Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Each and every Friday we offer songs by local artists. Today’s selection, featured on the Afternoon Show with Kevin Cole, is “Dream About Me” by The Depreciation Guild from their 2009 EP of the same name on Kanine Records.
The Depreciation Guild – Dream About Me (MP3)
Three years ago, The Depreciation Guild made themselves known as the premiere synthesizers of the shoegaze and chiptune genres with their debut album, In Her Gentle Jaws. Enticing listeners with a price tag of “free” and a download link, The Depreciation Guild garnered many fans from both sides of the musical divide with the release; those who like a long, washed out guitar tone and those who enjoy their blips and bleeps. Now in 2010, the group hopes to re-capture that magic with a proper label-backed EP titled Dream About Me.
The EP’s namesake track drops a lot of the NES sound influence found on the previous album in favor of a more developed sound with a human drummer replacing a lot of the static drum loops used before. “Dream About Me” is all about meshing the hugely spacey guitars and gigantic drums with Kurt Feldman’s soft, lilting vocals that act as a contrast and mediator for the giant sounds. The Depreciation Guild still has that 8-bit influence and affectation, though, which peppers the track with more subtlety and tact than it did with its presence on In Her Gentle Jaws.
The Newgaze movement travels at a blistering speed as it picks up new acts every year and The Depreciation Guild is at the forefront of this revival with a fresh approach to the music and the courage to explore it. If you’re interested in experiencing this sound for yourself, the band is currently wrapping up a Japanese tour which is followed by a SXSW appearance and a limited-date U.S. tour supporting Norwegian act Serena Maneesh. You can find the exact dates on the band’s MySpace page. Seattle will get its chance to join The Guild on March 26th at The Triple Door for the first date of the tour, so be sure to get your tickets today! For now, here’s the video for today’s Song of the Day:
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Each and every Friday we offer songs by local artists. Today’s selection, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Dark into Light” by AM & Shawn Lee from the 2011 album Celestial Electric on ESL.
AM & Shawn Lee – Dark into Light (MP3)
Producers and multi-instrumentalists AM and Shawn Lee come from different backgrounds, with very different sonic styles. While AM works from Los Angeles, Lee hails from London, and while the former fuses pop, soul, folk, R&B, and psychedelia, the latter focuses on ambient and jazz fusion. Both have releases numerous albums on a variety of labels, each garnering acclaim and notoriety. It wasn’t long before the pair had heard of each other, and AM reached out to Lee online. The rest is history.
The duo worked on their debut album, Celestial Electric, from their respective hometowns, employing the Postal Service-proven method of emailing each other tracks and snippets. The resulting pool of creative inspiration blends influences from pop, soul, funk, jazz, Brazilian tropicalia, Turkish psychedelia, and soundtracks and library music from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s into a melodic blend of electro-soul that would make even the most hardened hipsters bob their heads. Today’s featured song, “Dark into Light,” most immediately calls to mind a more upbeat Thom Yorke, with a grimy bass over light percussion and gentle but empassioned vocals, strung together with gliding synth swirls and pads.
AM and Shawn Lee will be at the Sunset Tavern in Seattle on September 13 and LIVE on KEXP earlier that same day. Head over to their website for more information. For now, check out the band performing a live acoustic rendition of album cut “Promises are Never Far from Lies”:
Just how far can a band push their sound without completely losing their audience? At least two groups with new albums this year are testing that notion. British band Editors, who have torn up the British charts with their moody atmospheric guitar rock, much in line with the Joy Division-to-Interpol trajectory, and NYC’s Yeasayer, who turned many a ‘head with their hippie jam-meets-indie rock world-fusion jams, have both turned away from their predominately guitar driven music, on In This Light and On This Evening and Odd Blood respectively, toward a keyboard-centric sound.
Would fans turn with or away from the bands? Albums sales are sure to tell one part of the story and their live shows another. I recently had the chance to witness first hand how Seattle fans would react to the new material when Editors performed live at the Showbox at the Market last Friday.
Having seen them play several times before, the last time they were at the Showbox in 2008 and twice before at Chop Suey, I didn’t need to guess how they would sound on the songs from their first two albums. And there were indeed plenty of songs from 2005′s The Back Room and 2007′s An End Has a Start mixed throughout the set. The filled room throbbed with ecstatic dancers as quickly as the opening lines to hits like “Bones,” “Camera,” “Rooks,” “Racing Rats,” and “Lights” could be heard. Though the band claimed to be a little rusty at first as it was the first night of their U.S. tour, their years of experience playing these songs to even much larger crowds made the emotional delivery seem like breathing.
