Les Mains Noires

"LesMainsNoires.blogspot.net is a project with multiple facets destined to all curious and to music & images lovers. In a society where culture is hidden by a mass education, it seems necessary to me to contribute, to my scale, to preservation and
sharing of world musical patrimony. That's why this place is dedicated to worldwide forgotten musical gems, contemporary music company and people who give their life to find, preserve and share music & culture."
Les Mains Noires (Video)
YouTube: Papa Yankson - Wogye W'enyaado - Obi Pe Wo A Pen Bi (Medley), Kamal Ahmed feat. Noor Jehan - I Am Very Sorry, Ama Maiga - Deny Tologuelen, Robert Loison - Jean Fouillé Pie Foui, Fred Williams & The Jewel Band - Tell Her, L'Orchestre Kanaga De Mopti - Kanaga

Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia

Paul Gauguin: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1898)
"The theme of an earthly paradise, or Arcadia, has been popular in theater, poetry, music, and art since antiquity. In France during the early 1900s, this idea of a mystical place of contentment and harmony was especially potent--illustrated in mural-sized paintings which were often commissioned for public viewing."
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Yale: Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse, Visions of Arcadia
ArtFinder

Henry Hills

"Henry Hills has made 22 short experimental films since 1975. ... He received an M.F.A. in filmmaking in 1978 from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he studied with James Broughton, George Kuchar, and Hollis Frampton. His early San Francisco films (Porter Springs 1-3 and the North Beach series) are ornate, intensely rhythmic single-frame silent landscape studies."
Henry Hills
PennSound: Henry Hills - Experimental Video and Film (Video)
amazon: Henry Hills: Selected Films 1977-2008
YouTube: Gotham, SSS

Shemekia Copeland

Wikipedia - "Shemekia Copeland (born April 10, 1979)[2] is an American electric blues vocalist. Copeland was born in Harlem, New York City, United States. She is the daughter of Texas blues guitarist and singer Johnny Copeland. She began to pursue a singing career in earnest at age 16, when her father's health began to decline; he took Shemekia on tour as his opening act, which helped establish her name on the blues circuit."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Never Going Back to Memphis, Beat Up Old Guitar 2001, Shemekia Copeland & Robert Cray - I Pity The Fool, Turn the Heat Up, My own tears, Talking to Strangers, When A Woman's Had Enough, The Other Woman, Lionel Hampton

Beautiful Abandoned Train Stations From All Over the World

Abandoned Station in Abkhazia
"Here at Flavorpill, we’re suckers for gorgeous photographs of abandoned and decaying spaces, and of course, for lovely architecture, no matter what state it’s in. Recently, we showed you some of the most beautiful train stations in the world – but what happens when those gorgeous places run their course? Though much beautiful architecture tends to fall to pieces beautifully, we think there’s something particularly fascinating about looking at a place that was once such a bustling center of activity after it has gone to seed, a specific feeling of lack that imbibes the place with an eerie glow."
Flavorpill

The Gladiators

Wikipedia - "The Gladiators are a Jamaican roots reggae band, most popular during the 1970s. The core was Albert Griffiths (guitarist and singer), Clinton Fearon (bassist and singer) and Gallimore Sutherland rhythm guitar and singer. The two most famous albums are Trenchtown Mix Up (1976) and Proverbial Reggae (1978) with songs as 'Hearsay', 'Jah Works', 'Dreadlocks the Times is Now'. 'Mix Up', 'Music Makers from Jamaica', and 'Soul Rebel' – a song written by The Wailers. Gladiators also cooperated with the toaster U-Roy."
Wikipedia
last.fm
YouTube: The Gladiators recording session, Soul Rebel, Jah Works, Look Is Deceiving, Jah Jah Time has come, The rich man poor man, The Race, Man of Stone, No Wrong Ideas, Get Ready

Realism

Woman with a Rake, 1856–57 - Jean-François Millet
Wikipedia - "Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation and 'in accordance with secular, empirical rules.' ... Realism often refers more specifically to the artistic movement, which began in France in the 1850s. Realism in France appears after the 1848 Revolution. These realists positioned themselves against romanticism, a genre dominating French literature and artwork in the late 18th and early 19th centuries."
Wikipedia
Realism (1850-1880)
Met Museum: Nineteenth-Century French Realism

