Pitchfork.com’s Forkcast features a hot new track by Matchless Music’s the Selmanaires. We’ve got a ton of their new work available for licensing now, and it’s amazingly hypnotic stuff. Psychedelic yet poppy, hazy and full of melodic hooks, this is going to be a big year for the Selmanaires.
Matchless Music is pleased to announce our mix for Stash Magazine’s 61st issue. Get the mix for free with purchase of this month’s Stash Magazine DVD.
Track listing:
1. Leb Laze – “Into the Sunshine”
2. Judi Chicago – “Bad Spell”
3. Tettix – “Dragon Punch”
4. Moped10 – “Zap”
5. Noot D’Noot – “Lifestyle Upgrade”
6. The Goldest – “Sunny D”
7. The Meeks Family – “You Ain’t Done”
8. Long Knives – “Headlong into the Abyss pt. 1″
9. Kasha – “Horizon”
10. David Merson Hess – “Dreampop Chapel”
ABOUT STASH 61…
Stash 61 delivers over two hours of fun and inspiration including the world’s most innovative animaton and VFX projects, Behind the Scenes extras, a 23-minute Music Video Mini-fest PLUS 10 bonus MP3s from Matchless Music.
Nexus directors FX & Mat start us off with an Olympian CG effort for the IOC, Digital Domain and director Carl Erik Rinsch intelligently combine sleek animation and a pristine render for Audi, Toronto’s AXYZ help a little porcelain dude shed a salty tear for Knorr, The Mill demonstrates the dangers of “Different Scents” for Old Spice, and Milan’s Mutado get down and hoody for Diesel before Partizan director Chris Cairns and The Mill cleanse our palettes with his hip/hilarious short film Neurosonics Audio Medical Labs Inc.
Vienna’s Eat My Dear launch the broadcast design section with their new work for Universal Music’s Urban TV, Artillery Design (out of Brighton, UK) keep the pedal to the metal for the FX rebrand and Buenos Aires studios GULA and Hombre.cosa keep MTV Latin America hopping with two new clips.
The mid-section of Stash 61 is a glistening six-pack of visual love including the comic/tragic film fest open from Anima Boutique in Helsinki “Love in the Mountains”, the online film “A Tale of Two Spreads” from London’s Outside Line, the thought-provoking Love_Child short film from Taiwanese students Sheng-Wen Hsiao and Chun-Wang Sun, Bam Studio Films’ cool mixed media short called Voltage, the mechanical/organic clash of Artificial Paradise Inc. from Jean-Paul Frenay and Condor in Belgium, and the epic multi-media “Whale Song” video for Modest Mouse from Nando Costa and Bent Image Lab.
The second half of Stash 61 is a minefield of innovation and surprises: Happycamper and The Chimney Pot stir things up in the Rat suburbs for IF; Buenos Aires Studio Reino make sure the Lucchetti family eating their soup stays wonderfully weird; Frenzy and Firm-Studio in Paris deliver two choice words from Lily Allen to her fellow Londoners; Alphabetical Order and Swiss help Saab “Change Perspective”; Portland’s Oh, Hello give us two fresh looks at the Nike Trainer 1; Asif Mian and 1st Ave Machine grab the sneaker theme and dribble it into the realm of magic realism in their short called ReRun; Glasgow’s Axis Animation adds to their archive of top-end game work with trailers for “Rogue Warrior” and “Brink”; and Italian director Michelle D’Auria honors the genius of Soichiro Honda with a poetic branded film called The Dream Comes True.
The final act of Stash 61 begins with MIAM, a vast visual treat created by five French animation students from the Arles campus of Supinfocom. Germany’s Studio Soi follows with their clever, charming and beautifully rendered narrative short called Engel Zu Fuss.
And we close Stash 61 with a multi-award-winning short masterwork created by Aardman Animations and director Luis Cook. The Pearce Sisters are not your average siblings, and their story is not like anything you’ve seen before.
There are seven BONUS FILMS on 61 each exploring the outer reaches of the music video genre including work for Fiery Furnaces, Tim Fite, Jokeren, Lowstar, Metal on Metal, Monogrenade and Chew Lips.
The BEHIND THE SCENES line-up on 61 offers insightful peeks into Artillery Design’s FX Rebrand, Anima Boutique’s “Love in the Mountains”, Ingo Walde’s “Year of the Gorilla”, 23lunes’ Neositrin spot, and Michele D’Auria’s The Dream Comes True for Honda.
