RCRD LBL is an online record label releasing exclusive and completely free music from emerging and established artists. In addition to our in-house label, our network includes a roster of independent record labels offering free MP3 downloads and multimedia content. read more
If you're headed to the Winter Music Conference in Miami (March 25th - 29th), you might be lucky enough to catch some of legeandary DJ Sasha’s magic. We here at SEEN are very happy to be able to offer a pair of tickets to the opening night of the Sasha and John Digweed tour at Mansion in Miami along with tickets to a private event hosted by Sasha, with a screening of New Emissions Of Light And Sound, a beautiful surf movie that Sasha scored. Spooky will also be DJing this event.
SEEN is a place to discover music and its boundary-pushing uses in visual media, including film, TV, ads, and pop culture. Unlike most of our RCRD LBL brothers and sisters, we are not a record label; if we have any music that you can download, it's because the artists and their labels were kind enough to provide it to us. We're simply a blog written by a small group of passionate individuals. If it's dope music that's been SEEN, you can read about it - and comment about it - here.
SEEN have really outdone themselves this week, posting MP3s from Fink, Jupiter One, and an exclusive song today from General Elektriks, a bay area hip hop band whose “Death of an ‘80s Limo” features Beans and some dirty throwback/throw down beats worthy of the best of the heavy ‘90s rappers. Check it out over at the SEEN blog.
Not the original graphic novel author Alan Moore apparently. But that doesn’t mean we won’t check it out when it’s released (ages away), March 6th, 2009. But as Moore’s pedigree includes League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and V For Vendetta (both with equal prior beefs with Hollywood), there is much soon-to-be had hype for the project. The Watchmen was originally published by DC comics as a 12-comic book series between 1986 and 1987, before it was culled into a trade paperback. Remarkably for a graphic novel, it won a prestigious Hugo Award in 1998. Straight off the helming duties of “300”, Zack Snyder is directing this adaptation and is turning himself into something of a pedigree also. He really tore it up on Frank Miller’s graphic novel.
We’re really wondering what music lushness could be created from such a fantastic story. Just announced today, director Zack Snyder is signing on his "300" composer Tyler Bates to create the dark soundscapes for this one.
Synopsis: Watchmen, based on the award winning graphic novel by Alan Moore, is set in an alternate 1985 America where costumed heroes are a part of the world's history, and the "Doomsday Clock", which measures the tension between the USA and the U.S.S.R. is constantly at five minutes to midnight. Rorschach, a vigilante who refused to retire when his teammates did, is drawn out by the murder of one of his colleagues, and pulled into a world-wide conspiracy with terrifying implications for the future of mankind.
Watchmen stars Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Matthew Goode, Stephen McHattie, Carla Gugino and Matt Frewer. Watchmen opens across America on March 6th, 2009.
A smiley pin never looked so good.
Check out this great interiew with Zack Snyder on the upcoming epic:
In honor of the on-going writers strike (fingers crossed) we are inaugurating a new on-going series of classic videos with Black Flag's "TV Party". Have you guys tried to watch TV recently? If you thought here was nothing on before, it's really gone to shiite now (except for maybe this). The above vid features a young Henry Rollins, Greg Ginn and band rocking out to a crazy bass line and drinking brews while they catch their favorite shows without having to leave the comfort of their couch. Now that there's not much on TV maybe we'll venture into the outside world and catch the Masta Ace show.
DJ Spooky, aka Paul D. Miller, continues to push boundaries with music and visuals. Tomorrow night at Sundance he'll unveil a very early, work-in-progress version of his ambitious Terra Nova: Antarctica Suite project. This massive work (which according to management will be fully complete in December 2009) will attempt to represent the rapidly changing, distressed environment of Antarctica through acoustic sound, mainly through the sound of ice from Paul's field recordings. Al Gore will be bumping this in his iPod.
Apparently this sounded nutty (and awesome) enough to get the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dartmouth College, and others to help commission the Washington D.C.-based producer/DJ/experimentalist, and to enlist the generosity and support of Getty Images to lend amazing visuals. Long known for collaborating with progressive artists like Saul Williams, Sasha, Chuck D. and Kool Keith (among countless others), sounds like DJ Spooky will now collaborate with Mother Earth herself. We love hearing artists moving a message through music – stay tuned to SEEN to hear more on this as the project develops.
Here's a rough demo of what the project will be about:
Details on tomorrow's live performance (not to be missed if you're in Park City):
Tuesday, January 22 at 9pm @ Sundance Film Festival
333 Main Street (lower level)
Open to all Festival credential holders and the general public as space permits.
Our brothers at Ghostly tipped us to one of our favorite electronic artists, Lusine, scoring the new Sam Rockwell/Kate Beckinsale film called “Snow Angels” (theatrical release March ‘08) with longtime collaborator David Wingo. If you’ve read our “Radiohead vs. Hans Zimmer” post, you know we drool at the thought of dope artists scoring dope films, so we had to hear more about it. Lusine, aka Jeff McIlwain, took some time on the phone to chat about his creative process, the difference between scoring films and making albums, and what’s next for Lusine. He and Ghostly were also kind enough to offer up a free download of the track “Locks” that he wrote with David Ringo, so click here to download the mp3 and CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW AND FILM TRAILER.
