It is a terribly sad day with the loss of the brilliant Steve Jobs but I did have to post this striking illustration that came from a Facebook friend as a humble tribute. I started teaching myself design on a Mac in 1991 + have always + will always maintain that there is NO SUCH THING as digital graphic design or commercial printing on any other platform........ Everything else Apple that I can't imagine my life without for the past 20 years was a bonus........ RIP Steve........... xo, B.
This is my new favorite clip—pure INEFFABLE BLISS! I'd have given just about ANYTHING to see this lovely spectacle, but I can at least look forward to a DJ set from Clorofila at the Museum of Latin-American Art's En La Noche, also with a first look at the MEX/L.A.: Mexican Modernism(s) in Los Angeles 1930-1985 exhibition, which looks magnificent, free tequila tasting, a multitude of lowrider cars..... + the inevitable promise of many BEAUTIFUL LATIN BOYS. Looking forward to it. xo, B.
I am genuinely reeling from the lustrous, opulent, exquisitely flawless aesthetics of this project, which came to me via The Fox is Black. With some of the most rapturously opulent visuals I've seen in ages + music by Shigeto, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tycho, Deru + more, this is set to be BLINDINGLY BRILLIANT!!! Enjoy....... xo, B.
These Takeaway Shows by Black XS Live Sound are so boundlessly charming + resplendently photographed that I've been utterly rapt making my way through the series........ The Shugo Tokumaru is musically the loveliest + has the most enchanting color, but seeing Polock do a song that I so love ("Fireworks!") on the beach in Spain is in and of itself mightily beguiling...... Yora + Mujeres are both bands that are new to me but that I want to hear much more from........... + are on both counts adorable, especially Mujeres' tousled lead singer, because as everyone who knows me well knows—give me a tousled Spanish boy in a Fred Perry shirt + I'm eternally grateful....... But the two boys that I'm most MADLY IN LOVE WITH out of this lot are the two GODLY RAVISHING close-cropped bearded boys from the Stereotypes!!! Enjoy all....... xo, B.
First off, I've been pining for an iPhone for a while lately, never to use as a phone—I hate cell phones with a passion—but solely for the ridiculous breadth of miraculous aesthetic possibilities, whether Instagram or the app to shoot video + make it look like 50s Eastman color used for a clip of a market in Japan set to Shugo Tokumaru's "Rum Hee" that I posted a few weeks back. Now this app for simulating letterpress comes via HOW, + it looks + sounds incredible:
"LetterMpress is a virtual letterpress environment for iPad that allows anyone to create authentic-looking letterpress designs and prints.
"The design process is the same as the letterpress process—you place and arrange type and cuts on a press bed, lock the type, ink the type, and print. You can create unlimited designs, with multiple colors, using authentic vintage wood type and art cuts. And you can print your design directly from LetterMpress or save it as an image for import it into other applications."
I'll say straight up—this is the best pop song (y'all know what I mean by that—pop in the REAL Burt Bacharach sense) since Saint Etienne's "Nothing Can Stop Us"!!!!! I'm having a near catalepsy here........ in the best way possible........ One more stunner from the session:
This is my bliss for today—though I will say one thing about that old wedding: the London Chamber Orchestra with the cathedral bells sounded rather sublime.... But otherwise fuck that, I'm celebrating new KRAAH + SMAAK!!!!!
+ I couldn't resist adding the beautiful Kenji + his adorable pups—just when I thought he couldn't possibly get any more adorable or ridiculously sexy..........
As well as one more sweet Wyolica/Kenji collaboration with lustrous color + my boy looking even more beguiling........ xo, B.
Awake for an hour + I've already found my first new dream husband of the day....... Thank you Fox is Black for vibrant inspiration once again, + Michael Leung, I think I love you. :)) xo, B.
It's well-known that I've lived by my love of Japanese film and music since I was 20 at the latest, and for me no other country has produced so many ineffably brilliant artistic gods—the mightiest creative minds of our time, providing boundless joy in a thousand different hues. Seeing the country literally in tatters and in inconceivable further danger, I'm looking for whatever aesthetic inspiration and any sort of calmness I can find at the moment. While working on compiling a post with the loveliest benefit projects by designers and the most credible sources for where to donate (I was infuriated by a piece that said that Verizon and AT+T were taking as much as 3 MONTHS to send donations given by text), and another with a primer of the Japanese music that has defined me for the last 2 decades, this project by Kinetura seemed an apt moment of idyllic distraction. Also it's my first salve in trying to remedy the fact that while I paper my Facebook wall with it, I haven't been posting ANYWHERE NEAR the amount of staggering aesthetic bliss I find daily via Inhabitat on this wall. And if I needed another reason, it's set to a magnificent piece by timeless Crepuscule piano genius Wim Mertens.........