However, it was obvious that the audience was unfamiliar with the new songs, which seemed to blow over like a still breeze. But if the new songs seemed much slower to please, it was in large part because they were much more slowly played. By comparison to the Editors’ already moody repertoire, “You Don’t Know Love,” “The Boxer,” and other new tracks seemed almost doleful, were it not for singer Tom Smith’s onstage theatrics. (That is not a man to sit or stand still!) Because he was so into these songs, the crowd eventually go into them too… though not nearly to the ecstatic energy when they played “Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors” or the encore’s “Munich.”
Perhaps anticipating that response, the band was sure to alternate songs, rarely playing even two new songs in a row. While the interchange kept the energy level up — as there were never more than 5 minutes when the crowd wasn’t yelling out the lyrics and pumping their hands in the air — it also more dramatically contrasted the newer songs. It was hard not to imagine oneself cruising the Autobahn listening to Kraftwerk or Neu! Yeah, they’re that different! So much so that “guitarist Chris Urbanowicz” was really “keyboardist Chris Urbanowicz,” leaving his trademark Rickenbacker hanging from his back during the new songs.
Yet despite the more apparent moodiness and Krautrock leanings, Tom Smith’s deep emotive vocals never wavered, and just as steadfast, the fans held on to his every word. If the band’s future were ever in question due to their new musical exploration, the explosive response to the new album’s first single, “Papillon,” should be proof enough that Editors have many years to come of making great music that their fans will enjoy.
Dan Muller: “These two guys were really cool and let me have access to the front of the stage for the first three songs of the Editors’ set. They were huge fans who weren’t old enough to attend the last show two years ago. I noticed them later, singing along to every song! Thanks, gentlemen!”
Graduating senior? Headed off to college? Low on funds? But still like to rock? Sounds like Sub Pop has the solution for you! This year, the Seattle label is offering a grand total of $13 nike air max ltd mens,000 worth of college scholarship money to three eligible high school seniors. There are three scholarships — one for $6,000, one for $4,000 and one for $3,000. Applicants must be residents of Washington or Oregon and graduating seniors on their way to full-time enrollment at an accredited university or college.
You only have until this Sunday Nike Air Max LTD, May 15, to apply. So if you’re still procrastinating, this is your first test: submit an essay Longines Watches, no longer than one page, about one or more of the following topics.
What are you doing in the arts/music field in your community?
How and/or why did you become interested in artistic outlets?
How would this scholarship money help you to progress in your chosen field?
What are your influences and/or who inspires you?
Who are some of your favorite bands or artists?
Head over to the Sub Pop website for more information.
Last Friday, KEXP went national when the Seattle-focused mini-doc Something in the Water aired directly after PBS’ American Masters’ Pearl Jam Twentynike air max 2009 black, and features KEXP DJs John Richards monster beats dr dre headphones, Kevin Cole and Cheryl Waters, along other local music luminaries including Sub Pop Vice President Megan Jasper and EMP Curatorial Director Jasen Emmons, plus live performances by Macklemore, Shabazz Palaces, The Head and the Heart, and Pickwick.
Given all of the many facets that make Seattle’s music scene fruitful and unique, we are honored that director Ward Serrill (The Heart of the Game) chose to focus on KEXP as a key proponent of Seattle’s musical productivity.
Check out the 13-minute documentary here.
And find out more about the Cameron Crowe-directed PJ20 documentary here.
It might tickle us when Karl Lagerfeld declares that he likes computers as objects and prefers fax to email, or when Alber Elbaz says he doesn't 'do' the internet. We might find that cute, endearing and perhaps for some, comforting. These designers and their ivory ateliers! Why should they open an email or look at the internet when they're mad busy sketching, draping and creative directing. For some reason, certain designers love upkeeing the image of themselves being immune to technology, finding email blase or the internet a great bore. There's almost a weirdly 'cool' and defiantly lo-fi bravada attached to designers/creatives that think that the internet is one giant "bore-off-dot-com", that bloggers are irrelevant/serve no purpose and that Facebook is pointless, which of course is at odds with with what their marketing/PR teams and social media specialists have to say on the matter - a contradiction I find mildly amusing.