The BONUS MUSIC on Stash 61 is a 10-track explosion of audio goodness from indie music licensing specialists Matchless Music. Grab tunes from Dave Merson Hess, Judi Chicago, Kasha, Leb Laze, Long Knives, Moped10, Noot D’Noot, Tettix, The Goldest and the Meeks Family.
For the second year in a row, readers selected Judi Chicago as Atlanta’s Best Electronic Act. Congrats to them. They’ve got a cool new video out as well called Fun City. Check it here:
Leb Laze’s brand new remix of Helado Negro’s “I Wish” has just been released! Go here, scroll down and download “I Wish (Leb Laze Tramp Stamp Remix)” for free. And don’t forget to check out Helado Negro’s full length debut on Asthmatic Kitty (Sufjan Steven’s label)!
LEB LAZE IN THE MIDDLE
We’d like to welcome Lullatone to the Matchless Music family. Their music is a beautiful mix of the sublime and the dreamy, perfect floating melodies and understated beauty. Indie music giants Pitchfork.com, have given Lullatone’s albums very favorable reviews, so you know they’re doing something right. Sink into their music here. It’s like sliding into clean white sheets on a late spring morning.
lullatone
More about Lullatone…
The delicate lap-pop project Lullatone came together shortly after Shawn James Seymour moved from his hometown of Louisville, KY, to Nagoya, Japan, with his girlfriend and bandmate, Yoshimi Tomida. The two initially met in an intercultural communications class at the Bellarmine University. At one point during class, the teacher asked the exchange students what they had trouble adjusting to in America. Tomida replied that she was having trouble adjusting to American food, so after class Seymour offered to take her to a local Asian market. They ended up having a picnic, and Seymour moved to Nagoya with her about a year later, where they moved into a tiny apartment. It was there that he was inspired to start writing what he called “tiny songs.” Seymour, who didn’t sleep much at that time, would stay up late composing and recording lullabies for Tomida, making use of whatever he could get his hands on: xylophones, keyboards, music boxes, sine tones, harps, toy drums, ukuleles, cymbals, shakers, wood blocks, pillows, whispers, heartbeats, bubbles, and, as Seymour put it, “a lot of daydreams.” The result was a set of warm, meandering lullabies that came together on Lullatone’s 2003 release Computer Recital. Another album, entitled My Petit Melodies, was released soon after that on the Japanese label Childisc. Little Songs About Raindrops, the band’s third album, was released in 2005. The new release used a wider array of instrumentation than the previous recordings, featuring Tomida’s breathy, childlike vocals and a rich tapestry of organic sounds. 2006′s Plays Pajama Pop Pour Vous found Seymour and Tomida continuing their exploration of shimmering, organic tones. 2007′s Bedtime Beat followed in the same tradition of cute nighty-night whimsy.
MOVIE MOJO: Local team found fun, freedom in film collaboration
By Catherine Fox
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday, March 13, 2009
Way back in the 20th century, the surrealists played a parlor game they called exquisite corpse.
It went like this: One artist would draw part of a figure, cover it and pass the paper on to the next artist, who added to it, and so on.
The result was to be a work from their collective unconscious. Artists have enjoyed —- and invented new variations of —- this collaborative creative experience ever since.
In fact, you can see two examples in Atlanta now. Opal Gallery is exhibiting a series created by two photographers (see D9), and Wednesday the Plaza Theatre will screen “PSST 3,” a series of 17 short films made by 175 international participants.
Each film is three parts. Different teams of artists, directors, designers and animators —- randomly conjoined by the series founder —- work consecutively on the beginning, middle and end, with only a frame from the preceding work to go on.
The films, as you can see from the trailer (http://psstpassiton.com/?page_id=347), are a boisterous mix of styles and images. Clearly, everyone had fun.
Atlanta is represented by a group from Cartoon Network —- Calvin Florian, Vincent Aricco, Brian Smith —- and friends, including props person Alice Nisbet and her son Zane Gunderson. Former Atlantan Ben Jastatt provides the music. California illustrator Cole Gerst also contributed.
Their section, titled “S.E.A.R.C.H.” (Seeking Experimental Reality Causes Hallucinations), is a combination of animation and live-action film.