Sending much love and best thoughts to my brothers and sisters in Japan, xo, B.
A belated happy new year all, once again I know haven't been posting enough (spending too much constantly populating my Facebook wall in random aesthetic shorthand + saving only the finest exquisite luster for the blog—if you'd like more please don't hesitate to send me a friend request. I promise the blog'll be updated MUCH more frequently this year! In the meantime, I found the charmingly goofy Man About Town clip w/ the adorable + miraculously skilled Killian Martin this morning via the brilliant Fox is Black, + as often happens it led me to several INFINITELY FINER clips—these being especially resplendent, in EPICALLY FAULTLESS color, all directed by Brett Novak + scored to idyllic songs by Patrick Watson. Enjoy........ xxoo, B.
Had to take a moment to wish a BOUNDLESSLY HAPPY + LOVELY birthday to the godly exquisitely BEAUTIFUL/perennially STUNNING Yoshihiro Okino (don of my favorite label, Especial, + 1/2 of the mightiest of the mighty, Kyoto Jazz Massive (love to Shuya as well!!!)), + to my also lovely friend Argel Cota (arKhota, the GREATEST DRUMMER ALIVE + part of the legendary Niño Astronauta + Kobol)! This Yoshi tribute is so blissfully joyous, w/ a matchless coming together of my idols....... + Alex Barck looks FINE!!!! (Sorry, just had to say it........) Happy birthday to my cousin Ben as well! xxoo, B.
Once again I've been guilty of neglecting to write anything w/ my blog postings but that's about to change. In the meantime I'll say that I have to give my Facebook homegirl Gigi Lau a MIGHTY thanks for turning me onto this EPIC Ahmad Jamal piece arranged by the inimitably brilliant Richard Evans on Argo c. 1963—the same year that the gods Cal Tjader + Lalo Schifrin made their archetypal COLOSSAL + ETERNALLY SUBLIME Asian jaunt on Several Shades of Jade. Ahmad + Richard just followed Afro-Colombian suit in MAGNIFICENTLY MASSIVE fashion!!! The way a big band should sound—like they're LEVELING a city when they're truthfully just ELEVATING it to boundless new heights............ xo, B.!
I've been feeling perennially rather guilty for months that my Facebook page has become my shorthand blog updated countless times daily while these pages haven't been tended nearly as much as they should, and the area where that's most glaringly obvious is in the volumes + volumes of blissfully opulent + vibrant posts I've shared from the site that's become my aesthetic bible, Inhabitat. Yes, Inhabitat is largely a site about green design, + yes, in that respect it ceaselessly comes correct with the most blindingly, awe-inspiringly epic innovations, but it also indefatigably orchestrates + conveys them via a barrage of equally staggeringly luxurious + miraculously hued aesthetics that's bafflingly briliant + absolutely unparalleled. As such I've become an unapologetic junkie in need of a constant fix of their vertigo-inducing brew of future-is-now-50s-sci-fi-dusted—as in that can't possibly finally be a reality, but it FUCKING IS!!!!!—technology (@ which point you realize that it's also purely in the service of eco-innovation + sustainable design, + your disbelief grows even more in the loveliest way....) + psychotropically, bow-to-your-knees-in-stupid-unintelligible-reverence all-encompassing Technicolor sublimity.
Here then is the first of many to come bits of Inhabitat loveliness: a piece on "Shanghai's River Cooled International Cruise Terminal." Now, I'm close enough to senility (I know, I'm not even 38 yet but I've been through the ringer a thousand times over, I'll leave it @ that) that I make no pretenses that I understand a fraction of their scientific jargon, but it looks shiny/immaculately shimmering—+ I know it's all in the most noble vein of unrelenting environmental innovation, so I just nod, smile, + pass on the eye-searing beauty.
And to that I'll add one last caveat—while an ineffable amount of Inhabitat posts are of this peerless quality, there are also many on a more banal bent, so if anyone thinks I'm not editing or filtering these (as I suspect some of my Facebook peops might occasionally), rest assured that I'm only passing on the best. xo, B.!
Something I should do a lot more often, share the wealth from my ineffably brilliant and lovely Facebook community—a.k.a. this immaculately polished jewel via my homegirl/sonic guru Gigi Lau! If this one gets neglected it's because my FB page is my shorthand blog, the one I use just for sharing links and quick non-sequiturs at a rapid pace, but this is where the supreme distillation comes together—only the best!!! Dig! xo, B.