Johnny Cash Show Compilation

"Skillful, top notch compilation of many of the classic moments from Johnny Cash's eponymous TV program, including those from: The Monkees, Roy Clark, Joni Mitchell, The Guess Who, Carl Perkins, Stevie Wonder, Roy Orbison, CCR, Bob Dylan, and Derek and the Dominos."
YouTube

Tomás Saraceno on the Roof: Cloud City

"Artist Tomás Saraceno (born in Tucumán, Argentina, in 1973) will create a constellation of large, interconnected modules constructed with transparent and reflective materials for the Museum's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. Visitors may enter and walk through these habitat-like, modular structures grouped in a nonlinear configuration. Over the past decade, Saraceno has established a practice of constructing habitable networks based upon complex geometries and interconnectivity that merge art, architecture, and science."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Video)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Installation Photos
NYT: Futuristic Aerie With a Park View
YouTube: 'Cloud City' on NYC's Met Museum's Rooftop

The Bob Moog Doodle Synthesizer

"In celebration of Bob Moog's Birthday, Google created a web based synthesizer for the world to enjoy. Moog's Chief engineer Cyril Lance overviews the doodle' s capabilities to help you get started crafting sounds. Now everyone can explore the wonders of subtractive synthesis and express their creativity by sculpting sounds. Remember, experimentation and learning will reward you with a lifetime of rich synthesizer experiences."
The Bob Moog Doodle Synthesizer (Video)
Moog Music: Google Doodle How
YouTube: Cumbias En Moog "Cumbia De Sal"
Soundcloud: Nina's Space (she 3 August)

2011 April: Minimoog

MoMA's 'Dial-A-Poem' Brings You Ecstatic Language On The Go

"A new installation at the Museum of Art in New York, titled, "Dial-a-Poem" brings ecstatic poetry to you online or over the phone at any time of the day or night. Siri just can't compete with the voice of Kathy Acker or Vito Acconci, can she? John Giorno started 'Dial-a-Poem' in 1969, when poetry was concerned with expressing the mundane in modern life. ... 'Dial-a-Poem' brings you a random poem read aloud by its poet; the list of possibles includes Frank O'Hara, William Burroughs, John Ashbery, Deborah Harry, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, David Byrne and many more."
MoMA's 'Dial-A-Poem' Brings You Ecstatic Language On The Go
Poetry Foundation: “Become Your Own Yawn”
MoMA: "Ecstatic Alphabet / Heaps of Language" (Video)

2009 May: Giorno Poetry Systems

Diamonds in the Rough - John Prine

Wikipedia - "Diamonds in the Rough is the second studio album by American country/folk singer-songwriter John Prine, released in 1972."
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube: Everybody, Clocks and Spoons, Sour Grapes, The Frying Pan, The Great Compromise, Rocky Mountain Time

2010 February: John Prine
2011 October: John Prine

Ellen Phelan

Michael's Birthday Party, 2005
"Encyclopedia of Drawing, 1964 - 2012. Klemens Gasser and Tanja Grunert are pleased to present the first major survey of Ellen Phelan’s works on paper from 1964 to the present. As Phelan says, 'Shifts in my work always take shape on paper first,' and this 'encyclopedia' exhibition features more than 130 works in a variety of media including oil, watercolor, pastel and gouache, as well as encaustic, stencil rubbings, sumi ink, cut and folded pieces, and collage."
Ellen Phelan
The Brooklyn Rail - ELLEN PHELAN Landscapes and Still Lifes: A Selection
Susanne Hilberry Gallery

Gerhard Merz

"Since the late sixties of the last century Gerhard Merz has been developing a concept of painting in his art which is strongly influenced by architecturally oriented thought and the concept of the refinement of the developed work rather than merely a new arrangement. His work is infused with the conviction that it is modernism, which uses architectonic means and follows the conventions inherent in art, e.g. dimension, color, light, area, and space, that makes possible the form of abstraction in which no myths or surrogate realities are capable of making the sought-after void ineffectual."
Kunsthaus Bregenz: Gerhard Merz
Schellmann Art
YouTube: Measure Color Light

Pina Bausch - Walzer (1982)

