ClearAudio Master Reference Turntable

This is by far the coolest looking turntable I’ve ever seen. Hand-made in Germany, the ClearAudio Master Reference turntable is perfect if you are serious about aesthetics and audio. The state-of-the-art turntable not only looks incredible but it offers a lot of features such as the Accurate Power Generator (APG) system for even platter speed and synchronizing of 3 separate motors, a six-pointed chassis that provides a perfect soundstage, a “Side-Force-Free” 3 belt drive arrangement, and a Master TQ-I Tonearm. This uniquely built and futuristic turntable does come with a hefty price tag. At $19,000 (USD), unless you’re making quality coin, perhaps you might want to stick with your Technics rather than spending a bundle of this ultra luxury item.

[ClearAudio]

– Jon

Hip Hop Legends and Athletes Celebrate 25th Anniversary of Nike Air Force One

As you all may know, it is the 25th anniversary of the Nike Air Force One. This Sunday (December 10th), Nike will hold an invite-only party in New York to celebrate this anniversary. Rappers Kanye West, Nas, Rakim and KRS-One will perform a new unreleased song dedicated to the Air Force One. This song will be produced by Rick Rubin, known for his production of Run DMC’s hit song My Adidas back in the 80’s. Dave Chappelle, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Rihanna, Usher and Spike Lee are among the celebrities and athletes who are invited to the event. Read more at AllHipHop.

-phil

Hip-Hop is Dead

From the hugely anticipated upcoming Nas album, Hip-Hop is Dead…The N, here’s the video to the single Hip Hop is Dead. Kinda sad that BET had to butcher much of the song by censorship. Nonetheless, I’m really lookin forward to this album, and hopefully I won’t be let down.

-phil

Mat Kearney – Nothing Left to Lose

An artist with roots from Eugene, Oregon, his music style is noted as being acoustic base with a touch of hip hop. Although one of many ‘one man guitar’ artists out there, Mat Kearney‘s sound is fresh and clean. Each song off of his 2006 release album ‘Nothing Left to Lose‘ is unique and different. His music has been featured on Grey’s Anatomy and Without a Trace. Be sure to check the title track Nothing Left to Lose and Where We Gonna Go From Here.

-e

Musique Concrete

As part of the Article exhibition that is taking place in Norway this week, Simon Morris shows his Musique Concrete project. This project combines sounds to the real-time movements of skateboarding. Sensors mounted on the bottom of the skateboards respond to the vibrations, accelerations and rotations. In turn, these sensors triggers real-time sounds detected from the movements of the skateboarder and sent to a wireless connected computer via radio protocol. So pretty much, while skateboarding, you can compose rhythms and songs by your movements. Read more here.

-phil

Augustana – All the Stars and Boulevards

Their debut album ‘All the Stars and Boulevards’ proves to be a winner and this indie guitar band has quickly risen to stardom. In comparison to bands in the industry, if you like the Fray, Switchfoot, and Lifehouse, you’ll like Augustana. Although their music hasn’t hit completely big or mainstream yet, their songs have been featured on Laguna Beach of all places. They recently came to Toronto on tour and performed a concert mid-September with Snow Patrol. The entire album is solid and songs range from slow and acoustic to light alternative. Be sure to check out their title track – Stars and Boulevards, Boston, Coffee and Cigarettes, and Wasteland. Music that is definitely easy on the ears.

-e

Levi’s Engineered Jeans x Kasabian

Levi’s Japan shows us their Engineered jeans for the season by promoting them with Kasabian. The rock group, who recently released album entitled “Empire”, was used as a musical inspiration for Levi’s 2006 fall/winter collection. There’s a few pics of them in the Engineered Jeans. As well, the other Levi’s lines offered in Japan for the season seem to be inspired by the rock musicial genre. Check out the collections at Levi’s Japan.

-phil

Subtle – The Mercury Craze Music Video

Here’s a cool music video I came across by an Oakland based group called Subtle. The video for their new single, The Mercury Craze, is produced by Norwegian/Japanese animation collective ‘SSSR’. They combined drawings, animated models, cut-up film and 3D computer graphics for the video. This is one of the coolest concept for a music video I’ve seen in a while.

-phil

Justice vs. Simian – We Are Your Friends Video

See the music video which Kanye West bitched over after losing Best Video at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards in Copenhagen. I know this video has been around for a while but is it really our fault? It’s the first time I’ve seen it and being stuck in North America, we don’t get an opportunity to see the music videos in Europe. Instead we’re stuck watching Jim Jones yelling “BALLLLINNN’!” for the up-teenth time.

Anyways, the music video was for the collaboration of French electronic duo, Justice, and the rock group Simian. It’s not that great to be honest but its got some elements I like. Very post modern and abstract. The music video, “We Are Your Friends”, also beat out Gnarls Barkley’s music video for “Crazy”. In my opinion, “Crazy” was the best video I’ve seen this year. I don’t know why Kanye flipped. “Touch The Sky” was a cool video but it wasn’t a breakthrough video or anything. Definitely not worth rushing the stage during the announcement and declaring “If I don’t win, the award show loses credibility”. Kanye’s got no class.

Btw, if you want to see Kanye throw a hissy fit at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards, click here.

