Listen To/Download: Honeydrum “Pleasures of the Sun”

New Jersey’s Honeydrum  is equal parts Joy Division, Ariel Pink, Roxy Music and 80′s new wave sent through a dark filter of distortion and reverb. I really like how Pasta Primavera described Honeydrum’s sound:

Remember the other day you were strolling beachside when you spotted an old cassette tape washed up on the shore.  It was some random 80s new wave relic.  To your surprise it actually played on the stereo back at the beach house.  That night was chill.  Warped water damaged waves bled your mind into a sunset oblivion.

Pleasures of the Sun, Honeydrum’s sixth limited edition cassette EP for AMDISCS, is out now.

Watch more of Honeydrum’s music videos here

New Music Video: Sandwitches “Back to Sea” (aka Women Who Bowl)

San Francisco’s Sandwitches have been plugging away at their craft for a couple years now, sprinkling their barbed, alluring electric folk briars across unsuspecting gardens in the Bay Area and beyond. Previous releases, such as the swampy ecstasy of How To Make Ambient Sadcake and last year’s more expansive EP, Duck Duck Goose!, captured distinct sides of the trio.  Their latest album Mrs. Jones’ Cookies, which features the single “Back to Sea”, continues to unify their uniquely whimsical and creepy vision.

Mrs. Jones’ Cookies is out now via Empty Cellar Records

From the video’s director Caitlin Durlak:

Last season my Grandma’s bowling team called it there last. I was lucky enough to be there with my video camera and capture a bit of history. This Friday Gram turns another year older and I made her this music video as a gift. I hope that it brings a smile to your face, I know it helps cheer me up!

Watch: “Gulp” – The World’s Largest Stop-Motion Animation

Aardman, the British animation studio best known for their work on Wallace and Gromit, follows up their “world’s smallest stop-motion animation” with another record-setting stop-motion promotion for the Nokia N8.

‘Gulp‘ is a short film created by Sumo Science at Aardman, depicting a fisherman going about his daily catch. Shot on location at Pendine Beach in South Wales, every frame of this stop-motion animation was shot using a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics. The film has broken a world record for the ‘largest stop-motion animation set’, with the largest scene stretching over 11,000 square feet.

New Music Video: Veronica Falls “Come On Over”

“Come on Over” is from Veronica Falls’ upcoming self-titled debut LP, to be released in September on Slumberland Records. The video, filled with some pretty amazing dance choreography, was created by Brooklyn-based Army of Kids.

After a slew of critically acclaimed singles and well-received shows both here and in the UK, the quartet of Roxanne Clifford, Patrick Doyle, James Hoare and Marion Herbain, otherwise known as Veronica Falls are returning this autumn with their much anticipated self-titled debut LP. With their debut album, Veronica Falls have crafted a brilliantly concise, superbly concentrated hit of spiky, marvelously contagious indie pop with a twist – these are songs which will lodge themselves in your head as well as your heart, with style and attitude to burn. You’d do well to surrender to their eerie spell.

Watch: This Is Modern Art (documentary)

This Is Modern Art is a series written and presented by the English art critic Matthew Collings for BBC.

The series, originally released in 1999, won several awards including a BAFTA. It became popular both because of its sometimes jokey and sometimes thoughtful explanations of the work and attitude of a new wave of artists that had been publicized in the British mass media, and because of its author’s witty and irreverent, though highly informed, commentary style.

Collings focuses on the current state of modern art, and looks back at Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol to see how they changed the definition of art, and reveals the ways modern art attempts to shock the audience.

Collings also investigates whether the once accepted view of art as merely a thing of beauty prevails today, examining the works of various artists.

We’ve embedded all six episodes into one youtube playlist for your viewing pleasure.

Episode 1 – “I am a Genius”, shortlists Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol for the “genius” category.
Episode 2 – “Shock! Horror!”, opens with Damien Hirst’s vitrines of cut-up cows and goes on to an in-depth and welcome discussion of Goya.
Episode 3 – “Lovely, Lovely”, examines the idea of beauty: is it still a valid idea in Modern art?
Episode 4 – “Nothing Matters”, is devoted largely to Minimalism, starting with Martin Creed’s roomful of white balloons…
Episode 5 – “Hollow Laughter” is all about Modern art jokes or perhaps jokes used in Modern art.
Episode 6 –  ”The Shock of the Now”, asks: “Could it be indeed that the Modern art ‘we’ have chosen is vacuous or empty?”