I kind of accept that's the status quo of the big fashion houses, but what about a younger generation of designers that not only utilise the internet but embrace what it has to offer. The Proenza Schouler boys speaking at the IFB Conference in February is just one of many examples of designers who have used the internet to their advantage and actively engage with their audience online either by scouring blogs, reading reviews on The Fashion Spot or having a reactive Twitter account. During the course of this blog, I feel like I've grown up with a new generation of designers, similar in age to me, that have also been getting a hands on experience in the process of self-promotion through social media, engaging, interacting with bloggers and even becoming bloggers themselves. I, in turn have increasingly giving talks to designers about communicating their work with bloggers and how to establish an online press strategy (there is actually no big secret... email, snail mail, pigeon carrier, saying "Hi" to you in person... all of these things hey PRESTO WORK!). In this way, there has been a breakdown process between customer, press and designer, cutting out traditional channels to have a more open and fluid dialogue that I think is incredibly exciting.
So I thought I'd introduce three London-based designers, who are in very infant stages of their career - one, two or three collections old - with two of them being bloggers themselves, to talk about their experiences and thoughts on engaging with bloggers and using that as a form of press and feedback, that's valuable in the early stages. I've specifically focused on blogging, which is of course only one aspect of the internet as a designer's aid, but as you can see, this is already a bit of a long-ass read that perhaps I'll explore again in the future. Incidentally have had all their A/W 11-112 lookbooks shot by photographer Christina Smith resulting in these square-shaped evocative images that I've had to slideshow up to compactify this blog post.
Danielle Jade Windsor has had the breadth of work experience spectrum having interned at Michiko Koshino and Topshop and worked for Viktor & Rolf and Zara. She's currently a semi-finalist as part of Fashion Fringe 2011, entering with her debut collection "Assemble", combining architectural and structural elements in muted tones that make for a cooly contemporary bit of wardrobing. From her blog,Nike Air Max 2009 Womens, you can see how trend-forecasting in her previous roles have infiltrated her way of presenting collaged moodboards which for me are useful articulations of trends that she has spotted as well as clues into her own aesthetic leanings.
When did you start to read fashion blogs and when did you realise they could be an alternative way of communicating your collections in addition to printed press? I would say three years ago, in my previous role it was mandatory to check blogs on a daily basis to follow street styles and trends. When I began creating my AW/11 collection I don't think I was aware of the expense as much as I should have been so it has been a lot more accessible to communicate using the internet intially to get press.
Do you have a specific policy when it comes to contacting and working with bloggers and internet press? I have been working in the industry for the past 5 years and I am extremely selective of who I contact especially as this is just the beginning. I have been following New Gen designers, Creative Directors, Design Heads for the past few years and have been closely monitoring their paths. My main policy is to be open to a wide audience, blogs that attract not only the younger generation but design professionals, buyers, potential recruiters etc.
(Moodboards from Danielle's blog)
When did you start your own blog and do you see it as a marketing tool for your own work or more as a tool of inspiration for yourself? I started my blog in January of this year as an expanding project for myself. I enjoy creating concepts/themes and colour ways and always want to push myself. I feel terrible now if I don't update on a daily basis as I don't want to disappoint my fans,Replica Scalpel Sunglasses! I often find that blogs share the same images and info and when you are working in an office environment desperately trying to source inspiration this just isn't helpful! I hope with my blog I can inspire others as well as myself. I also like to blog about up and coming artists and designers who I feel have something new to bring to the table.
Does the internet hinder or help a young designer starting today? Again I would say it depends, the internet is as you have said press, bad press is never good in which ever form. What I love about the internet though is the accessibility to the world!
I've featured Manuela Dack previously having experienced her chiffon/leather jackets on a shoot. Having worked with Hussein Chalayan and Alexander Wang, she started off with a capsule collection of these jackets that has led to fully formed collections. For A/W 11-12 she has concentrated on the construction of her garments as well as a shift away from those jackets towards pieces that can be layered. Dack was inspired by a vintage dress belonging to her mother and the fusion of old and new in a collection that feels like it's era-less with a hint of Iran where her mother lived. Dack has also been working on a private-client basis which gives her the freedome to explore high levels of craftsmanship that she wants as a cornerstone of her work. She'll be working on her signature of layering of contrasting fabrics as well and introducing prints and accessories for what should be an exciting next season.
