Dave Gahan and the boys are back with a truly chilling video directed by Patrick Daughters. The clip’s a bit of a slow burn, but you’ll stick with it once the journey’s begun, trust me. It’s a car commercial gone horribly wrong…

Seems like Daughters is painting with a very dark brush for a director who may be best known for doing the charming, colorful and choreographed video for that catchy little Macbook Air song.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk_lZ37bUOM&feature=related
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hfn7EPM9CE

Then again, Mr. Daughters did get his start as the winner of Nintendo’s Eternal Darkness short-film contest in 2002 with his five-minute snapshot of insanity below:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50Yd0eVQfk8

Spotted on Bobby’s Kitsune Noir, the work of Levi van Veluw — ‘one seriously weird guy‘ bringing us some intense self-portraits from the Netherlands.

van Veluw has always worked with real materials, doing both the ‘styling’ and shooting himself with no digital manipulation. From covering his face with materials like wood and pebbles to creating full forest scenes, the preparations for each portrait can stretch over the course of a full 24 hours.

With his new ‘Light‘ project, van Veluw explores the face as form, taping light-generating foil all over his head to minimize any discernible facial features, separating the head and face out as an autonomous object. It looks so computer-generated, but it’s the exact opposite. Watch him spin — it’s mesmerizing…

A man after my own heart, Brooklyn-based artist Cory Arcangel is a conduit to the world of two of my favorite things – art and videogames. Arcangel’s interactive and video works are at once nostalgic and progressive, reflective of the relationship between culture and technology. His often interactive, mostly nostalgic works present modified versions of existing multimedia entities, such as videogames or short films. Super Mario Clouds (pictured above, video below), my personal favorite, is currently being featured at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in an exhibition called Synthetic.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkkJaqBbXV8

Another of Arcangel’s video game inspired works, I Shot Andy Warhol, is actually a reworking of the 1984 Nintendo classic Hogan’s Alley. Where in the original, the player had to avoid shooting innocent civilians while hitting the target-marked “bad guys,” the Arcangel version instead encourages players to shoot three different, pixelated versions of Andy Warhol, sparing the lives of Col. Sanders, Flavor Flav, and The Pope.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRKy0nYCvTQ

For more information on Cory Arcangel, as well as downloadable versions of some of his modified games, visit his internet portfolio at the Beige Records website.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac

This is old news, circa 1969, but with help from YouTube, we now have an royalty free, audio explanation on one of the modern music’s most important and widely used drum loops. The “Amen Break,” a 6 second drum solo by The Winstons, has been sampled, used and reused, even decomposed to spawn different music genres such as Drum-and-Bass, Jungle, etc. The video is a little bit long, and goes on talking about music copyright development, but we at GEDDEM feel it is something that everyone who’s into music should know.

With a name that translates literally to ‘playful sex’ (the Japanese colloquialism for ‘casual sex’) and lyrics in both Japanese and English, this Brooklyn-based duo put out a new album titled ‘Hush’ last week — and I came this close to missing the boat.

I remember seeing the album recommendation in last month’s issue of Monocle and wrote it off then. Yes, I trust the publication for a lot, but music tips are a different matter entirely. What does some fancy, Prada-suited jet-setting writer employed in one of Monocle’s bureauxs know about music?

Enough, apparently.  Asobi Seksu has garnered many a comparison to My Bloody Valentine — rarely a bad sign, so long as the comparison isn’t inaccurate and lazy — but they’ve gone another way on ‘Hush.’ The guitars are toned down, and frontwoman Yuki Chikudate’s breathy vocals are front-and-center. This is exactly what I like, it just took some special circumstances to help me find it on my own. It turns out they’ve recorded a session for Daytrotter, a music site that’s welcomed a couple home-state friends (singer-songwriter Caleb Engstrom and indie rockers The Beat Strings). From the Daytrotter write-up:

“The only poster that’s garnered a mention is the poster that we received from Asobi Seksu on this day in late January (the 26 th of the year 2007). One out of every three or four bands through our door has posed the question, “Asobi Seksu recorded here?”’

Check out their new album, out now on Polyvinyl, along with a question-and-answer session for Interview Magazine.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYuDBdVj8_k

And here’s the video for ‘Me and Mary,’ the first single off the album with animation done in-camera (no green screens) by Brooklyn illustrator Dan-ah Kim and put together with the help of director Aaron Stewart-Ahn. Polyvinyl’s press info mentions the two met while working on a project for director Michel Gondry, presumably something for Be Kind Rewind as Stewart-Ahn discusses on his blog for Giant Robot.

Kim and Stewart-Ahn

The tip-off comes from Scout Mag that the Objectified blog now has tickets on sale for special New York screenings of the documentary on April 9th.

Director Gary Hustwit (of Helvetica notoriety, natch) will be in attendance, along with certain unnamed designers featured in the film, for post-screening Q&A sessions and general gawking. Start speculating now — will they fly in Dieter Rams from Germany? Marc Newson from London or Paris?

The all-white clad New York resident Karim Rashid, recently featured in The New York Times Thursday Home section for a show he’s curating at the Museum of Arts and Design entitled ‘Totally Rad: Karim Rashid Does Radiators,’ wouldn’t have far to travel. And, come on — there’s always the off chance you’ll get to kick back with Mr. Jonathan Ive…

Tickets are $25 and there will be two screenings on Thursday, April 9th at the School of Visual Arts.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBgf2ZxIDZk

Our recent topics related to BigBeat artists such as Fatboy Slim reminded me of Chemical Brother’s Star Guitar music video (see above) made by director Michael Gondry (director of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, also often cited along-side with Spike Jonze).

A closer look at the youtube video reveals the interesting frame of reference effect, whereby all objects appearing on screen synchronized with Chemical Brothers’ electro beats. Gondry deployed the same science in Daft Punk’s “Around the World” MV, this time, with people acting like robots.

And on the other side of the world, Japan based graphic/product design firm Groovision also has their take on frame of reference. Its GRV DVD’s, based on Japan’s very own Shibuya-Kei kind of groove, are looping, graphical music videos best played at a big party through a 60″ flat screen, or that newly imported projector of yours. These wacky animated figures walking around the city chasing after a horse at 116 beats per minute will surely keep your guests entertained.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZDkURlYOn8