Bonsajo "Vanishing Point"

This is a truly inspiring piece of animation from Bonsajo, a Japanese “visual performance unit”. It makes music and visuals fit like nothing I can think of.

Music by cubesato

Hancher & Hudson

Stunning work from Adam Hancher & Jack Hudson for this video of "Artificial Clouds" by the leeds based band Tigers That Talked Released October 2009 on Bad Sneakers Records. The track is taken from their forthcoming album The Merchant, released 2010 and produced by Adam Noble.

The Zonders

The Zonders is an international artistcollective founded by Dieter Dunkel & Wolfgang 3000. Influenced by different styles of music it is their style to bond surrealism and society in a sort of cool but kitsch 80's theme. Or if you like you could call them retro futurists but i have never really liked that term.

The work they create is dominantly logos and vinyl art for electro bands which follow the same retro futuristic ethos. This works really well and boost their creativity as the music and image connect, to the piece whole.

They work closely with the french music blog The Valerie Collective who have been turning me onto fabulous mixes and opening new doors to music which i would otherwise shy away from.

Noah And The Whale

'Blue Skies' is the first single and trailer from the new Noah And The Whale album/film; 'The First Days Of Spring'. The video is made courtesy of Tomboy Films and has a very British feel to it. Cracking song and great video!

Apologies from The Get Up Kids

I've been a fan of The Get Up Kids since I was about 13 years old and have seen the word emo change from an "underground" scene of mainly skate punks and band kids into the blasphemous word it is today; with no thanks to the likes of "Fall out Boy" and "My Chemical Romance". Now who is to blame for this ugly change, could it be the MTV generation or the fact that anyone with garage band can make their voice and cheap guitar sound "half decent"?

Well apparently we have "The Get Up Kids" themselves to blame as highlighted in a July article on the Guardian website:

"Honestly, I don't often think about the state of emo," Suptic told Drowned in Sound. "We played the Bamboozle fests this year and we felt really out of place. I could name maybe three bands we played with. It was just a sea of neon shirts to us ... the punk scene we came out of and the punk scene now are completely different. It's like glam rock now. - If this is the world we helped create," guitarist James Suptic said, after looking into the crowd at a reunion gig, "then I apologise."

Please click here for the full article

Thanks to my good friend John Graham and his twitter account for highlighting this article

Shynola

Coldplay's latest video for 'Strawberry Swing' is a stunning stop motion by British art collective 'Shynola' which sees Chris Martin undergo a video game like, animation adventure through seas and skies. Shynola also directed the award winning video for 'go with the flow' by Queen's Of The Stone Age.

Even if your not a fan of Coldplay im sure you'll appreciate this video.

Black Cab Sessions

Want to see your favourite band playing a song in a London cab? Good.. cos Black Cab Sessions is doing just that.

Click the image above to take a look.

Metronomy: You've Got a Thing for Me

Another music video i thought was pretty cool. The song may be annoying but after watching the video you wont be able to stop singing it.

Coldplay - Life in Technicolor ii

I watched this the other day and really enjoyed it laughed my socks off at the 'crew' members.

Friendly Fires

If you haven't already seen it you have to take a look at the video for 'Skeleton Boy' by Friendly Fires. Directed by Clemens Habicht the video shows the band playing in a dark room wearing black full body suits, as the snow like flakes fall down, their bodies turn into skeletons. Catchy song, good video!

Frederic Tacer

Frederic Tacer has some truly unique ideas when it comes to the design of art work for musical artists, He looks into digitalising album art work, posters and even merchandise . From what is on his web site this look like it was a really good piece for his Diploma. If your not gonna go to his site at least watch this.

This Will Destroy You

Friday night Will and I went to watch This Will Destroy You at The White Rabbit, Plymouth. This Will Destroy You are a 4 piece from Texas with a very ambient, atmospheric sound. The album artwork is pretty cool also. Be sure to check out a song called 'quiet' on their myspace page.

Aesthetic Apparatus

Aesthetic Apparatus was founded around 1999 in Madison, Wisconsin by Dan Ibarra and Michael Byzewski as a fun side project from their "real" jobs. The vintage feel of their screenprinted posters and illustrations are popular among many music and design nerds. Racking up clients such as Stella Artois, Frank Black, creative review and also featuring in the book New Vintage Type: Classic Fonts For The Digital Age.

Lo Recordings

If you haven't yet come across Lo Recordings, go have a look listen and enjoy all they have to offer.

Lo Recordings has been in existence for over 10 years and is widely regarded as one of the most consistently innovative independent labels. Recently Lo have developed two new labels: Loaf, for new artists and Loeb, for vinyl 12¹s. The Label is run by Hub 100 and the sister company Hub 100 Publishing who have developed a production music library imprint called Lo Editions in conjunction with BMGZomba.

Hub 100 is run by Gavin O¹Shea and Jon Tye the founder of Lo Recordings. Jon works from his home in Cornwall and Gavin runs the London office, with Mark Shelley and Udi Radomsky.

Salvador Design

I bought the Noah and the Whale album recently and really like it, I also found the album artwork pretty interesting and decided to check out who created it. Turns out the Artwork is by Alex Brenchley and put together by Salvador Design. Although I was unable to find Alex's website I did find Salvador's. Some pretty interesting mixed media techniques used in most of their work.

Jo Ratcliffe

Jo Ratcliffe designed this for the cover of "So Still" by Mozez (Zero 7). The album was released a while ago but i just stumbled across the image on Jo's website, a very unique and detailed image. Almost sums up the relaxing sound of his voice. Listen to Mozez here

Laura Marling / James Copeman

Laura Marling - Ghosts by James Copeman on Vimeo.

While we are on the subject of animational music videos... I am in love with the new Laura Marling record. The video for ghosts is pretty cool if not slightly morbid. Either way I like it alot. Directed by James Copeman, who has also worked on videos with the likes of Mystery Jets and Noah and the Whale

Charles Huettner

Swift Wings from Charles Huettner on Vimeo.

Charles Huettner created this really sweet video for Cheila, using mostly stop motion and some after effects trickery.

CBGB's

There are some pretty neat photos on the CBGB website, check them out by clicking here. Ever seen it on a t shirt and wondered what CBGB actually stands for?...

The question most often asked of me is, "What does CBGB stand for?"
I reply, "It stands for the kind of music I intended to have, but not the
kind that we became famous for: COUNTRY BLUEGRASS BLUES."
The next question is always, "but what does OMFUG stand for?" and I say
"That's more of what we do, It means OTHER MUSIC FOR UPLIFTING
GORMANDIZERS." And what is a gormandizer? It's a voracious eater of,
in this case, MUSIC. (found here)

Gigposters

www.gigposters.com has some really nice posters featured, by lots of different artist, some of which are for sale. There is so much content on this site i just looked at many for over an hour. simply pic a designer out of the millions or a band you like and see some cool art work. I’m a big fan of sea creatures, especially the squid. So naturally I was drawn to this art print by Thomas Boucher, “The Squid and the Cachalot”. Seriously soo much on here!