Please Hold
Boicozine is taking a short break over the Crimbo period. We’ll be back again real soon with more Reviews of the Year amongst various other sub-cultural oddities. If you’re having a break over the Christmas period, have an excellent time and we’d like to thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for taking the time to drop by Boicozine to see what’s shakin’. Be seeing you.
— The Management
Filthy Chrimbo
The usual batch of Christmas Carols not cutting it? Sick of listening to soleless freaks like Mariah Carey wailing away about Crimbo shite? Filthy Little Angels once again offer their annual antidote to the seasonal malaise. Visit [filthylittleangels.com] and yule be able to download Christmas tracks for free, from this year’s compilation as well as selections from previous years. ‘Yule’… geddit… I kill me. :)
Review 2007: The Music
2007 was the year ‘Indie’ died. The finger of blame rests on the head certain Big Brother muppet [emilyparr.co.uk], who stepped up to represent a whole swarming herd of spoilt little posh girls (or Sophies as they are often called), who spent most of this year slumming it in Camden’s seedy skank pits, getting drunk on the pheromones of a barely talented bunch of young, male major label fodder. Suddenly, ‘indie’ was not about music anymore… it was about your boyfriend and his pork pie hat and potential heroin ‘problem’ or whatever lank haired whiner had been mentioned in Vogue this month [vogue.co.uk].
This was also the year Radiohead out foxed the majors and left the likes of Robbie Williams and those of a similar ilk, clinging hopelessly to their skeletal remains [news.bbc.co.uk] — this is one story that is going to run and run. Luckily, all this rubbish ‘indie’ and major label hullabaloo barely registered with bands and artists who were making music to cherish in 2007. This is a very brief selection of favourite tracks and releases discovered this year. Consider it a recommendation and if you’ve got any yourself post a comment and let us know what topped your most played lists this year.
Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer?
Of Montreal
Fave track: Bunny ain’t no kind of Rider
[ofmontreal.net]
Inland Empire
Soundtrack
Standout track: Walking on the Sky
[imdb.com]
Lust Lust Lust
The Ravonettes
Standout track: You Want the Candy
[youtube.com]
Tromatic Reflexxions
Von Südenfed
Standout track: The Rhinohead
[dominorecordco.com]
Friend Opportunity
Deerhoof
Standout track: +81
[deerhoof.killrockstars.com]
Dreams
The Whitest Boy Alive
Standout track: Burning
[whitestboyalive.com]
A Drink and a Quick Decision
Grand National
Standout track: Close Approximation
[grand-national.net]
Death by Sexy
Eagles of Death Metal
Standout track: Cherry Cola
[youtube.com]
Overpowered
Róisín Murphy
Standout track: Body Language
[youtube.com]
Midnight Karaoke
Midnight Mike
Standout track: Amputee
[therepublicofdesire.com]
Don’t Forget to Breathe
There was a happier time when water was clean, people were neat and the air was pure. Sceptical? You need to talk to the folks at Duram [duramproducts.com.au]. Stop by their website for some of the strangest pictures you’ll ever see including the post-apocalyptic ‘Athena’ Man below [news.bbc.co.uk]. (Editor’s Note: my fave is the yellow storm-trooper style ‘mask’ the guy is wearing in the pic with the teddy bears and flowers — too crappy quality to post here but well worth a look).
Review 2007: Things of the Year #3
uovo green edition, produced by The Bookmakers and designed by boletsfernando [boletsfernando.org/uovo].
Review 2007: Jeremy Leslie
Jeremy Leslie is Group Creative Director at John Brown Publishing [johnbrowngroup.co.uk], fellow blogging enthusiast and champion to magazine designers across the globe. His blog over at MagCulture [magculture.com/blog] is essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in magazines and the business of magazine design. In between managing the creative output at John Brown and helping organise the next Colophon event [welovemags.com] he managed to send us a few of his highlights from the past 12 months…
Publications
Monocle [monoclemagazine.com] because its genuinely new; 032c [032c.com] because it divided people so decisively; Kasino A4 [wearekasino.com] because it makes me laugh; Carls Cars [carls-cars.com] because it carries on; Time [blog.pentagram.com] redesign because it rethinks mainstream news design /
Music
According to iTunes, Not Even Jail by Interpol [google.com/music] /
Best Film
Control [IMDb]; weird seeing my musical youth so convincingly recreated /
Events & Exhibitions
Colophon2007 [welovemags.com]; not because I am one of the founders exist but because it was really exciting how our expectations of what it could be were exceeded. Roll on Colophon2009.
