Some Lomo love courtesy of your music blog friends at Stereogum. In a collab between Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Lomography, our favorite camera makers are giving away a Diana+ photo package. Contest ends the 29th, so get your entries in!

I first caught a listen of ‘So Insane’ and thought instantly of my friend Chris (who sings for a fun band of his own). Chris likes prepped-up indie pop. At the same time, dude grew up on Blackstreet and whatnot and I won’t deny having bonded with him over some Ne-Yo and Chris Brown in the past.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZEBttGNyP0 540]

I figured if anyone had heard this — an electro-R&B side-project between Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij and Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot — it would definitely have been him. Turns out he hadn’t. So, maybe you haven’t either. Some beautiful weather this weekend, and I’ve been waking up to this every day.

Get it here, and stream the whole thing at http://dscvry.net.

From Guitarati, via Murketing –

So from now on, whenever you hear any music, try to feel a color. Do not force to see, but just let it occur to you. It might sound hard initially, but once you know how to do it, you are in for a surprise!

The idea is to further exploration of the color-music relationship, which Guitarati points out is ‘a concept that has been around for centuries.’ Explore the site and see for yourself. Pick a color that seems to fit your mood, and the site will direct you to a list of songs that ‘feel’ like that color. Quick side note: they charge $0.01 per song stream, so I’m curious to see how this business model plays out – as a recent book points out, “from the consumer’s perspective, there is a huge difference between cheap and free.”

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But, anyway, that’s not the main point, which is ‘what is it like to listen to a color?’ Along those lines, take my word and set aside a few minutes for the short film above titled ‘Synesthesia.’

This comes from the creative duo Terri Timely, via Kitsune Noir. It depicts, with some perfect visuals, what happens when people process their sensations in rather unconventional ways: smelling music, listening to food, and so on.

In the latest issue of Monocle, check out the Top 50 Things to Improve Your Life. Favourite trainers? I’m on board. Morning at the beach? Check. Matter of fact, go ahead and put me down for everything on this video list.

For the full Top 50, pick up the latest copy of Monocle wherever you can find it (whick shouldn’t be a task; they’ve got it at Barnes & Noble last I checked).

I really didn’t want to like this, but it turns out I do. I won’t fight it.

Turn this one up on the way to the beach this summer — especially if life ain’t easy and you’ve gotta take the bus to get there.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt6imgDYoTg 540]

The last time I visited the Met I came across a photograph of a train station that was shot using the Tilt-Shift technique – a technique in photography that creates images with extremely shallow depth of field. And by doing so, the shots almost look model-like or man-made.

One renowned photographer Olivo Barbieri (see above and below) has taken exceptionally interesting shots of famous locations all around the world using this technique.

Looks like the trend is on the rise, and for a good reason.

We bumped into Uniqlo’s most recent Internet campaign called Uniqlo Calendar featuring a very clean, nicely designed daily calendar that also provides local weather updates + time-elapsed, tilt-shifted photographs of places that you live in.

Brilliant! Another commercial product with built-in aesthetically pleasing art elements that we will not only gladly put to use, but stare at it hours on end.

PS. Last time we tried to download the calendar the website was stuck at 39%. You may want to come back later if it happens to you too.

I first read up on Kehinde Wiley in an old issue of Interview Magazine around the opening of his solo exhibition ‘Down’ at Deitch. What caught my attention was Wiley’s method of viewing young, black males through a fine art lens, often utilizing very classic, very traditional modes of representation in a way that wasn’t meant to be jarring but almost with a shrug and an air of ‘well-why-wouldn’t-you?’

Wiley’s taken that idea and moved it forward with ‘Black Light,’ his first monograph now available through powerHouse Books. ‘Black Light’ also includes essays contributed by Brian Keith Jackson and Krista A. Thompson.