forget to ask me your deep life questions http://www.formspring.me/RobertZarske

Movin' on up

I just landed an internship with AD2 as a brand ambassador for the Student Advertising Summit.  Pretty excited about it since it is directly related to my field and will offer some amazing networking opportunities. I find out more info soon. Our first meeting is Saturday morning over at Periscope in Minneapolis.

Issues

For some reason I have not been able to stream my mixes from the embedded players I posted here or from the file hosting site directly. As far as I know the download still works so feel free to save yourself a copy of the September edition or the other ones if you missed them. Hopefully the streaming issue will go away. If you know of a better file hosting site let me know (one that is free and also gives the option of embedding a player like zippyshare). Thanks.

Septembre Sombre

Here's the latest installment in my mix series. Went for a more mellowed out and smooth approach with a nice climax this time around. I also threw together two versions of artwork for you to choose from to add to iTunes. It looks like the hosting site is having some issues so streaming may be hit or miss. Download for original high quality. Hope you enjoy.

"So gifted at finding what I don't like the most"

It seems that everyone is obsessing over this song following the VMAs on Sunday. I have always had a problem with Kanye West as a person but I definitely love some of his music. This song has been stuck in my head all day and I'm not even a huge rap fan anymore. The beat is simple but extremely effective and the lyrics need no explanation.

Spare time design: self promotion

V. 1

V. 2

"Our Day Will Come"

Notre Jour Viendra, meaning "our day will come", is a film being released Sept. 15 by French filmmaker Romain Gavras. From what I have read and seen it looks like it's going to be almost uncomfortably intense but there are two reasons to be excited. 

1.) It's a film by Romain Gavras so chances are it will be good and it will be artful.

2.) The official soundtrack is composed by SebastiAn. It will rock.

For those who don't know, Romain Gavras is responsible for music videos such as "Signatune" by Dj Mehdi (Ed Banger), "Stress" by Justice (Ed Banger), and more recently, the controversial video for the M.I.A. single "Born Free". Gavras also collaborated with Justice to film their tour documentary "A Cross The Universe", a must see. Ed Banger Records' very own, SebastiAn, was tasked with creating the soundtrack to this upcoming film and I cannot wait to hear what he has done. The LP is slated for a September release as well but you can already find some snippets of music from the film online. Being that it is entirely in French, the synopsis is hard to decipher but judging by the trailer it seems to be a pretty graphic and gritty story. That aside, I will definitely give it a try if English subtitles become available, if for nothing else, to at least experience Romain's cinematography and SebastiAn's music working together. See the trailer below (NSFW).

Here's a rough translation: "My hair bothered you, I let it grow. My actions, my attitudes disturb you. And nonetheless I will amplify them. And finally, taking in your sarcasm, I rest indifferent. So that I may finally become he which I must be. And despite this disgust, this shame... you will love me, for that which I am."

Type.

I Thought I would share a little bit of what I have been doing in class these first few weeks... Here is some typography work I did using Illustrator. The quality isn't the greatest after converting to jpeg format but you get the idea.

Here are some monograms I made using my initials in Helvetica manipulated in Illustrator:

Next I did some tinkering with the words "disruption" and "expansion" to show literal meaning, some more successful than others:

Lastly, some more word form work using the word "Typography". We needed to choose a word pertaining to the class and typography seemed like an obvious choice but proved to be quite difficult to execute. The word itself is already literal in regard to its definition but I think I managed to come up with some fun variations:

I Love You So

I am so excited for the proper full quality release of this song that I need to share it with all of you.  It's a new single off the new EP from Cassius called The Rawkers. If you're not familiar with these guys, get familiar. They are friend's of Busy P and Ed Banger Records (who will be releasing this EP) and a part of their collaboration, Club 75. This song is so mellow yet so heavy and you may recognize the vocal sample from Gladys Knight & The Pips - "I Feel A Song". Enjoy.