– Jon

Beck – Cellphone’s Dead – Music Video

Beck and Michel Gondry team up again to create this bizarre and surreal video “Cellphone’s Dead” off of Beck’s latest album “The Information”. Beck and Gondry worked together for his video “Deadweight” (which is one of my favorite music videos of all time. Click here to view) which was so inventive and imaginative in terms of story telling and visual effects. The “Cellphone’s Dead” video is no different.  For any inspiring artists or film makers, Gondry’s work is essential viewing in my opinion. This is definitely worth checking out from one of the most creative directors out in the industry.

– Jon

The Good, The Bad and The Queen

Damon Albarn is back. No…not with another Gorillaz album or bringing back Blur out of its hiatus, but with a new band. Along with Albarn, the newly formed group reunited him with his Gorillaz producer, Danger Mouse and his Gorillaz guitarist, Simon Tong. In addition to the 3 Gorillaz members, The Clash’s bassist Paul Simonon and Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen round out the rest of the ensemble.

Their first single off “The Good, The Bad and The Queen” album is “Herculean”. After listening to the single via their website, it’s really something I didn’t expect from Damon Albarn. You can definitely tell Albarn has matured as an artist. I expected a more radio friendly song for its first single but I’m not taking anything away from “Herculean”. It’s still a solid song. Regardless, you might want to check this out. You’ll be sure to hear about this group in 2007. With Danger Mouse and Damon Albarn together again, you can’t really go wrong with them.

Herculean, the first single from the album The Good, The Bad and The Queen will be released on October 30, 2006 on CD and deleted the same day, it will also be available on download.

The artwork for this limited edition single, depicting a West London industrial scene, is by the album’s bass player Paul Simonon.

The Good, The Bad and The Queen

– Jon

Drum n’ Bass

Victor Wooten – renown bassist in the music industry for his beats and rythms – and Carter Beauford – drummer for Dave Matthews band – jam a little. Easy to appreciate if you fall under the following categories:

• play the drums
• play the bass
• have ears

-e

Jay-Z Endorses Armand De Brignac

As you may all know, Jigga is back. With a new CD, “Kingdom Come”, on its pending release in November, Hov’s first single, produced by Just Blaze “Show Me What You Got” comes with a newly released music video. To no surprise, it’s very typical Jay-Z music video. There’s the nice car (Ferrari 430), the exotic location (Monte carlo, South France), the boat, the money, hm whatelse, hot video girls and of course, Crist… wait. What used to be a staple in his videos, particularly “Big Pimpin'”, Cristal, the prestigious champagne, was shunned by Jay-Z in the “Show Me What You Got” video.

Managing director Frederic Rouzaud of Cristal recently said the people in the Hip Hop culture were affecting its marque in a negative way. In retaliation, Jay-Z publicly denounce Cristal saying he will not drink the champagne nor will he promote it. As well, the various clubs that he owns will not serve the product either. Replacing Cristal in his videos was the French champagne, Armand De Brignac. Armand De Brignac is a lot more expensive (about $ 1000 US per bottle) but expect the company to see large profits due to Jay-Z’s name dropping.

Don’t expect all the rappers to do the same but Diddy already said “Fuck Cris”. Could this be a new trend? I guess it won’t be long until we see video girls getting drenched by Armand.

Click to view Jay-Z new video “Show Me What You Got”
Offical Website of Armand De Brignac

– Jon

Circa Nightclub – One of a Kind…

Aug -11 2007 : New Updated Information on CiRCA. (CLICK HERE)
Here’s a sneak peek of the much anticipated CiRCA. Check out the updated pictures and video of the inside.

The hype over this venue has been ridculious and there is a certain amount of buzz over a new nightclub that hasn’t existed in the city of Toronto. The nightclubs located around “Richmond (St.)”, or otherwise known as “clubland”, have been very generic and boring. The spoiled suburban kids who exile to this clubbing district every weekend don’t seem to mind. But nightclub pioneer Peter Gatien (who owned several hip nightclubs in New York City such as Tunnel, The Limelight and the Palladium, only to be deported back to his native land due to a tax felony) looks to change the face of Toronto clubbing by opening a very unique venue called Circa. Gatien is planing to convert a 53,000- square-foot, four-floor mega-complex in the heart of Toronto’s Entertainment District which was once Lucid nightclub which had little success after taking the space from Playdium, an interactive arcade.

What is so unique about Circa is the fact that Gatien has been working with several artists, designers and architects to make sure Circa does not fail at any account and become the talk of the town.

Here’s a summary of what you can expect from Circa:

Beck – The Information

The new album from Beck recently came out and to be frank, I wasn’t expecting much. After listening to the entire album about 4 or 5 times while studying, the songs are actually stuck to me and were pretty catchy.

Although I liked to think I know what Beck is singing about in this album, I really have no clue in what the lyrics mean nor do I really care. It’s just a good listen. Produced by Nigel Godrich (who produced songs for Radiohead), the tracks are very well produced however they can be a bit formulaic and repetitive. In my opinion, the album sounds like a definite successor to the

For Beck fans, you’re always expecting his new album to be the next ‘Odelay’ or another mellow bittersweet album such as ‘Sea Change’. I’m not saying ‘The Information’ is bad, in fact, I actually like ‘The Information’. I’m just not used to Beck singing about spaceships and travelling through space. Well..he is a Scientologist. No matter how absurd or abstract his music is , you can’t deny Beck’s unique sound. I really admire Beck’s ability to experiment with his music in every album he produces. That alone should make you want to check out his music. Even if it is Scientology propaganda.
Must Listen:

‘Elevator Music’
‘No Complaints’
‘Nausea’
‘Think I’m In Love’
‘New Round’

– Jon