Shown above is the official book (and event in it’s own right), produced for the Colophon2007 event. Design and Creative Direction by Jeremy Leslie.
Review 2007: Things of the Year #2
I Hate Music compliation for Output Recordings. Compiled and designed by Trevor Jackson [outputrecordings.com].
in Graphic Design / Music / Review 2007 / Things
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All This Scratching is Making Me Sniff
Scratch and Sniff’s not dead, it just smells a bit funny. Originally created in the early 80s as teaching aids to reward clever students, Scratch and Sniff stickers became a bit of a phenomenon ‘back in the day’ and lead to all manner of bubblegum scented malarkey (remember pens with scented ink). Although now looking pretty dated, their designs remain a legacy of a decade when the world went day-glo. Bubbledog has a pretty comprehensive archive of sticker designs you can check out [bubbledog.com/sns] (some of which are shown here). You could even pick some sheets up from Bubbledog’s eBay page.
Santa Will Be Watching
All ya’ll get down to The Design Grotto [thedesigngrotto.com] this weekend. Simon Whybray (ie Me) will be giving out these über mega super fun badges. There are only 25 of each so you better track him down quickly, and he’s only giving them out this weekend argh!
Review 2007: Alex Bec
As part of the Boicozine Review of the Year 2007, we’re asking a bunch of top creative practitioners for their opinions on the highlights and the lowlifes of the year. First up is Mr Alex Bec [alexbec.com]. It’s been a hectic year for Mr Bec. After graduating from Brighton and working on a handful of projects, with Will Hudson [willhudson.co.uk] under the moniker, ‘ifyoucould’ [ifyoucould.co.uk], Alex has gone onto completing various illustration commissions both in the UK and overseas, exhibiting work at various shows such as the recent Polygon Show [polygonshow.com] and helping art direct this year’s YCN annual, ‘Book 0708′ [ycnonline.com/book0708]. Currently working with the Peepshow [peepshow.org.uk] collective and exhibiting at The Design Grotto [thedesigngrotto.com], this is Alex’s pick of the year…
Publications
My lasting impression of publications in 2007 has been the whole ‘new ugly’ thing which hasn’t really filled me with excitement. So I’m going for the classic printing of 032c by Node Design from 2002 [nodeberlin.com/032c] which shows up it’s older, uglier brother [032c.com]. If I have to choose something from 2007 then I’d go for the fantastic Hand Job by Mike Perry [midwestisbest.com], exciting from start to finish /
Music
Alela Diane ‘Pirate’s Gospel’ [aleladiane.com] has been an absolute saviour for me in 2007, heartfelt and beautiful throughout. Most listened to would have to be ‘Closer’ by Joy Division [google.com/music] in memory of the late great Tony Wilson, or as Mike (editor’s note: that’s me!) knows, a fair bit of The Fall [visi.com/fall] /
Film
Control [IMDb] had me totally mesmerised /
Design & Illustration
This is a very difficult one, and almost impossible to choose. So I won’t go for anything in particular, but the rise of Alex Trochut [alextrochut.com] has been fantastic and Benoit Lemoine’s [lemoinebenoit.eu] ‘Vernacular’ made me smile /
Events & Exhibitions
EXIT festival [exitfest.org] in Serbia was a joy as always and Anthony Gormley at the Hayward [southbankcentre.co.uk/gormley] definitely deserves a mention for sheer audacity /
Purchases
‘Walk Away Rene’ by Hipgnosis [sound.jp/hipgnosis]. Humbling /
Places to Visit
You can never beat a bit of going home for mum’s cooking /
Worst Thing about this year
The London Paper
The image above is part of Alex’s recent work with Peepshow for the upcoming 2008 Creative Review Handbook [chb.com].
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