"Pina Bausch rehearses the choreography for WALZER. Witness the development of a piece of dance theatre and feel the pulse of the town of Wuppertal in the early 1980s."
Goethe Institut
Tanztheater Wuppertal: Walzer (1982)
YouTube: Walzer, 1
Sohu: Walzer

2008 May: Pina Bausch
2009 June: Pina Bausch, 1940-2009

Friends of The Rub – Waajeed

"Waajeed needs little introduction to music fans, as his work over the years as a producer has spawned absolute classics such as The Platinum Pied Pipers first album, Triple P, as well as Dwele’s first release, Rize. The man has had his footprint in such an incredible era of music, working with the likes of J-Dilla, Roy Ayers, Slum Village, and countless others. He has relaunched his website Bling47.com and since he has, it has become mandatory for any music lover to bookmark this site."
The Rub (YouTube)
W - Waajeed
Bling47
YouTube: Beat Digging w/ Waajeed, At Guitar Center with Waajeed

Cassiber

Wikipedia - "Cassiber were a German avant-rock group founded in 1982 by German composer and saxophonist Alfred Harth, German composer, music-theatre director and keyboardist Heiner Goebbels, English drummer Chris Cutler from Henry Cow and German guitarist Christoph Anders. They recorded five albums, toured extensively across Europe, Asia and North America, and disbanded in 1992. Cassiber's music was a blend of speed-punk, free jazz and sampling which incorporated found sounds and news broadcasts. They were best known for the 'frantic intensity' of their live performances."
Wikipedia
last.fm
Cassiber
The Modern Word
ReR - CASSIBER: The CASSIBER box
YouTube: Brasil, Not me, At Last I Am Free, Copy Machine, Cielo Inquieto

(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais / The Prisoner - The Clash

Wikipedia - "'(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' is a song by the English punk rock band The Clash. It was originally released as a 7-inch single, with the b-side 'The Prisoner', on 17 June 1978 through CBS Records. ... The song showed considerable musical and lyrical maturity for the band at the time and is stylistically more in line with their version of Junior Murvin's 'Police and Thieves' as the powerful guitar intro of '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais' descends into a slower ska rhythm, and was disorienting to a lot of the fans who had grown used to their earlier work."
Wikipedia
YouTube: White Man in Hammersmith Palais, The Prisoner

Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936

"Following the chaos of World War I, a move toward figuration, clean lines, and modeled form emerged, as many artists chose to represent the body whole and intact. For the next decade-and-a-half, classicism, a “return to order,” and enduring values would dominate the discourse of contemporary art. Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936 traces this interwar aesthetic."
Guggenheim (Video)
amazon
The Brooklyn Rail
NYT: When the Artists Voted for the Politics of Order

Tom Johnson - Rational Melodies

"Using a variety of compositional techniques based on mathematical and algorithmic manipulations, the American composer Tom Johnson has devoted his career to exploring musical analogs to fractal self-similarity, first described in the mid-1970s in the groundbreaking work of Benoit Mandelbrot. One simple example of this kind of technique is to define a set of rules for replacing individual elements with sets of other elements, and then applying these rules repeatedly to create nested self-similar structures."
Acousmata - Tom Johnson: VI3, From the album Rational Melodies (Video)
Tom Johnson, Rational Melodies
amazon
CD: Rational Melodies [Dedalus]
YouTube: Rational Melodie, 3, 1, Andrew McIntosh and the Rational Melodies Micro Concerts

2011 February: Tom Johnson

Clark Remix

"Clark Remix immerses you in a gallery filled with more than 80 paintings, nearly 20 sculptures, and more than 300 decorative arts objects from the Clark's permanent collection. The exhibition is both a physical reality and a virtual space, featuring a dynamic salon-style installation and two new digital applications that offer exciting ways to engage with the collection."
Sterling and Francine, Clark Art Institute
uExplore
uCurate

East of the River Nile - Augustus Pablo

Wikipedia - "East of the River Nile is a 1977 reggae album (see 1977 in music) by Jamaican musician Augustus Pablo. A purely instrumental album, East of the River Nile showcases Pablo's skill on the melodica, and various other keyboards. Also featured are studio musicians famous as members of The Wailers, Bob Marley's backing band."
Wikipedia
amazon
YouTube: East of the River Nile + Java + Day Before the Riot (Live), Jah Light, Chant to King Selassie I