When did you start to read fashion blogs and when did you realise they could be an alternative way of communicating your collections in addition to printed press? I started reading blogs very early on at university. The fact that people generally only feature things that they really love appealed to me. I like to understand how people think and blogs are very open in that way. It's the same thing that fascinates me about the fashion industry, you really have to think about who your market is and what they want, and find a way to create something they didn't even realise they wanted.
Do you have a specific policy when it comes to contacting and working with bloggers and internet press? I didn't really think about using blogs as a marketing tool until it started happening of it's own accord. I decided to start posting images from my graduate collection on my blog because people asked about it and soon the were getting re-posted. I wouldn't say I have a specific policy, but I definitely have favourites! I generally only contact blogs that I really love and follow myself. I recently got in contact with Jen from Gnarlitude who wrote a post about my label for the Urban Outfitters blog. I've been following her blog for a really long time so it meant a lot to have her fall in love with our aesthetic.
There are obviously some blogs and online platforms that are well known and influential and generally the reason for that is that they are good,Denmark Soccer Jersey, slick and with real opinions. Having said that, it's really great when a blog you haven't heard of gets in contact and wants to write about you. I still find it really amazing how excited people, who I don't know, get about my label.
It's always interesting to read the comments on posts too. Like the feature you wrote on our LFW Capsule collection. The pleating on the jackets sparked some interesting conversation and it was totally surreal to have other readers defending my work. It's important to be aware of the fact that we are part of a new generation where online press is just as valid as printed journalism. I'm not saying that all blogs and sites are good, there are some really poor ones out there too, but theres a reason why a select handful have reached the audience they have.
(Images from Manuela's blog)
When did you start your own blog and do you see it as a marketing tool for your own work or more as a tool of inspiration for yourself? I started my own blog Silver Cleaver in August 2007 as a way of filing images and links that I found online. Initially I really like the anonymity it. It was not until the end of my degree that I started posting images of my work and encouraging readership. It gives readers an insight into the brand in a format they are familiar with. Blogs can communicate with people on a much more personal level and I think people really like the fact that they can see the designers thought process and inspiration as well as find out more about the label.
Does the internet hinder or help a young designer starting today? I think the internet is definitely a great tool for new designers. There is no way that I could have reach the audience I have without it. Like everything it is not a guarantee of success. The great thing about blogs is that they are generally very honest. Bloggers wont write about something that they are not interested in so the product is still the most important element. I remember Tom Ford in an interview said that he hates the word 'marketing' because he feels it implies a way of creating hype around a bad product. So in that sense blogs are not about 'marketing' but about consumer awareness. Its another way of allowing people to get to know your label.
Yasmin Kianfar is probably the most 'advanced' of this trio with stockists such as Browns (YAY for their website revamp!) and Opening Ceremony. From the linear cut-outs that she has incorporated into her own signature she has evolved her A/W 11-12 collection into a more elegant vision. She cites the circus and show-girls as references but the result what with the elongated silhouettes in black and with the pearls seems to be a reconfiguration of that iconic outfit Holly Golightly wears in the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany's. These are slinky looks done in a way that is palatable to our modern ways. I especially love the tiny star cut-outs which I think are the subtlest way I've seen star shapes used in clothing. Yasmin is one of those unfortunate souls who has actually endured one of my random talks where I say things like "I'm a blogger and my email address on my blog makes me UBER contactable!"
When did you start to read fashion blogs and when did you realise they could be an alternative way of communicating your collections in addition to printed press? In all honesty- reading and appreciating blogs is a relatively 'new' phenomenon to me. I don't think I started reading fashion blogs before I read Style Bubble for the first time. I must also confess, that I only started reading it when people told me that my label had been featured, this was July last year. I have since been an avid reader of Style Bubble, and also been introduced to other blogs such as Jak and Jil, they have usually been recommended by a friend. I am now addicted to at least 10, which I consult on a regular basis and I know that an increasing number of people are the same.
It was when my S/S 11 collection was featured on StyleBubble, and people begun to contact me in response to that, that I realised the impact of fashion blogs on my work and as a medium to reach my desired audience. I do believe, however, that like magazines not all blogs are created equal and it is important to be as discerning with features as with printed press.
Do you have a specific policy when it comes to contacting and working with bloggers and internet press? I contact my favourite blogs, after that I respond to those that seek me out. This is namely as a result of my lack of time, to scout out all the many interesting and wonderful blogs that I know exist. I have a look at the blog and decide if it will attract the right interest, looking at everything from the layout, the writing and importantly- the other designers featured. I generally give a blog a further look if it is well laid out and they are professional in their communication with me.
