Rough Layers

footage by prismanic

Chalk Animation - Firekites "Autumn Story"

via [JUNK RAT]

Blue Beat

Chairlift: "Bruises" (Live on Craig Ferguson)

i'm not too big on the hipster scene nowadays - but i was kind of zoning in and out of craig ferguson the other night when these guys came on. i have to say, the lead singer is totally dreamy - in a weird hip way - but the way she sways and twirls in her oversized cloak/hoody is mad cute - not to mention she's a great keyboardist and has an amazing voice. towards the end with the "ooo's" she reminds me a lot of regina spektor, except mix in some great synths and laidback dance beats. great stuff - expect me to be sampling and remixing them for sure :). speaking of, i'm working on some blue train samples right now so stay tuned for that too.

UPDATE:

My remix beat sampling Bruises.

DoodleBrainz: First Issue, Out Now!

found these guys asking for submissions on craigslist one night - looking for doodles for the first issue of their e-zine featuring doodles - quick, seemingly mindless pieces of art that they believe are a little peephole into the subconscious and when viewed from a "macroscopic" view like in collections such as their own, they might provide some insight into the collective subconscious. anyway - i submitted and got a doodle featured on their cover as well as a few inside. check it out!

Psychedelic Hip Hop Breakfast

psychedelic hip hop breakfast

Jay-Z: Allure In The Sky With Diamonds

this is one of the tracks i ended up creating using the samples from the melloman samples jay-z's allure on top of the intro the lucy in the sky with diamonds played on a DIY Mellotron synth.

The Weezy Saxaphone

SCINTILLATION

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

"This is an experimental film made up of over 35,000 photographs. It combines an innovative mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques." This is absolutely mind-blowing, the intricacy of the technique, especially in the simpler shots is fascinating - the shots are stunning and the beginning shots of the wood grain, carvings and the dried roots are hyper-realistic. It progresses, like the accompanying track, to more bizarre hallucinogenic techno vibes with the flower alight with neon rainbow sparkles. Anway, check it out.

Directed by

chassaing.xavier@gmail.com

Music by

http://www.myspace.com/fedaden

Giving Blunts A Bad Wrap

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2009/06/22/gvl10622.htm

It's all the way at the bottom of the article, but here it is: "Ban flavoring in cigarettes, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon and vanilla."

The reason is generally cited as these are aimed at children. But anybody familiar with the advertising and packaging of these products knows that they're clearly not. Here's a sample:

I've only seen one flavor that was arguably child friendly, and that was "purple." I can't find any information about it on the internet, but you'll have to take my word that there was a half naked girl on the package, again clearly not child aimed advertisements. I think a more useful ban would be on those candy cigarettes or something like that, or maybe reducing foreign chemical content in the cigarettes to make them harder to smoke and less child-friendly. This reaction is probably in part due to what people have been calling a reverse nicotine addiction that's way more prominent in urban areas. Here, people have observed that kids get addicted to cigarettes without smoking them, by getting addicted to the tobacco in blunts first and then cigarettes in turn. I can personally attest to this effect, but the flavor is not the catch. I think you'd find that the vast majority of buyers are partial to unflavored products anyway, especially initially.

Feral Hemp

I hadn't heard that phrase until I read this article from Talkleft.com but as it turns out the DEA spends 98% of their time with their heads up their asses. Just kidding, what actually is going on is the fact that they are eradicating feral hemp, or wild pot plants with little or no THC. Now, either they can't tell the difference or they're trying to prevent the public from realizing one thing, that cannabis is only a plant - not only a plant but a healthy, prolific, plant with lots of uses. Turns out Indiana seized 212 million plants by the DEA's count. So now we're not just the only country in the world that doesn't recognize industrial hemp as a legitimate crop, but we're also the only country that's trying to get rid of it - hemp, not pot. To compare that to real pot eradicated in that same year (2005), California counted only 2 million purposefully cultivated plants that were disposed of, the highest of any state. Ironically, the states with the highest number of what the DEA refers to as "ditchweed" generally tend to have lower cannabis consumption rates on average. To me, this seems like an attempt to keep the public ignorant about the plant and continue the stigmatization of its cultivation.