2009 December: Augustus Pablo
2011 November: King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo and King Tubby

Identity Series by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada

"I went to the city of Manama in Bahrain to make a mural as part of the Alwan 338 festival put together by the Al Riwaq Art Space. Knowing the current situation there, I was a little apprehensive but a good friend working with the gallery explained the special nature of what the Al Riwaq Art Space was doing. I met some truly extraordinary people who believe in the role of contemporary art in their country's future. Against all odds they strive to change the barren artistic landscape that exists in Bahrain today. There are so many layers to Bahrain."
YouTube: Yousif / Manama Bahrain . Identity Series by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada, Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada at Galería Ignacio de Lassaletta, Show Preview

2009 June: Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada
2010 May: Fresh Stuff from Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada in Monterrey, Mexico

Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Wikipedia - "Sweetheart of the Rodeo is the sixth album by American rock band The Byrds and was released on August 30, 1968 on Columbia Records (see 1968 in music). Recorded with the addition of country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons, it was influential as the first major country-rock album by an established act and represented a stylistic move away from the psychedelic rock of the band's previous LP, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. The Byrds had occasionally experimented with country music on their four previous albums, but Sweetheart of the Rodeo represented their fullest immersion into the genre thus far. The album was also responsible for bringing Gram Parsons, who had joined The Byrds prior to the recording of the album, to the attention of a mainstream rock audience for the first time. Thus, the album can be seen as an important chapter in Parsons' personal and musical crusade to make country music fashionable for a young audience."
Wikipedia
amazon: Sweetheart of the Rodeo: Legacy Edition
Byrds Wathher
The Byrds: Sweetheart of the Rodeo: Legacy Edition
Rolling Stone
Pitchfork
YouTube: You Ain't Going Nowhere (1968), I Am a Pilgrim, The Christian Life, Under Your Spell Again, You Don't Miss Your Water, You Don't Miss Your Water, You're Still On My Mind [Live At The Fillmore 1969], Pretty Boy Floyd (live at the Fillmore West)1969, Hickory Wind, Rome May,1968, Blue Canadian Rockies (Take 14) (1968), Life In Prison, Nothing was delivered

2008 March: Gram Parsons
2011 March: Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris. Liberty Hall, Texas, 1973

A Brief History of John Baldessari

"A towering figure in the art world, standing at 6'7", John Baldessari's epic career crammed into 5 and a half frenzied minutes...narrated by Tom Waits."
YouTube: A Brief History of John Baldessari, sings sol le witt (1972), Suggestion RE: I Am Making Art by John Baldessari (1972), READ/WRITE/ THINK/DREAM; An Installation by John Baldessari, John Baldessari. Pure Beauty, John Baldessari: Recycling Images | Art21 "Exclusive"

2009 October: John Baldessari

Tape loops

Daphne Oram, tape loop at Broadcasting House, Frederick Bradnum, 1956 or '57
Wikipedia - "In music, tape loops are loops of prerecorded magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound. Contemporary composers such as Steve Reich and Karlheinz Stockhausen used tape loops to create phase patterns and rhythms. ... In the mid-1980s, digital sampling overtook much tape loop use. In the 1990s and 2000s, digital looping pedals became more affordable. One-man bands use looping pedals to record a groove or riff, and then they solo over the riff as it repeats."
Wikipedia
disquiet: The Happy Mutant Cassette Tape Loop (YouTube)
Good Old-fashioned Tape Looping by Pat Kirtley
SOS: The Story Of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop
Analog Tape Recorders
YouTube: Tape loop
YouTube: "Come Out" (after Steve Reich), Stockhausen: "Telemusik"

2010 Sepember: Sampling
2011 Sepember: Frippertronics
2012 January: Loop

Chuck Brown

Wikipedia - "Chuck Brown (August 22, 1936 – May 16, 2012) was a guitarist and singer who is affectionately called 'the Godfather of Go-go'. Go-go is a subgenre of funk music developed in and around Washington, D.C. in the mid- and late-1970s. While its musical classification, influences, and origins are debated, Brown is regarded as the fundamental force behind the creation of go-go music."
Wikipedia
amazon: Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers
Grantland - Chuck Brown: An Elegy for Chocolate City
YouTube: The Soul Searchers - We The People, Wind Me Up!, Bustin Loose, FUNKY BEAT,HOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN, GOGO SWING,MIDNIGHT SUN,MOODY'S MOOD, We Need Some Money, Chuck Baby, If It Ain't Funky (1979), The Party Roll, Block Party

