New track: Arctic Monkeys | 2013

The cover art for Arctic Monkeys' upcoming album, AM.

"2013" is a brand new track off the b-side to Arctic Monkeys', "Do I Wanna Know?"  The song won't feature on the band's upcoming album AM, but with a deliciously psychedelic guitar solo, it's definitely worth a listen.

AM, will be released on 9 September. 

Listen to "2013" below: 


Listen to the first single off AM, "Do I Wanna Know?":

Quirky Royalphabet

KesselsKramer London has joined forces with illustrator leeleelee.como to create this quirky, tongue-in-cheek alphabet card just in time for the birth of Will and Kate's kidlet. I love it, especially the P for Pippa's booty and the I for Inbred. It doesn't get better than this.

New track: Kings of Leon | Supersoaker

Kings of Leon have just released "Supersoaker", the first single off their upcoming album, Mechanical Bull which will be out on 24 September.

It's the Caleb Followill we haven't heard in a while and might just be enough to return the band to its former glory.

What do you think?



If you like what you hear, "Supersoaker" is available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon.

New video: PHFAT | House of Clashes

Electronic rap trio PHFAT will be dropping their new album Happiness Machines in five days. Today they released the first single off the album, "House of Clashes" and in true PHFAT style, they've made the track available to download for free.

Download "House of Clashes" below: 
 
Watch the "House of Clashes" music video below:



PHFAT are also embarking on their Happiness Machines album launch tour at the end of this month too.

26 July Cape Town | The Assembly | With Felix Leband, Seafood, Mr Sakitumi, Hyphen & Button  Bashers

27 July Pretoria | Arcade Empire | With Felix Leband, Fuzigish, Hawkword, Michael Lesar, King   Rat, David and Goliath, Tympa, Destrukto, DJ Mammi Watta

Hard copies of the album will be on sale for R170 on the night if you are feeling generous. It comes with a 16-page booklet designed by Jason De Villiers. Otherwise, you can download the album for free. Easy as that. 

New video: Man As Machine- Control

Man As Machine have released a new single called "Control". Here's the music video, directed by Hanro Havenga and edited by Hanro and Marc De La Querra.

Famous Eyeglasses by Federico Mauro

Federico Mauro is an Italian multimedia designer and art director. He's put together this series called Famous Eyeglasses, a minimalist representation of some rather famous eyewear.  

Check out Mauro's other project (by clicking on the image below) called Famous Shoes where he does the same, just with shoes.

Mex Out: Life is a combination of magic and tortilla chips

Mex Put is a Mexican restaurant in Singapore with the most divine design. If I had a restaurant, I would want it to look something like this. The food also looks heavenly. Another reason to visit Singapore, no?

Photos found on Mex Out's Facebook page.

Wooden beer cans

Velkopopovicky Kozel recently released a limited edition packaging to celebrate their rich history in producing the Czech beer. Designed by Ukranian Yurko Gutsulyak, the cans look like they're made of wood. Each one comes wrapped in tissue paper of the same design too.

Here's what Gutsulyak had to say about the project on his website:

It was necessery to create the design for the limited edition of Velkopopovicky Kozel beer. The project is aimed at emphasizing the values of the famous Czech brand and enlarging the number of its fans. The design of the limited edition reflects the ancient traditions as well as the mastership of the Czech brewers. Every can is a part of the Old Czechia.

Beside the collectors’ design, the Velkopopovicky Kozel beer offers gifts to everyone who will unravel the special message that is encoded on the can.

Check out Yurko Gutsulyak's website for more of his work.

Introducing: San Cisco

Yesterday I discovered a fantastic band thanks to Texx and the City. I've been streaming their album obsessively and thought it would be a sin not to share their tunes with all of you.

So say hi to San Cisco, a delightful little indie band from Australia. They're releasing their self-titled debut album in the next week or so (for us South Africans, it's 15 July), so keep an eye out for it. Alternatively, head on over to Texx and the City and give it a listen to over there.

Avec Le Coeur

A while back I did a post on French photographer Théo Gosselin and I've been following his work with a keen interest ever since. He recently came out with a book called Avec Le Coeur, which is a collection of all his best photographs.

I found this great blurb for Gosselin's book that I really think hits the nail on the head:

Originally from Le Havre in the Haute-Normandie region of northern France, photographer and filmmaker Théo Gosselin currently divides his time between Paris and Amiens. 

Whilst clearly indebted to the photography of Ryan McGinley, Nan Goldin and Larry Clark, unlike the self-confessed "pseudo-fiction" of McGinley's work, the subjects in Théo Gosselin's images are friends rather than models, and the situations are not mythic constructions but glimpses of an underground lifestyle in a post-9/11 and post-AIDS world in which social media has blurred the boundaries between public and private, and between being documented and simply being. 

At times, Gosselin´s work approaches something akin to poésie bucolique; his photographs representing modern day pastoral landscapes that resemble 21st century equivalents of Poussin's Et in Arcadia ego, Manet's Déjeuner sur L'herbe or Cézanne's Les Grandes Baigneuses. At other times, his images capture moments more resonant of Bacchanalian scenes painted by Titian, Rubens or Levêque.

Deliberately cinematic, Gosselin's photography reveals friends in the act of escaping from their regular lives into newly enticing and perilous modes of existence, ever in search of the persistent though elusive idea of freedom. 

I would kill to get my hands on one of the 460 limited first edition copies but until then I'll settle for the magic of the interwebs. 

You can too by checking out Gosselin's work on his blog or on Facebook.

"Mr Mandela" re-released

Cape Town band Trenton and Free Radical have re-released their tribute track "Mr Mandela" in honour of Mandela Day which takes place on 18 July. This time round it features the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and the South African Youth Choir.



Best news is that the track has been made available to download for free from now until 6.7 days after Mandela Day. Afterwards, a portion of the proceeds go to the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund.

Park Acoustics in July

Here's the lineup for the next Park Acoustics. 

Nice, very nice.

The countdown has begun

New video: Desmond & The Tutus- The Future

The talented Hanro Havenga has put together this music video for "The Future", easily the most serious song you'll ever get out of Desmond & The Tutus.