Drugs Won The War, Now A Cancer

Big thanks to Mr. Brautigan, Mr. Weiner, Dr. Weitzner, Mr. Poeton, and Mr. Shainberg for making my morning a bit brighter. I somehow missed Nicolas D. Kristof's June 14th article Drugs Won The War. Their letters of support in favor of Kristof's argument made me truly happy to see that finally American citizens are standing up for this and are not afraid to voice their opinions on cannabis decriminalization / legalization / whatever, general drug prohibition reform. One of the writers is a physician discussing the simple health differences between alcohol and marijuana - while another is prosecutor with legal experience during the crack epidemic in Brooklyn making two excellent points about the chances of rehabilitating a criminal rather than someone that considers themselves a legitimate citizen and the wasted time and money spent by our military forces burning poppy fields in Afghanistan (not to mention that field is, unfortunately, some family's income). Another writer speaks to the parallel between the loss of power of the prohibition gangsters and a possible solution to the drug-cash fueled South American cartels and the Taliban. I find it interesting that the only letter published (now, I don't know how much of this is New York Times' spin - but hey, I'm not complaining, drug decriminalization never gets any positive spin) comes from Mr. Bob Weiner, the White House National Drug Policy Office spokesman from 1995 - 2001. Now, I don't dislike Bill Clinton at all, in fact I really like him, but he didn't do anything good for drug policy, that's for damn sure. Some of the points are pretty silly, he says that there seems to be a link to drugs and crime - no way that could have anything to do with the fact that drugs are illegal - and therefore now deeply rooted in our criminal culture? He also uses empty threats such as crack and cocaine use is down - "Want to go back?" Come on American politician and policy makers - I thought we were past these silly scare tactics. He threatens that hospital and emergency rooms would be flooded, and crime would return to crisis levels. This is ridiculous - it hasn't happened in any other country with lax drug policies - what makes him think it would happen here? There's nothing to suggest that decriminalization of cannabis would have any effect on the use of crack cocaine, would not increase violence, nor would it flood hospital emergency rooms. Mr. Weiner ends his statement saying that they are going to stop using the phrase war on drugs and instead use the word cancer, kind of a nonsensical solution but OK. If the government wants to really look at what kind of things are effective - I think it's safe to say these key phrases that they spend so much time coming up with are a huge waste of time. Whether you call it a war, a prohibition, or a cancer, the problem is not going to disappear or go into "remission" until policies, not catch-phrases, are changed.

urban/open air apt. - architecture doodle

this is what i've been working on tonight - starting to get back into the architecture groove now, kind of lost that recently in my sketchings. kind of an open-air condo/apt. with a courtyard/porch/balcony configuration around the living area. it's got a modern moorish feel to it, with a tiled dado at the bottom and most likely some sort of rooftop access. the whole idea of the open air suspended living space was taken from islamic architecture's incorporation of rooftop living spaces and chhatris.

Floral Arabesque

floral arabesque - labguest

Mellow Tron

Thanks to the wonderful world of Twitter, as well as my friend @purplehayz I found this awesome site describing Mike Walter's DIY Mellotron synthesizer made out of lots and lots of cassette tape players. There are also some sound samples available on his website as well as plenty of pictures showing the progress of the build. Stay tuned for some Melloman sampling beats - I downloaded some of those samples available and I'll be messing around with them for sure. If you'd like to follow me on twitter, here I am.

Check back later for those mellow beats, in the meantime relax with yesterday's track of the day:

Westward

"Go West, young man, and grow up with the country."

Following in the footsteps of Kerouac & Conan, I've finally decided to move to the West Coast after all. Despite Seattle's reputation for gloomy weather, I have long wanted to wander the same streets as Dr. Frasier Crane did only a handful of years ago. On a more serious note, I visited last summer and it's a beautiful city and one of the greenest cities in the country, and I'm hoping to find opportunities in sustainable architecture while I'm continuing my studies. Although I guess it's a big move, I feel inspired by the way Jack Kerouac describes the move Westward in On The Road as a kind of spiritual migration for him.

migrations - labguest

hello.

the airport - labguest

another psychedelic hip hop beat that i've been working on lately, laid back and chill, synthy, stuttery, and its also got some bassnectar samples tossed in for good measure.

Hip Hop's Blunt Daze

Snoop Dogg speaks with High Times in 1999 about marijuana's positive benefits on the hip hop industry. Three years later, Snoop was awarded High Times' Stoner of the Year award. Here, Snoop talks about his beliefs regarding the peacefulness of potsmokers, the benefits of legalization, his own history of cocaine dealing and the detrimental effects of the drug on hip hop. Found via an article on 13 Classic Snoop Dogg Weed Smoking Moments at hailmaryjane.com Here's another track of mine, this one staying in theme with hip hop and ganja. It's a remix of the Carpenters' song "Rainy Days and Mondays" - originally worked on this beat years ago with a rapper and friend of mine and reworked the idea a few years later with another friend, musician and guitarist Timbo Slice (search for him on myspace to hear his tracks). Anyway, here it is, Rainy Haze:

The Intense Shutter Island Trailer & Then Something Heartwarming

Shutter Island by Martin Scorsese. Looks pretty exciting to me - I like the premise and the cinematography looks stunning. It seems like it's going to be super intense though, just that trailer got me spooked. If you need something to lift your spirits and warm your heart, watch a few seconds of this clip of a couple married for 62 years that put on spontaneous piano recital together in the lobby of a Mayo Clinic. They're around 90 years old but are clearly still enjoying life and each others' company. Very heartwarming. Here it is:

The Infinite Cell

First Post

Thought I'd start out with a quick explanation: I am a mixed media artist/musician and have been posting songs/images/videos on the web for awhile now. You can check out my art on flickr and find links there to my DJ sets, YouTube channel, and songs hosted on SoundCloud.

I decided it would be a good idea to start compiling them on a single website, hence this blogspot account. Anyway, I'll start out with a track I've been working on recently called "Islands" - like most of my tracks it's a psychedelic inspired instrumental hip hop track (still trying to work out a name for my style haha) inspired by house and minimal/glitch electronica as well as hip hop, trip hop, and jam bands. I'll post more about my influences and ideas in the future.