Mary Kelly

Documentation VI: Pre-Writing Alphabet, Exergue and Diary, 1978
Wikipedia - "Mary Kelly (born 1941) is an American conceptual artist, feminist, educator, and writer. Mary Kelly has contributed extensively to the discourse of feminism and postmodernism through her large-scale narrative installations and theoretical writings. Kelly’s work mediates between conceptual art and the more intimate interests of artists of the 1980s. Her work has been exhibited internationally and she is considered among the most influential contemporary artists working today."
Wikipedia
Mary Kelly
frieze: The Body Politic
23 Questions for Conceptual Artist Mary Kelly
YouTube: Mary Kelly, Moderna Museet - del/part 1(2), del/part 2(2)

Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears

"If we lived in a world withought tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into
How would broken find the bones"
npr - Lucinda Williams: 'World Without Tears' (Video)
YouTube: World Without Tears, Fruits Of My Labor, Ventura, Overtime, Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings, Sweet Side

Gene Chandler

Wikipedia - "Gene Chandler (born Eugene Dixon, July 6, 1937) also known as 'The Duke of Earl' or simply 'The Duke', is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, producer and record executive. He is one of the leading exponents of the 1960s Chicago soul scene."
Wikipedia
YouTube: Duke Of Earl

Solaris - Andrei Tarkovsky

Wikipedia - "Solaris ... is a 1972 film adaptation of the novel Solaris (1961), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is a meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled, because the scientist crew have fallen to emotional crises. Psychologist Kris Kelvin travels to the Solaris space station, to learn and evaluate the situation—yet soon encounters the same mysterious phenomenon like the others. The Polish science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem is about the ultimate inadequacy of communication between human and non-human species."
Wikipedia
Roger Ebert: Solaris (1972)
Guardian: Out of this world
Senses of Cinema - Andrei Tarkovsky: Truth Endorsed by Life
Criterion: Solaris (1972)
YouTube: Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet Union, 1972, Oxygen

2009 June: Andrei Tarkovsky
2011 June: Stanisław Lem
2012 March: Tales of Pirx the Pilot

Lee Friedlander - Mannequin

New York City, 2011
"In one mesmerizing, vertigo-inducing composition, a female mannequin seems to stand proudly in a ruched evening dress. Her back arches, her hip juts, her chin reaches, and her neck is as long and lean as the vertiginous skyscrapers behind her. Busybody city-dwellers humming below remind the viewer that the image came from a real, not an imagined, world.
SF Examiner
artnet

2010 August: Lee Friedlander
2010 November: Lee Friedlander: America By Car

Saul Fletcher

Untitled, 2010
"Saul Fletcher's work compresses issues of human existence into intimately scaled photographs brimming with psychic energy. Moody, intense, and hermetic in nature, these photographs use a time-honored vocabulary of subjects, ranging from religious symbols to common objects, from abstract expressionist marks to posed models, in order to grapple with complex issues of mortality, sexuality, spirituality, and redemption."
CMOA
Alison Jacques Gallery

Balanescu Quartet

Wikipedia - "The Balanescu Quartet is an avant-garde string quartet founded in 1987 by Alexander Bălănescu that achieved fame through the release of several complex cover versions of songs by German experimental electronic music band Kraftwerk on their album 'Possessed'. The driving force behind the quartet has always been main composer and founder Alexander Bălănescu. Clare Connors, violin, has also played a great part. The quartet are mainly notable for their very distinctive style of music, which encompasses odd time rhythms, sound dissonances and complex arrangements."
Wikipedia
Balanescu Quartet
YouTube: The young conscript and the moon, Turning Wheels, Kovács Ferenc, Waltz (The Dying Swan), Meryl Tankard's POSSESSED, Insomnia, Mother, David Byrne and the Balanescu Quartet - Model

Pet Shop Boys - "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk"

Wikipedia - "'You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk' is a single by UK electronic music group Pet Shop Boys, released as the third and last single from their album Nightlife in 2000."
Wikipedia
YouTube