Make Your Bed

After many hours syncing and tweaking frames in Final Cut I have just finished the video for the next single 'Make Your Bed' by the truly excellent band Babel. I filmed this late one night in a broken and quite filthy portacabin which was inside a warehouse on the outskirts of Bristol. The band wanted claustrophobia and realism and sweat by the bucketful. Nice. For lighting there was a set of four disco lights set on full orange/red and two broken strip lights which flickered on and off erratically.

You can watch the video in full on Babel's website Babel Music

btw. They have a new album called 'Crooked Timber' coming out immanently and it's brilliant'.

Balancing act.

It's been another crazy month and updates have been few and far between...

So... I've just finished the website for the Wild Beasts to promote their new single and album. I very much like this band, they're an interesting lot and they manage to balance the tightrope of abstraction and pop very skillfully. They're also from the Lake District so what's not to love.

There has also been a new website for N*E*R*D for their new album 'Seeing Sounds'. The site is based on the video for the new single 'Everyone Nose' which takes it's inspiration from the Last Night's Party website. I've edited a selection of short clips and they randomly appear in a sequence of nine blocks then randomly selected images of N*E*R*D appear also, this is the basis of the site and navigation... it's always different.

Also there have been updates to Tricky's site, Knowle West Boy, The Last Shadow Puppets site The Age Of The Understatement and the XX Teens.



By the way the image above is a sketch by Ellsworth Kelly. 93. Light Reflection on Water, 1950. Ink / Tusche (13.3 cm x 20.3 cm) I have this hanging on the wall of my studio.

The Age Of The Understatement

The Last Shadow Puppets are Alex Turner (from Arctic Monkeys) and Miles Kane (from The Rascals) and 'The Age Of The Understatement' is their new No. 1 album.

I've been working on this campaign for the last 2 months or so adding new videos and building a variety of websites for both the UK and US markets. The final site includes exclusive videos that fans can embed on their MySpaces/Facebooks/blogs/websites and has been getting an absolute hammering as you may expect.

The video above is embedded and using content from the Age of the Understatement website. Click to play...

The Age Of The Understatement website.

Exit Strategy

I've just done the sleeve for the new album by Seb Roberts based on an old photograph of the Northwestern Railroad yard in Chicago. The front sleeve shows electric light, day light on the inner and fire light on the back without a glimpse of the train at all. Very nocturnal.

Born of the Canadian prairies, tempered by American east coast, ripened by years on the road, and seasoned by all the sounds he sponged up along the way, he's played in nine bands and self-released as many albums (though almost every one under a different moniker). He's well-liked by those who know him, and is otherwise regarded with some suspicion.

'Exit Strategy' is his first release for SVC Records.

You can buy the album from the SVC Records website.

And there's more...

Thought I'd add another round-up of the latest projects going on here, gives me a chance to use another delightful old postcard of Bristol. Check out the glitter on this one, what a beauty.... anyway



The Kills campaign is now all live, there's the microsites for U.R.A. Fever and Cheap and Cheerful, the new blog at their official website The Kills and now there's the all singing and dancing 'add-you-own-postcard-for-the-album- site! at Midnight Boom. You register, log-in and then post your own interpretation of one of the tracks as a postcard, then you can send this on to a friend. The site uses some very clever php and mySQL which handles all of the resizing and the database.

Also The Last Shadow Puppets website has been changing here and there at The Age Of The Understatement. Now with more video...

I've just done a sleeve for an excellent new record coming out on SVC Records, it's for a chap called Seb Roberts and the album is called Exit Strategy. He's a Canadian who lives in Hamburg/Tokyo and his biog says that "He's well-liked by those who know him, and is otherwise regarded with some suspicion." So there you go.

Finally there are some exciting developments afoot for Genuine Photo but that's all I'm going to say on the matter for now, so watch this space.

Radiohead Remix

I've gone and remixed that Radiohead song 'Nude'. Bit of a slow start so give it a chance... there's some quite pleasant strings that I chopped up which begin about a minute in so if you get that far then good for you. Oh yes don't forget to vote!

Radiohead Remix website.
The Palace Lido website.



And if there's anyone out there who'd like the mp3 then you can download that here... Nude (The Palace Lido Remix) (256kbps - vbr)

Fat Truckers - Anorexic Robot!

I was going through an archive box of old work DVDs and came across this video I did for Sheffield's finest ever band (yes more so than the Human League!) I filmed it at one of their gigs at the ICA and then chopped it together in Premiere. I was working on their website and also the sleeve for this single at the time. They were quite ahead of their time all things considered and a great live band...