I couldn't decide on an order apart from the two on top, but here are my 50 best discs of the last 10 años.... And to all my friends that contributed to the BEAUTIFUL albums on this list THANK YOU BOUNDLESSLY for all your brilliant work + magnificent CONSTANT INSPIRATION!!!!! Everyone enjoy! Happy new year + best + xxoo to all! B.
Swing Out Sister, Somewhere Deep in the Night Jazztronik, Nana-Iro Rosalia de Souza, Garota Diferente Louie Vega, Elements of Life Incognito, Love x Love Remixes Jazztronik, Cannibal Rock Gotan Project, La Revancha del Tango RSL, Every Preston Guild M-Flo, Astromantic Robi Draco Rosa, Draco (my best for 09) MJ Cole, Sincere Inspiration Exclusives (comp) Troubleman, Time Out of Mind Sharleen Spiteri, Melody Silent Poets, To Come Tom + Joyce (s/t) Monareta, Picotero Dignan, The Guest St. Germain, Tourist Gustavo Cerati, 11 Episodios Sinfonicos Dimitri from Paris, Cruising Attitude Los Amigos Invisibles, Venezuelan Zingason Mondo Grosso, MG4 Kyoto Jazz Massive, Spirit of the Sun Sabrina Malheiros, Equilibria Jazztronik, Grand Blue Swing Out Sister, Beautiful Mess Reel People, Second Guess 2 Banks of 4, 3 Street Worlds Nortec Collective, Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1 Kinky, Atlas Acida, La Vida Real London Elektricity, Live @ the Scala Jazztronik, En: Code Roisin Murphy, Overpowered Mark Ronson, Version Dee Dee Bridgewater, Live @ Yoshi's Mo' Horizons, Remember Tomorrow Anjali, The World of Lady A Bebel Gilberto, Tanto Tempo Robi Draco Rosa, Mad Love Mr. Hermano, Free as the Morning Sun Mitchell + Dewbury, Beyond the Rains Pete Philly + Perquisite, Mystery Repeats Maria Rita, Segundo Joy Jones, Godchild Jody Watley, Saturday Night Experience Nortec Collective, Tijuana Sessions Vol. 3 Saint Etienne, Tales from Turnpike House Re:Jazz, Point of View
Via Wallpaper's Facebook page I just came across what looks like a quite lustrously beautiful tome, Eva Hagberg's (I won't even get started on that name—it looks like the girl's got taste, so I'll let that one pass!) Dark Nostalgia. If I had an X-mas (or Hanukkah...) list, this would be certainly be on it (behind a few other things that I'll post on shortly)... but, then again, Philippe Starck loveliness is always most welcome and boundlessly appreciated as far as I'm concerned! (FYI, the negative images are just me taking a little artistic license for aesthetic sake—not in the book!) Enjoy... x, B.
When I need a bit of beautiful boy eye candy for a lovely distraction, Man of Austin often comes through. It's one of the only good things to come from my having ever been in that dismal city (finding the best band in the world, McAllen's mighty Dignan, would be the most significant, and my boys Will + Matt @ Maggie Mae's on 6th Street would be another)... Meanwhile the adorable Brasileiro Arthur Sales is more of a pretty boy than I usually fall for, but exquisite is exquisite, and this campaign for Butch Swimwear is a radiant distraction for the day! Thanks to MoA's Patrick Mark for all he does. x, B.
I have been going through a difficult time personally for what seems like far too long, and the debacle that was my move to Austin, and subsequently being forced due to lack of any other options to move back to Long Beach hasn't helped anything. The death of Gourmet magazine has hit me much harder than it should, like a death in the family, or more aptly as the end of an incredible era. But this week, the world suffered another great cultural loss, as Dominic Stanton—a.k.a. the mighty DOMU—decided to retire from music and completely withdraw—leaving a miraculous statement articulating beautifully, and in the most heart-wrenching fashion, the reasons why. I've decided to just reproduce it entirely, because it needs to be shared... You can also read it in its original home. Back and Forth also reposted an utterly radiant mix that Dom did in 2006 as a tribute, that serves as an absolutely apt score to reading this piece. Respect and much MUCH love and all the best to Dom!!! Dig:
"It’s over. I can’t go into the personal reasons, but of course will leave you some explanation as to how I got here. It feels a bit like walking away from a life of crime or the Mafia. I am Carlito, I have finally made the break from the old dangerous way of making a living. I just hope Benny from the Bronx doesn’t shoot me as I am boarding the last train out of here. The point is that I am no longer Domu. He is a character, always has been, and as of Friday 13th November 2009, he no longer exists. Neither does Umod, Sonar Circle, Bakura, Yotoko, Rima, Zoltar, Blue Monkeys, Realside or any of the other names I put out music under. I am cancelling all my gigs and not taking any more. My hotmail is closed, my Twitter is closed and my Facebook is closed. If any of you want to talk to me and know me well enough to have my mobile number then that is still the same, and please feel free to call any time. My other email address I mail from occasionally is still open to tie up any loose ends.
