Mindblowing revelation… Richard Kern directed this video.

The Swedes must possess some sort of enchanted musical Allen key, because it does seem like they have a magical gift for putting together damn fine pop albums. Lykke Li along with The Concretes, The Knife, Peter Bjorn and John, Robyn and Shout Out Louds are all blazing down the path that was paved by ABBA. Unfortunately, Sweden’s rock legacy isn’t as storied.

Swedish pop occupies a no man’s land. It’s simultaneously able to thrive on tastemaker websites like Pitchfork and Fader and in the dregs of popular culture on soundtracks for Gossip Girl, Gray’s Anatomy and Twilight. And isn’t that the mark of great pop music? That you can stick it on a Twilight soundtrack and the too-cool-for-school music nerds are still forced to begrudgingly concede that it’s great?

So Lykke Li has a new album titled Wounded Rhymes and, of course, it’s produced by Bjorn Yttling of PB&J, it’s kind of angsty, and it’s fantastic. Ho hum, right? Well not so fast. What’s not predictable about this album is that Lykke Li’s ditched a lot of the saccharine sweetness of her 2008 debut Youth Novel and, as clichéd as it sounds, put out a far more mature and interesting album.

She definitely wasn’t slacking between releases. Yes, there was that song she did for the New Moon soundtrack, which probably did nothing to increase her fanbase. But there were also collaborations with Kanye West, on N.A.S.A.’s The Spirit of Apollo and Drake, who rapped over/sampled “A Little Bit” for a mixtape. Dabbling with hip hop wasn’t a massive shift for her, though, as it was always a part of Lykke Li’s live show, where you’ll likely hear a Rick Ross or Lil Wayne cover during the encore. But the desire to experiment clearly carried over onto this record.

With Wounded Rhymes, we’re not witnessing a complete re-brand, but the music is much darker, seductive and layered. The first single “Get Some,” a dancey tribal number, was released last November. Along with a new sound it would appear she’s trying to shed her cute Swedish girl image in favour of something artier and more sexed up. There’s a lot of gyrating, her underwear’s bejeweled with spikes and the chorus goes, “Like a shotgun needs an outcome. I’m your prostitute. Come get some.” But before you think she’s trying to become Sweden’s answer to Lady Gaga, the recently released single “I Follow Rivers” is a much more subdued number, in which Lykke Li assumes the role of that one weird girlfriend you had who was obsessed with you for no good reason.

All in all, Wounded Rhymes has the dark strangeness of Karin Dreijer Andersson (The Knife and Fever Ray) and the dance flavour of Robyn. With this successful sophomore effort, Lykke Li has earned her place in the canon of modern Swedish pop music. What else can one say but “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”

This article was published on The Tyee on March 10, 2011.

Richard Kern directing Toronto’s Dentata in their video “Earwig”.

Nick Gurewitch, at it again. This time with a western series.

Here’s a look at some of the gallery work by my favourite artist Bäst. There isn’t much information available about him online and his website is kinda of barren. Hopefully this will give you an idea why I dig his art so much.

www.bastny.com

www.getradkids.com

Here’s another site I just finished for my friends Anna and Jon at Nobasura. They wanted a site similar to mine for their modeling agency Rad Kids. I must say, between this site and the Barbarella site I just made, I’m getting really sick and tired of staring at photos of models in their underwear all day long. LIFE IS TOUGH SOMETIMES.

Oh hey, just finished up a nice new website for Barbarella. Check it out…
www.barbarellahair.com

Have you heard the one about the talking mouse, The Dude and the two French robots? You probably have. In the summer of 2008, at Comic-Con in San Diego, Disney released teasers that confirmed a sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic TRON was in the works and Jeff Bridges would reprise his role as Flynn. Finally, this guy’s life has meaning again.

Shooting began for TRON: Legacy in spring 2009 in Vancouver, but the biggest surprise was yet to come. At 2009’s Comic-Con, Disney revealed that Daft Punk was producing original music for the film. It’s safe to say adults have never been this excited for the soundtrack to a Disney film. The undisputed kings of dance music partner with the biggest force in entertainment on a TRON sequel: it’s almost too perfect to be true.

But pretty much everything the French duo of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have ever done is perfect. They’ve penned some of the most memorable dance songs of all time, accompanied by equally unforgettable music videos that introduced the world to Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry.

Of their three albums of original material, two—Homework and Discovery—are bona fide classics. Their live album successfully captures the magic of the 2007 tour like few other live albums have. And let’s not forget about this little collaboration with Kanye West. Maybe these guys really are robots?