Fat Truckers - Anorexic Robot
Live at the I.C.A Dec 12th 2002
Roadtrain Recordings

Fat Truckers on Wikipedia.
Buy the Fat Truckers album from Amazon. Every home should own one.

Greetings..

It's very nearly March already and time is just whizzing by... There's some rather interesting and quite substantial projects underway which are very exciting, more to be revealed soon enough. For now here's a quick roundup of what's just been...



The ongoing Kills website and it's many mutations is live at Midnight Boom. The site plays a track off the new album and shows exclusive artwork everyday leading up to the album release on the 10th, then soon after that we've got something else which is a secret for now.

Here are the other Kills sites from the last two single releases. U.R.A. Fever and Cheap and Cheerful, the remix parts are still available at both. Oh yes and let's not forget the new blog site built so Alison and Jamie can post from their Blackberries in whichever country they're currently touring at The Kills

Then there was the full screen video site for the Mountain Goats with complete album sampler.

What else? Oh yes Nick Cave, well the site is ongoing here, slowly new videos are being leaked on there of Nick and the band conducting seances. If you've not yet seen Nick in a turban then do pop along.

Finally there's a teaser site for a band generating a lot of interest called The Last Shadow Puppets. Featuring Alex from the Arctic Monkeys and Miles from The Rascals, this is The Age Of The Understatement.

Cheap And Cheerful

The next single from The Kills is going to be 'Cheap And Cheerful' taken from their forthcoming album Midnight Boom. You can check out the video and also download all of the separate elements of the track to remix at the Midnight Boom website.

U.R.A Fever is still available to remix here

A Press of Suspects No.2

New poster for Bristol promoter A Press of Suspects, which as you may have guessed following on from the post below uses a wonderful old image from the Library of Congress collection.

Come Back to Camden

Went to see that Morrissey fellow last night at the Camden Roundhouse and really rather good he was too. The highlight for me was the cacophony of noise at the end of 'Death of a Disco Dancer' that shook the very foundations of the room followed by Tormentors favourite 'Life is a Pigsty'. Here's one of my snaps taken with my trusty Ricoh GR1 which I brought out of retirement especially.

Use your instincts...

New video website for the next XX Teens single How To Reduce The Chances Of Being A Terror Victim. Now that's a video!

Midnight Boom

The ongoing Kills site Midnight Boom is taking shape, currently based on the single U.R.A Fever. Video, news and most importantly the chance to download and remix the latest track.

The site is going to change over the next few months right up to album launch...

Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

Working right up to Christmas on this one it was a dash to get all the pieces together and online. The video was shot by British artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard and features Nick and the Bad Seeds conjuring the spirits!

Check out Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds official site.
Also the Mute YouTube channel.

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds release their 14th studio album DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!! on 3rd March 2008 on Mute. Produced by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and Nick Launay who worked with the band on their last album Abattoir Blues/ Lyre of Orpheus. The album features artwork by Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

Rijks!

Just made a poster for the next Press of Suspects night in Jan, which is going to have Meg Baird from Espers play amongst other varied acts.

All of the images are 'borrowed' from the very excellent Rijks Museum website. I wanted the poster to have a classical feel and be quite detached from your typical band night as The Press of Suspects plan to create evenings that are far from usual.

Not here for your entertainment

Finally the Black Melody site is live. Julian built the complicated content managed stuff and so now we have a great resource that Richard can update to his hearts content.

Streaming mp3s of all the hits and more!

In Memory

Re-release of the original Joy Division albums in one box-set but with all typography and artwork removed from the album sleeves.

The sleeves themselves are matches for the original paper specs of the Factory first editions (black textured for Unknown Pleasures, slight "suede" for Closer, and "hessian" cloth [and ribbon] for Still, rounded corner inner sleeves for all) but without any information. All info & credits have been moved to a single large 12x12 matte black card sheet, with all info embossed in small type in gloss black. Design is credited to Peter Saville, Daniel Mason, Howard Wakefield.

More info at Cerysmatic Factory.

Goldfrapp

New Goldfrapp album 'Seventh Tree' is out Feb next year on Mute so I've rustled up a teaser site with video from Alison and Will Goldfrapp and the tracklisting.

This site has changed a few times over the last few months with video shot at the Goldfrapp studio (with kaleidoscopes), footage of an owl near a beach? and now this 8mm footage... very mysterious.

The Kills

Had a meeting with Jamie and Alison from The Kills, they have a new album coming out soon and would like their websites to have a bit of fix-up. New single 'U.R.A. Fever' is out first so keep an ear out for that, it's very good.

Going to be building a 'news/blog' site that they can update from their mobile phones and another which will preview video and audio from the next releases.