Zane, 10, plays a bored kid who invents a device to see the world differently. As he wanders around Atlanta, his heart-shaped invention transforms familiar scenes —- downtown, Freedom Park, an East Atlanta neighborhood —- into lively fantasies. The team spent 2 1/2 months, after work and on weekends, creating the 2 1/2-minute piece. And loved it.
“It was a chance to collaborate with friends and [exercise] creative freedom,” Florian says. “It was fun not knowing where it’s going.”
He will see the whole thing for the first time at the screening.
Florian also produced Gerst’s eco-themed, five-episode online animation series for the Sundance Channel, which will air this year.
“PSST 3.” 7:30 p.m. March 18. $5. Plaza Theater, 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta. 404-873-1939.
Matchless Music artist The Goldest has been getting some great press for its friggin awesome (and free) EP . It was recorded at Atlanta’s famed Southern Tracks studio, which has hosted Bruce Springsteen, Outkast and Pearl Jam among others, so you know the production is tight. More importantly though, the songwriting is spot on. Reviewers have been throwing around the Beatlesque adjective. In our book, any band that gets multiple reviews where “Beatlesque” is dropped deserves a listen. Check the reviews below and then go give The Goldest a listen.
From Stomp and Stammer…The Goldest are an Atlanta band on the rise whose bubbly, Beatlesque (yes I stooped to using that adjective!) power-pop is displayed to full effect on their delightful self-titled debut EP. There’s not a weak track among them, but Susannah Wallace’s sprightly vocals on the kinetic disc opener “Already Gone” help set a catchy standard that the remaining four songs are hard-pressed to match. Guests include James Hall, Tracey Clark and K.C. Reeves, who’s still my friend even though she got engaged to someone else.
From Flagpole Magazine…Athenians well know that just because a new band is made up exclusively of people already in other bands doesn’t mean it’s a “supergroup.” It might instead be a fun side project for everyone involved, which is exactly what The Goldest, which consists of five Atlantans who’ve recruited multiple guests onto their debut EP, seems to be, at least judging by their willingness to give away their music (you can download the whole thing at their MySpace page). It’s big for an EP, too, less in span than in sound. The opener, “Already Gold,” kicks off with big swathes of twinkle paired with surprisingly thumpy bass and a cymbal crash, then flowers into a kind of chugging, swirly prettiness that achieves a relaxed energy without being too calm. “Party Bus” is a little more rocking and becomes more interesting as it progresses, with big, Beatlesque harmonies that begin to pop in now and again and develop into the kind of yowly Robert Schneider wonderfulness Apples in Stereo has at its best. “FM Gold” sounds just the way it should, with a nice collection of lead male vocals and soft backing female tones, plus a chilled out, guitar-based feel that picks up speed as it moves along. You may have noticed that each song seems to grow and branch as its time elapses, which is a fair characterization and what makes the EP, as a whole, feel like more than its relatively short running time. If it’s a side project, it’s one benefiting from talent and the willingness of its participants to amuse themselves.
There’s been a great response on the web to Cartoon Network’s “Are You CN This” promo. It’s a music video for their 2009 schedule done in a tongue and cheek Crunk Hop style. Check it out and turn on your sub woofers if you got ‘em; there’s some serious 808 bass. It’s a lot of fun, and Matchless Music’s Ben Jastatt wrote the music and did it in a jiffy. So there you go…
Matchless artist and founder, Ben Jastatt was lucky enough to write some music for one of the short films featured in PSST! Pass It On 3. We’ll have more details when the project is released later this month. For now, here’s the skinny on the project and a sneak peak…
PSST! 3 is a collaborative film project. 17 films are currently being made by 51 teams of Designers, Directors, Animators and Composers.
The mission of PSST is to produce original short films through the collaboration of different teams of designers, directors, and animators. Each film is comprised of three sections produced by three different teams. This process is the whole idea behind PSST! – a technique derived from the Dadaist game of Exquisite Corpse and the children’s game Telephone and applied to the arts of motion graphics, animation and film-making.
PSST! is curated and organized by Bran Dougherty-Johnson of Grow Design Work. For more info, contact PSST!: psst@psstpassiton.com.
Check out the PSST! Pass It On 3 trailer below. (The music for the trailer was not composed by a Matchless Musician, but by the extremely talented Balun.)
