Solitude.

Angel.

Faith.

Will Bryant giveaway.

Booooooom are asking you to comment on a poster by graphic illustrator Will Bryant to win a print of his work.

Will is a gifted young man. He already has a huge not to mention colourful portfolio, his work sticking to a personal style throughout. Yet still managing to bring something new forward within each project.

Illustrator, come dreamer Will Bryant 'makes stuff because I
get sad if i don't.'

With an impressive online showcase of his art and makes, it is hard to narrow this down to highlights.

Wolf & Cereal Face in his Kitsune Noir project, and illustrative self promotion I Made this for You lo-fi publication are worth a look.



Say hello to Will.

Enter the Booooooom competition.

Birds.

Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

This came on my iPod today.

It took me somewhere else.

Calm.

Rust.

Fever Ray.

One half of The Knife, Karin Dreijer Andersson, returned to music this year with a new solo Album.

Erie, magical and distorted (as expected) it made The Guardian's No2 of album's of 2009.

The latest video, directed by Jens Klevje and Fabian Svensson, a dynamic director duo, is truly an amazing piece of art. Musically, visually, the whole canvas.

The dark and dreary piece only adds to the depth of Fever Ray's voice, allowing you to peer further into her soul.

This is Fever Ray with Keep the Streets Empty for Me:



More info on Fever Ray

The XX.

The XX's UK tour comes to an end up North, in March 2010. The coy quintet are heading to the Cockpit in Leeds on 8 March 2010. Having recently toured America with Friendly Fires.

The XX are back on the road in the New Year with a headline tour of their own, playing Shepherds Bush Empire in London on 3 March.

The XX at the Cockpit means eclectic tone treats for those of you in and around Leeds. If you miss that, or Britain's Got Talent is on, then they are back over in Liverpool on 10 March.

Making a crack ridden pavement into a subtle stage in Amsterdam, The XX are melodically crafted plucking at classic acoustic guitars. Occasional traffic drones by unnoticed, adding to the raw feel of the music.

I reckon I better buy m'sen a ticket:


Oliver and Romy playing Crystalised in Amsterdam.

More info on The XX and tour dates

Bricks.

Vacuum.

A maze of space,
I implode.

Savour nothing,
drag me forever.

Escape,
a never ending idea of time.

Float, linger
rot.

Exist in a tunnel.

Regrettably.

I'm not alive right now,
darkness whispers.

Nothing is certain,
unsure.

Questionable,
this isn't me.

To feel like me,
simple.

De fragment,
build you up for nothing.

Simple.

Falling.

To know everything, less we forget.
To hold on to it, less you forget.
To hear everything, ask everything.
To never stop.

To never be in the shadows.
To never have to ask.
To never being without that.
To know that there is no never.

To know that.
To know you.
To know me.

To stop.

Reflection.

Web.

Digital Age theives?

Paul Bradshaw, author of the Online Journalism Blog, recently published a post that got me thinking. As his posts on the development of Web2.0 usually do.

This time I threw my thoughts into the conversation.

Below is my response to his post on how bloggers are viewed by those media execs types.

My response on the Online Journalism Blog to Paul's post.

The mention of bloggers and our parasitic ways, of supposedly leeching from mainstream media is just narrow minded, and money focused rather than information.

We are a network that feeds each other, tribes of people with the same interests, re-tweeting what we liked to hear. We create our own news away from a centralised hub of ‘validated’ content.

When writing my reasonably small thesis on the use of Twitter as a breaking news platform it became apparent, even then, that this tool would allow citizen journalism to flourish. Away from the reliance of say, the BBC, to collect and disseminate our news for us- 7 July bombings for example.

In its early days, and I am sure even more so now, twitter broke news ahead of Reuters- those PR companies that Murdoch and co relies on. Is Reuters even as valued as before?

Bloggers create their own news and network, tweeting, searching, bookmarking. Building on an already established genre of journalism. To say that this is amateur and trivial is denying its purpose and its value.

Blogging is both valuable and diverse, and could not be more of a reflection of the people that read it, as well as create it.

Rewind.

It's sudden, lost
forgotten.
A mere photo in my eyes.

Riding, unnoticed
past me
at the speed of light.

A summer solstice lasting seconds.
Gone
refusing to change before my eyes.

Blink and you'll miss me.

Dusk.

Flight.

Depth.

Look Up.

Sorry I'm Late.

There is a certain charm about stop motion that you can't escape.

Tomas Mankovsky captures you in this short stop motion animation. The dream like sequence defies gravity, the journey shot on a camera suspended from the ceiling. Cellophane, crayons and cardboard cut outs, all the pieces from your child hood craft box; fused together and brought to life. Pillows, pushbikes and tire swings join the fun within the naive setting.

What is stop motion if it isn't naive, it's as it should be. Tomas Mankovsky's use of colour, texture and lighting birth a sense of nostalgia. Even if it is the first time you are watching it.

Why don't you pause a little, and escape in this:



More footage is available on Sorry I'm Late website.