"I had started to change, for the worse I am now sure. My confusion was growing, my insecurity and bitterness getting out of hand, a lack of creative direction and focus were leading me somewhere very dark. I have felt so depressed by all of this. Believe me I have searched my soul long and hard this year to find the reasons again why I do this, but I can’t locate them. Too much of ‘me’ is mixed up into all of this, and no one should ever give so much of himself or herself to a job. I once believed in all of it, that I made and played music for a certain type of person, for people who didn’t want to adhere to the ‘normal’ way of life, the free thinker, the independent or open minded type who was bored of the genres, the staples, the blueprints or the formulae. The underground. But I just don’t truly believe I am needed in this battle anymore. It has been passed down to another generation, who are doing it their way, and I have no desire to try and edge in and start proclaiming to be fighting a fight that is no longer mine. I am a 31-year-old man. I can’t claim to be holding a torch up to something that meant so much to me at 15. At 21, maybe. But now, after ten years going full time, I think I have said all I had to say. My creative light has dimmed. Maybe because I started so early, who can tell? But I feel satisfied that this is it.
"I have had an amazing time. I’ve travelled the world, drank and partied and made a decent living out of entertaining people throughout all of my 20’s. I met some incredible people in cities I never dreamed I would visit, shared my thoughts and collected wisdom from a huge range of deeply profound and lovely people. But I have also met some real arseholes, and I could feel I was becoming one. Playing records I wasn’t sure I liked to people who had no idea who I was. I had gone cold, cold to the music, to the reactions and to the point of it all. I was changing what I thought I liked, so that I would be liked. I am not a chameleon. I am not Madonna, I can’t stay abreast of the current styles and keep changing with it just to stay in fashion or retain some kind of credible status or career. I have had my moment. If you know me well, you would have sensed a change in me over the last two years. I have always suffered with problems of confidence, but I know that’s not why I am throwing in the towel. I feel like I have to change so much of what I think is ‘me’ to carry on. What I believe in, how to talk to people, how to behave. I just don’t think I can be so arrogant and harsh to stand out anymore. There is so much noise out there that people have to shout louder and louder to be heard. And for what? I am beating myself up over something I no longer believe in for an income that is stressfully patchy and more often than not, very low.
"I used to say I owed it to ‘the fight’ to keep going. My belief in that has waned over the last few years too. Yes we needed Coltrane to go against the grain, to sacrifice his well-being and life to create beautiful art. We needed all of them, creative and unique beings burning brightly in our souls, our influences and idols that created the music and the movements that can provide us with sanity, sanctuary and meaning through our confusing lives. But music has lost some of it’s meaning to me as a medium. It’s everywhere; everyone is making it, playing it, giving it away, and trying to make a living. So many people have a voice in it now it is hard to pick out what is cutting edge from what I actually truly feel. I have gotten numb to my life’s biggest passion, and I need to leave it for a while to see if I can ever get it back to how it was.
"Some have attributed meaning and understanding to my some of my work. I know it is special to some people, and my message was understood by a few, which I am very grateful to have come to know over the years. I was lucky enough to catch a ride in it for a while, was recognised by some very special and talented people and I earned the respect of my peers and achieved a hell of a lot in a short space of time. There have been huge highs whilst playing music to all sorts of crowds, creating an atmosphere and being in control. I have felt the joy and adrenaline rush of the success, alongside the emptiness and despair of the empty club or the unresponsive floor. Now I recognise I have done all that, I need to put it all behind me and move on, and the only way to do that is to disappear. It has to end sometime, and as I keep saying, everything is finite. I don’t want to lose everything else in my life for this. I just don’t believe in it enough to make that sacrifice. The kids are fighting the battle now. I hope I influenced some of them, I know I have, and that gives me a sense of ease doing this. I haven’t wasted 10 years, I know I have bought joy and hope to many of the disenfranchised, the open-minded, the musical outsider or the devoted dancer. There are people creating things and using technology in a way that I am having to try and catch up to, but I no longer feel the desire to. They are doing it better than I ever could now. It’s their time, and mine has passed. You can either think I am being incredibly brave by admitting it or incredibly weak and stupid for stopping. But it’s just how I feel. I was going wrong in many aspects of my life, and I need to start making a change. I have no idea how long this piece will stay up, but this site won’t be here forever. Please feel free to copy and paste and pass on to preserve it, to let others know why I left, assuming anyone cares.