Does the internet hinder or help a young designer starting today? There are certainly pros and cons of the internet in terms of helping a new designer. The negative is arguably the transient nature of the net. If you are lucky enough to get good press it disappears as quickly as it arrived. However, the positives of this outweigh that as it has the capacity to reach a far larger and more varied audience than printed press.
Aside from press, the internet allows a new designer to develop a dialogue with their customer via their own site. In the past, we would have all had to wait for a store to decide to take a chance on us- no mean feat. As well as allowing us to showcase our new collections, we can also use the net to retail, which has clear benefits. Blogs and Twitter then allow us to communicate directly with our customer, which is the ultimate goal.
I'm already dreading the lazy links forged between the 1930s and the upcoming trainwreck of a biopic film W.E, should we start seeing this decade permeate the A/W 12-3 season as the 1920s did for spring summer 12. Last season, we declared that it was Baz Luhrmann's not-yet-seen, not-yet-released film adaptation of The Great Gatsby that was causing designers to drop waists and do flapper frocks. Because every designer is an IMDB hawk, skulking around upcoming film releases. Duh.
Hardy Amies officially kicked off my A/W 12-3 show schedule at the 81st Pitti Uomo in Florence tonight and it was thirties galore. We can therefore chant that it was the King Edward VIII turned Duke of Windsor and his dapper ways that saw these reconfigurations of the grey flannel suit with 1930s deco styling flourish. Thankfully, Hardy Amies, which has been under the creative direction of Claire Malcolm for the past year or so turning out contemporary menswear that references the past without copying it, has historic legs to stand on to reference the 30s without having us hack-y journos linking film to decade.
Just a reminder that historically Hardy Amies was one of the few English couturiers, flourishing from the 1930s to 60s and was best known as designer to Queen Elizabeth II, holding the Royal Warrant as official dressmaker as well as designing the costumes for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: Space Odyssey, proving what range and scope Amies had up his sleeve. Amies as a person was also known as a bit of a snobby social climber,coach wallets outlet, passing judgement whilst breaking his own rules, as demonstrated in his fun little read, the ABC of Men's Fashion.
You could call this a salient gem... "A man should look as if he has bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care and then forgotten all about them." Then again can inscouciance really be pre-conceived? Anyhow it's full of handy nutshell quotes if you're into lofty style rules.
The house has since come under new ownership and is now fully set on being a modern luxury mens fashion label,cheap beats by dre headphones, rooting it to its Savile Row surroundings whilst trying to push things forward with a young creative directorship.
Hardy Amies with one of his ultra feminine creations.
A still from Gold Diggers of 1933
We turn back to the 1930s thread in this A/W 12-13 collection (quite scary that I'm even referring to the year 2013 already...). Claire Malcolm has primarily looked to the man Hardy Amies himself and his own style choices and life,cheap dr dre beats headphones, as opposed to his actual designs for reference. A photo of Amies in a double-breasted hulking overcoat as well as the kaleidoscopic choreography of the film Gold Diggers of 1933 were the main starting points for Malcolm in drawing all the geometric graphics that run throughout the collection, from silk jackets to the Globetrotter luggage to the stunning shoes created by Mr Hare. Malcolm refers to this patternation as 'Deco-Tron' and indeed, there is something very reminiscent of an 80s take on art deco present. All the shades of steely grey of course makes for a slick offering as well as being richly textured, aided by materials such as an asymmetric herringbone weave or a knit with hexagonal motifs worked into it. The silhouettes are pure recognisable 1930s with hardly any tampering done to the shape, leaving all the off-kilter modernisation to fall upon the print and texture detailing.
From a selfish point of view, as much as I love revisiting decades gone by (provided they DON'T come with a tenuous film link) and seeing an English couturier move forward into the 21st century, I do think these boots and lace-ups with metal cut-out toe caps created by Mr Hare (who has a cult like following amongst manfolk) are the bee's knees. That's me doing flapper/deco speak. Or if I'm being lewd and doing 21st century Brit speak, these shoes are the tits. Truly. They're probably unlikely to get produced or come remotely close to women's sizing but the excercise of my being in Pitti admiring awesome menswear was always going to be a fruitless task anyway...