Despite the yawns over this year's struck Golden Globes, some serious shit went down. Mad Men won for TV's best drama, and the show's Jon Hamm won for best lead actor. This show came out of nowhere and is the best thing on right now. Again, it's off network (it's AMC's first ever drama) and it begs the question how will the networks ever catch up to cable? It's 1960 New York City and "Advertising is Happiness." It's the America that's not yet grown up through Kennedy and Vietnam, women are seen as second class citizens, and smoking is still cool.
The mad and ruthless advertising world is shaping the heart of the American Dream. This cut-throat world is so ego driven (nothing new there) that it's a wonder these people could sleep at night. Maybe that's why it's constant cocktail hour. What's refreshing about this show is the stellar writing and fantastic performances. It's a lush bygone era that's so similar to today, it's amazing. We’re sure Madison Avenue is hooked. The music is perfect too, with music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas dishing up classic tunes from Bobby Vinton, Gordon Jenkins and Don Cherry. Main title is the whacky "Beautiful Mine" by RJD2 (Def Jux) and Amy Winehouse's "You Know I'm No Good" was on promo duty earlier in the season.
Music highlight from the series premiere: The song that plays through the surprise reveal that Draper is married with kids is Vic Damone's take on the My Fair Lady song "On The Street Where You Live". The sentiment of the song makes it feel like Draper adores his family, but is really just visiting them as his real home is back in the city. And let's not forget that My Fair Lady is about a woman giving up her dreams of a career to marry an emotionally stunted rich man, something that the secretaries at the agency all seem to aspire to.
Playlist: Mad Men - Ep101
1. "Band Of Gold" - Don Cherry - Draper talks to waiter in bar
2. "Shangri-La" - Robert Maxwell - burlesque show
3. "Caravan" - Arthur Fiedler - men commute home to the suburbs
4. "On The Street Where You Live" - Vic Damone - Draper with wife and
kids/credits
Check out the trailer here. It's on Thursdays at 10pm on AMC.
Despite the fact that the writer’s strike has forced many of our favorite shows into repeats for the new year, there is a crop of new shows with scripts completed just before the strike began. With the growing trend of TV shows using more and more music, here is an update on some of the new shows that will feature interesting soundtracks.
"Quarterlife" is a show that is actually comprised of thirty-six 8 minute episodes that will originally air as webisodes on the social networking site of the same name and on Myspace. The show will then air on NBC as an hour long drama in six episodes. Quarterlife follows the lives of young artists (including a band) who are using a the social networking site to help promote themselves and advance their careers. Music supervisor Jen Ross has brought some new and fresh sounds to the show including one of our favorite LA shoegaze bands Helen Stellar. All of the bands who's music appears in the show can be tracked down through their own Quarterlife pages where you'll be able to find music, videos and interviews.
Six Feet Under producer Alan Poul is taking us back to the 70s with "Swingtown" (trailer above). It's kind of like Dazed And Confused but about adults. The show is about a couple who move to a new neighborhood and discover that their friendly neighbors are swingers. Fortunately for us they are into it. Since the show takes place in the 70s music is key and the pilot we saw was chock full of the hits everybody knows and loves from rock to R&B. We also hear that in addition to all of the licensed music the show it will feature original music provided by Liz Phair. Keep posted to SEEN for an interview with music supervisor Gary Calamar in the very near future.
Alan Ball, another Six Feet Under producer, is back on HBO with a new series called "True Blood". Vampires who ingest synthetic blood and frequent a Louisiana roadhouse will be the center of the series. Alan Ball and music supervisor Gary Calamar promise a soundtrack heavy show with blues influences as well as more contemporary regional sounds from Louisiana. Look out for songs from Jim White, Joseph Arthur, and C.C. Adcock to be some of the featured sounds.
Keep it locked on SEEN for updates on these and other new shows featuring good music as SEEN on TV.
Top on some critics’ lists and back in the theaters for potential Oscar nomination, SEEN would be remiss if we failed to talk about "CONTROL", the Ian Curtis and Joy Division story. It's rumored that Anton Corbijn put up his own money to complete the film. He also first took the band’s famed pictures in 1979, before they became household names. So if he gets a nod, then fair play to the man. The British press loved the film that superbly captures a 70's Northern England. Fantastic performance by Sam Riley that got a lot of attention at Cannes last year. It's a cold look at what happens if you write great songs, join a rock band and discover you have epilepsy. The band are seminal in most peoples’ minds as to the influence they had on music. See the film and name 10 bands who wouldn't be here without their influence. Looks like a DVD release for March 2008.
To whet your appetite for the DVD release, or to get you back into the theater, check out two great videos for "Shadowplay": one's a rare live TV performance from Joy Division and the other is the Killers version made for the film:
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