"I have tears in my eyes now. I have so many people to thank for all the personal and professional support they have given me over the years, but I shall do that personally in time. But I want to thank everyone who has bought a song, paid an entrance fee, had a dance or just come up and spoke to me about life, music, the world or whatever. You have given me a dream-like blessed existence for many years. If I have inspired anyone, then I am a happy man. You all have certainly inspired me, and I want to use those years of travelling and sharing to good effect, not this anger and confusion I feel towards it all now. I need to find meaning to the next phase of my life. So I bid you all farewell. I am just too sensitive to keep up the façade of something that doesn’t feel right. I knew it would come someday, maybe some of you that knew me saw it too. I have so much love and respect for my peers and teachers that are carrying on with the struggle, and want the next generation to achieve the best they can for themselves and their art. I am just not a lifer. I’ve traded up, and I’m out.
"I’ll leave you all with this. Life isn’t the X-Factor. No one has a God given right to his or her dream or ambitions coming true. I have worked hard and had some great luck. I followed some opportunities, squandered others. I have no regrets, other than not stopping when I knew I should have done this time last year. The only thing you have to guide you through your life is your instinct. Sometimes the right decision isn’t the easiest, but between your conscience and your intuition you will find the answer. Please listen to it. It’s you."
An absolute Technicolor STUNNER from my ineffably brilliant friend Lisa Adams!!!! "In Anticipation of Aberrancy"—lustrous, radiant, resplendent, exquisite and beyond—even I don't have enough adjectives... how apt that I was (and still am...) listening to Sabrina Malheiros' New Morning as she posted it via Facebook! My early morning need for epically saturated color (a thirst that's perennial @ every millisecond of the day, but never more so than after sunrise—especially on a grey morning...) has been more than quenched now that I'm soaking here—congratulations girl!!! xo, B.
I can't honestly claim that I gave Emigré enough of a chance or say that they had a profound influence on my formative years as a budding designer for one simple reason—I for the most have a completely different type aesthetic. The ubiquity/omnipresence of their fonts was always so much more pronounced than the loveliness and luster of their grander design scheme of things. BUT, that said, I know that that's too glib a dismissal + that I most likely missed a lot of loveliness that I'm glad to now go back and reconsider. They gave respect to my early design idols (the godly Vaughn Oliver, Chris Bigg, Neville Brody...), so I always knew their heart was in the right place. Now thanks to this lovely new tome—Emigré mag issue 70: the last issue that never came out/or has been newly devised as a retrospective. Dig! xo, B.
As many of you already well know, I essentially worship Monareta, and view any chance to glimpse/partake in their massive live spectacle is a gateway to instant blissful lustre—especially if the ineffably beautiful Checho is guesting on drums. But this particular Bogota gig—launching for La Otra Feria de Arte Contemporáneo 2009, on a bill w/ Kompakt's DJ Koze—looks to be an even more radiant endeavor than usual if this exquisite flyer is any indication. Hell, I'd love to live in that building—especially if Monareta were my house band!!!! xo, B.
My dream husband, my ideal boy in every way—the achingly exquisite, crushingly sublime + indefatigably radiantly beautiful Luke Pasqualino! I've come to live by Skins in recent months ever stumbling upon + falling in love with Luke, but it is a brilliant series in most respects—whether or not I'm a teenage Brit, which clearly I'm not, I identify character trait-wise with Luke's Freddie (although heaven knows I'd give anything to look like him (well, I'd give everything I've ever owned to marry him (or most certainly less), but that's another story), Emily, Jay J, + even Thomas in many differing respects. With the season end coming tomorrow night (on BBC America, natch), I thought it apt to finally post some Luke in all his godly beauty...
Posted on Facebook by none other Sabrina herself!—a new take on her own beautiful bossa instant classic in honor of the Rio 2016 Olympics that I just had to pass on because it's too damn radiantly lovely!!! xo, B.
I'm cautiously optimistic about the prospect of checking out Soundwalk here in Long Beach this evening, and if nothing else am glad just to have something to do in the LBC other than biding my time @ the usual fag bars waiting for somebody intriguing to come in or something (welcome +) unexpected to happen. I've always dug sound installation as a medium, in no small part because I grew up as an industrial boy, with the ambient pastoral soundscapes of (the mighty) SPK, Hafler Trio, Zoviet France et. al... Besides it's lovely enough just to have an excuse to post their brilliantly lustrous graphic (of which I'm more than a little jealous!)! xo, B.
