Head Medicine Weekly
vol 5
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sights and sounds for your eyeballs and earholes!
Robert Valley
Pear Cider and Cigarettes: the Movie
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it's only in the past few months that i've realized
illustrator/animator Robert Valley is one of my favorite artists out
there. i've seen his work, unconsciously, for years and never knew it
was him. he cut his teeth animating for Peter Chung on the Aeon Flux tv
series, did work on some of those amazing Gorillaz videos, and was the
character designer on the criminally underappreciated Tron: Uprising
animated series, among other things. once i connected all of the dots, i
was able to put a name to the work i've been diggin' for so long.
turns out Valley has produced a graphic novel called Pear Cider and Cigarettes,
and the work i've seen from it is fucking jaw-dropping. AND he has
secretly been animating the book for the last five years into a
32-minute movie. in photoshop (!!!). it makes my eyeballs soooo happy
to look at. those colors... the impeccable design and cinematography...
the Eagon Scheille/Aeon Flux elongated figures taken to the extreme...
and that swank ass style that drips from every inch of the screen. it's
so fuckin' tasty it hurts.
Valley has already finished the
movie, nothing can change that, but he has a Kickstarter at the moment
to pay for the music licensing. and if everything wasn't sweet enough
as is, Valley has some killer tunes in waiting: Queens of the Stone
Age. Morphine. Black Sabbath. Leftfield. Nightmares on Wax. etc etc
etc.... great stuff indeed.
there will be a larger Valley feature in the coming weeks here on Head Medicine that will take a longer look at his past career, what's cooking now, and hopefully what's ahead. but until then, get on this Kickstarter. i'm all about the $100 pledge - the hardcover Pear Cider and Cigarettes graphic novel, the movie dvd, and the behind the scenes making of dvd (surely a must have for any aspiring animator or lover of the art process).
go HERE for the Pear Cider and Cigarettes Kickstarter.
check out the trailer:
Pinball backglass art
1970s-1980s
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the earliest pinball machines date back to the late 1700s, but they
really took off during the Depression-era 1930s, satisfying the public's
need for cheap fun. there wasn't any competition until video games
like Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Asteroids took over the arcades all
across the country in the late 70s/early 80s. the pinball makers,
unable to compete with video game graphics, needed to up their game and
fought back with brilliant artwork to catch the eyes and imagination of
teenagers with pockets full of change. this was the golden age of
pinball art.
here are a few classic examples, check out more HERE
Black Mountain
"Mothers of the Sun"
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this week Black Mountain released "Mothers of the Sun," the first single and video from their new album, IV, out April 1st from Jagjaguwar. the band has been dormant with new material since 2010, but it sounds like they are ready to make the leap to another level. the songwriting and performances are tighter, the scope is larger, and the production is immaculate. Black Mountain have channeled deeply into their inner Zeppelin, creating an epic modern day "No Quarter." ominous organ drones, glorious slabs of stoner riffs (that tone!), and ghostly vocals... even the video is their Song Remains the Same fantasy sequence.
William Onyeabor
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Who is William Onyeabor? no one really knows for sure. what we do know is that Onyeabor was a pioneering oddity in the 1970s and 80s Nigerian funk music scene, performing his own brand of African electronic dance music. he never performed live, and few people ever actually met the man, but his records were hugely successful on the Nigerian club scene. he performed and produced the music himself, released his albums on his own label Wilfilms, and even manufactured his records at his own vinyl pressing plant. his sound sprouted from the psychedelic afro-funk around him in mid 70s Nigeria, but sharply diverged from there, and eventually stumbled upon an endless repetition of synthesizer dance floor loops. there was no one else around even vaguely sounding like Onyeabor at that time. his ideas seemed to be closer to German Krautrock than anything else, and his later work prophesied 1980s house music. in 1985, Onyeabor became a born-again Christian and completely disappeared from public view, hiding away in his Nigerian palace.
few people know any other details about him. legend has Onyeabor learning music production in Stockholm, Sweden before moving on to study cinematography in Moscow, until he returned to Nigeria to make films and produce their soundtracks. no one can recall ever actually seeing an Onyeabor film, though. his studio was packed with state of the art recording equipment and an army of synthesizers, but there is no record of how or where Onyeabor would have been able to purchase this expensive equipment. there are no other musician credits, so it it unknown if he had a backing band or if he was performing everything himself. all that remains are his records and the music embedded in the grooves.
Onyeabor's music once again emerged on the classic Nigeria 70 funk compilation, and in 2013 Luaka Bop issued World Psychedelic Classics 5: Who is William Onyeabor?, a collection spanning his entire career. after an exhausting battle to track Onyeabor down and secure licensing rights, Luaka Bop finally released a deluxe box set collecting all eight of Onyeabor's albums in 2014. to celebrate the occasion, the man himself came from the shadows and granted the BBC his first ever radio interview (check it out HERE) where he revealed he will be releasing a new album of gospel music in the near future.
here are a few of my favorites from the Who is William Onyeabor? compilation:
and here is Noisey's Onyeabor documentary Fantastic Man.
odds n ends
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Mark Mothersbaugh's synth collection
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