Band Of The Week: The Twilight Sad


A friend of mine turned me on to The Twilight Sad a year or two ago, and I had lost touch with the band until hearing a few tracks from their newest record, Forget The Night Ahead, in my local record store. I immediately bought the record, and I’ve been listening to it non-stop ever since. The band is very, very Scottish, and fairly dark and melancholy in mood… their name is very fitting. It reminds me a bit of fellow Scotts Mogwai at their most straight forward. If you like Idlewild, Mogwai, Longview, or any dark mid tempo rock, I highly recommend The Twilight Sad. You can hear my favorite song from Forget The Night Ahead below.

From the band’s Wikipedia entry, on their newest record:

Musically they describe it as “noisier and bigger”, where they experimented with a lot of instruments and different sounds, including fire extinguishers. About the progression from their debut album, they’ve noted “The songs on the first album were the first proper songs we had ever written together, so we were always going to progress from that. We’ve developed as songwriters since the first record and we definitely tried to make it feel like a complete record instead of a bunch of songs just thrown together.”

“The Room” from 2009’s Forget The Night Ahead on FatCat Records

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In Search Of Stoney Jackson


Stones Throw releases the newest record from Strong Arm Steady today, produced by the genius Madlib. Pick it up on iTunes, or pick up the physical version with artwork from the also genius Lewis Heriz. Of course, vinyl is recommended.

Grammy Awards Recap


I made it back safely from the 52nd Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.. It was a great time, but I’m glad to be back in the saddle at the office and working away. I had the pleasure of meeting and talking at length with Stefan Sagmeister (who won in the regular recorded packaging category for his Brian Eno / David Byrne artwork) and Masaki Koike (who was nominated in my category for his incredible Phish packaging). It was great to finally meet and chat with those two incredible designers, as well as chat with Weird Al, Leonard Cohen, Katy Perry, various members of the San Francisco and Boston symphonies, some members of Phoenix, Angus Young, Tony Bennet, and have a little run in with Beyonce on the red carpet. Neil Young walked away with the Grammy in my category, but hey, if you have to lose to someone, it may as well by Neil Young, right?

The Image As Remembrance


Great stuff over at History Of Our World.

Final Horkey x Isis x Baroness


You can see the final Horkey poster for Isis and Baroness, that I posted about earlier, by going here. Insane.

I’m Here

The Drawings Of Dankos Westering


Dankos Westering’s mixed media drawings are perfectly weird.

The Photography Of Lina Jaros


Lina’s work is begging to be used for a record cover. Peruse the “Beyond The Wall” set and you’ll see what I mean. The photo above is in the “Landscapes” set, also worth a look. Check out more here.

Case-Real Elekit Tube Amp


Sometimes boutique audio components can be extremely beautiful. Bobby at Kitsune Noir posted today about this beautiful (and expensive) piece of equipment, and I added it to my ‘dream’ list immediately. It would look beautiful with the ‘ole Pro-Ject Xpression III. From Bobby’s post:

“It’s kind of hard to believe, but I’ve found a worthy counterpart to Joey Roth’s beautiful ceramic speakers. This Case-Real Elekit tube amplifier was designed by Koichi Futatsumata and features a metal body (aluminum?) with two beautiful tubes sticking out of the top. This is definitely the grandchild of Dieter Rams. The simple design is perfect, there aren’t a ton of buttons and doodads to screw around with, exactly what this world filled with remotes with thousands of buttons needs. Keep it simple, stupid.”

The Illustrations Of Olaf Hajek


I really dig Olaf Hajek’s work. Portrait of Nine Inch Nails above. See more here.