Contemporary Photography - Pleasantville by Jonah Samson

I came across Jonah Sampson's newest collection, "Pleasantville" while checking out recent gallery openings in Seattle. I really appreciate the plasticine quality of this reality he is building with these miniature sets. I read it as a comment on the illusion of representation, as though to remind us of the false history presented not only by our national identity concept, as referenced by the title, but also by the medium of photography, which we so often take as documenting what is "real". I also appreciate that he is showing us images we rarely find captured on camera, and even less often seen in real life - moments of personal terror (see 'winter crash' and 'bear mauling', intimate experience ('going down'-pictured above- and 'diving board) and extreme darkness ('left for dead' and 'grave digger').

I guess just took down the show in Seattle and will be putting it up again in September at Chernoff Fine Art Gallery in Vancouver. He has a book of the collection as well, which you can get by contacting him through his website at littlechickendog.com

DMLH Video randomness from 2008

Last year we had a bomb ass time making art and music all together in Portland between 134 and the Cantino Castle...and basically anywhere we could get together. The first video was a random occurance back when Mady was filming everything for the idea of "134 TV" (which would have been pretty sweet if everyone had been on board, but alas, some people desire a private life), when I walked in on Chris from Saudade fucking around with a rapman keyboard. The second was a cell phone clip of a rather cathartic DMLH set at the Jabberwocky punk house in NE pdx, that turned out pretty good despite having lost my voice earlier that day. Too bad she didnt get the 20 minute freestyle session with Atronix from bad crowd's stellar beatboxing.

Voltage - Synth Robot Animation

This video is pretty rad. Described on the vimeo page as "robots, half-human and half-synthesizer, powered by a huge amount of energy, connect to each other in an electric and chaotic trance." I like the quality of the line drawings and the texture of the background quite a bit. The vintage Tube inside of the frequency modulator is pretty sweet as well. I only wish it could have been longer. Thanks to Amart for putting me on to this.

Voltage from Bam Studio on Vimeo.

Lo-Fi Hip Hop from Disneyland, Oregon

Just like our physical world of interconnected realities, the internet lends itself to synchronicity and serendipity, if you happen to have the open space of perception to realize such things. I was looking at some obscure tape labels the other day and came across a label/collective page that sounded vaugely familiar, though I was not sure why. Turns out that Grand Cooley hosts a ton of music including some made by a Portland homie who I know exclusively through random occurrence/coincidence. I first met Bangs in 2007, either at the clinton st brewpub (now the shangri-la with awesome vegan indian food) or the langano lounge back when i was hosting shows with moose knuckle (who went solo as Daps (Nightcrawlers) and Gepetto). I am fairly certain that he and a friend asked to get on the mic in between sets, and then freestyled some of the more amusing rhymes that night. Since then we have run into each other at parties, street cyphers and open mics in and around Portland about once every three months. Scrolling through the albums at Grand Cooley I saw his name and the image of his handmade cardboard cd sleeve and had to smile. A click later I run into his smiling face, from another timezone, somehow still in the same loop, still glad for the randomness.

Bangs makes lo-fi dissonant breakbeat driven hip hop that is rapid fire and stacked with funny rhymes, tripped out scenarios and his stoked perspective on reality. He is the guy who crashes your party with a boombox strapped to his bike freestyling, who will climb two stories to break into a closed door session and his record sounds like it: live and raw, loose, fun and determined.

download "way to win" and
check out the rest of his record at grandcooley.com

Recent arts by Madelyn Hampton

Mady has been busy this summer adding to her emotive visual personal narrative. What do you think the pink one is? The cat is a next level version of a style she developed a few years ago, drawing the patterns and circles over found animal photographs. Now she is filling in her own image - i really enjoy this expressive style of characterization. It brings to mind Pacific Northwest Indigenous Culture's art patterns, perhaps she is drawing upon a similar energy to find these designs. The cat and the one below it are both Linoleum prints - I like that the middle one describes so much about Mady's personality and interests - the cosmos, the books, the animals = a telling self portrait.

you can keep up with mady's work at her blog: buyanewbrain.blogspot.com
and see new work here as well.

Forest World - sweet electro pop from provo

This week I have been jamming out to some sweet electro indie pop from provo, utah called forest world. I got a friend request at the start fires myspace and checked it out, then decided to write because i was enjoying the music. Well, sean wrote back and sent me a download of a bunch of their material (which you can get too if you want, just email them) and I have been bumping it ever since, while i clean the house or google away my day, or thumping out the window while caustic and I painted a new free book box for boise. The vocals kind of remind me of the simple sweetness of eskimo and sons with a less restrained postal service vibe to the beat...i want to hear it in a hot summer basement with a bunch of people dancing, or else coming out of a small radio taped to some handlebars. I think they are playing in seattle sometime soon and looking to make it to portland this summer.

anyway its worth a listen and definitely making its way onto the upcoming summer mix.

bury me with my money!
http://myspace.com/forestworld