It almost seems like their whole career has been leading up to TRON: Legacy. But as tantalizing as this brand collaboration is, the album itself probably won’t get a lot of replays from even the most diehard of Daft Punk fans. It consists of 22 tracks, and depending on where you get the album — HMV, iTunes, Amazon, or Pirate Bay — there are another eight bonus tracks floating around. The majority of the songs are snippets, some as short as 1:22, and they mix electronic and orchestral elements (an 85-piece orchestra was enlisted for the soundtrack but it really only sounds like a 75-piece orchestra, if you ask me). The straight-up orchestral tracks sound like something from a Christopher Nolan film and the songs that blend orchestral with electronic aren’t much to get excited about. However, there are three tracks— “Derezzed,” “End of Line” and “TRON Legacy (End Titles)”—that will keep fans happy until the next album or tour.

If you don’t like Daft Punk, this won’t change your mind. The album, as a whole, feels more like a TRON: Legacy score than a soundtrack by Daft Punk. If you do like Daft Punk, you probably don’t give a fuck what anyone says about this album, and you’ll listen to it anyways. It’s possible that you didn’t even care about the movie until you heard about the soundtrack or that Bangalter and de Homem-Christo have a brief cameo in it. But if you have kids and you can trick them into liking this album, car trips just got a whole lot more tolerable.

this article was published on The Tyee on December 2100

Andrew WK – I Get Wet
[audio:http://www.whatsupmann.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/11-andrew-wk-i-get-wet.mp3|titles= I Get Wet]

N.W.A. – Straight Outta Compton (Kid 606 remix)
[audio:http://www.whatsupmann.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/N.W.A.-Straight-Outta-Compton-Kid-606-remix.mp3|titles=Straight Outta Compton (Kid 606 remix)]

Orange Juice – Rip it Up
[audio:http://www.whatsupmann.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/01-Rip-It-Up.mp3|titles=Rip It Up]

The Undertones – Teenage Kicks
[audio:http://www.whatsupmann.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/02-Teenage-Kicks.mp3|titles=Teenage Kicks]

Here are some of the opening credits from Gaspar Noe’s Enter The Void. They give you a better idea of what the movie is all about than the trailer does. Opens next week in Vancouver.

Got asked by the good people at Issuu.com to write a post for their blog. I was incredibly flattered so naturally it took me 2.5 months to bang out 400 words for them. FYI, I’d also add Hobo, Inventory and Color to the list of great indies being produced in Vancouver right now (didn’t include them because for some insane reason they don’t use Issuu).

Oh, and give a listen to Martin from Issuu’s band Epic Typo. They’re excellent:
www.epictypo.com/listen

A great little secret of the publishing world is that there’s a thriving independent magazine scene in Vancouver right now. Along with the magazine I edit, ION, there are numerous stylish indies—like The Block and The Lab—being produced on Canada’s West Coast. These magazines are as good as anything on the newsstands and, in a lot of cases, far more interesting.

The rewards that come with working in independent publishing are too numerous to list. Unfortunately, money isn’t one on them. You wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at them, but the magazines I listed aren’t produced in Madison Avenue skyscrapers. Rather, they get made in people’s apartments on shoestring budgets. There’s no money for writers or elaborate fashion shoots… ‘The September Issue‘ it ain’t. It’s the passion, tenacity and resourcefulness of the staff and not a massive financial windfall that keeps these publications going.

At an independent publication, you have to wear many hats. Aside from editing ION and coordinating its production, I also made the website and update it (sometimes I’m a janitor too). I enjoy updating the website but it’s not something I always have time to do. And because there’s no money, we can’t hire a team of web nerds to maintain the site for us. But it’s not like we can just stop updating the site, you might as well stop printing if you’re going to do that. This is where we’ve found Issuu to come in really handy. It takes minutes to upload a file and even less time to embed it on our site.

Aside from saving us a lot of time, I’ve found that Issuu has actually helped us cut down on our mailing costs. If you email me and want a copy of the magazine, I’ll send a link to Issuu. Did we do an article on your band/art/clothing? Here’s a link to the specific article we did. It may sound cheap (because it is) but these little cost cutting tricks add up. No one ever complains either because Issuu is the best way to experience flipping through a magazine on a computer screen.

On a monthly basis, some new company emails us to say that they have our web publishing solution. That they can help us produce an amazing digital edition for the low monthly cost of $300. Ninety-nine percent of the time their “solutions” are clunky, ugly and in some cases, nauseating as they want to place their own text ads all over the magazine.

Thanks but no thanks… we’ll stick with Issuu.

New work from Devitt Brown.
www.theblackdogscomebarking.tumblr.com

Brian has a show currently going on at The Show & Tell Gallery in Toronto titled Obedience & Savagery. It runs till November 28.
www.briandonnelly.org
www.showandtellgallery.com